Hamburger trampoline

GIFs from my trip

Just arrived in Portland, OR after a very long excursion! My lease in Minneapolis ran out on the 31st, but the new place here wasn't available until June 10, so my girlfriend and I took our time on the way and visited everything we could find in between. (BTW, she's the one with the job here - I don't uproot without a purpose.)

Anyway, I had some time to make a few GIFs as we hit up Yellowstone, Crater Lake, and the beaches of Oregon. Some of them are quite big files (I tried my best) , so I'm just going to link out:

Tetons
Trees (side)
Objects in mirror
Mud pot
Beach shadow
Caustics - seen above
Big sun

Taking a poll

I am taking an informal poll on drawing program effects. As someone who's worked with drawing programs for most of my life, I suspect that I have certain biases towards effects. I'm interested to learn what qualities most people perceive in marks like those above, and what associations they form.

If you would like to participate, please comment on this post with your general thoughts on each numbered mark. Responses can be as short as a word, and as long as you like. Anyone who responds will receive a custom artwork based on their responses.

Thank you for your help!

Drawings from April - May

I just started working with Adobe Creative Suite 6, which is proving to be a challenge after 3 years of using only the GIMP and Inkscape. My reaction:

Mostly it amazes me how often people treat simple layer effects like "Bevel and Emboss" (the 3D brushmarks up there) as edgy and painterly gestures. Come on, that's like getting excited about "Sharpen." Here are two attempts where I was trying to use the filter "incorrectly":

taken from dump - photo credit Erik Stinson

One thing Photoshop does better than the GIMP is distortions. I will not miss "iWarp", the open source version of "Liquefy." Don't get me started on "Puppet Warp", though...

TMC:

Some IRL drawings and paintings:

 That last one is called "Uncle Jesse Majestic" - the gentleman holding up the painting is a friend of mine who approached me in January with the idea of collaborating on a painting. He had never painted before, so we worked together on the canvas from underpainting to the final glow-in-the-dark layer. Oh yeah.

Pictures from Battle Royale

Agh, I meant to post these much, much sooner. "Battle Royale" was an exhibition of Pokémon fan art I attended on April 20th at Light Grey Art Lab, a new art space just down the street from MCAD. In these first few pictures, I want to point out how absolutely packed this tiny place was - there were easily 300 people there during the hour I spent at the show. The curators were standing on benches hocking prints, and all the attendees wanted to do was was buy, buy, buy! Crazy.

 Cosplay is to be expected...

Team Rocket by Daniel Krall

A totally creepy portrait of gym leader Misty by Andres Guzman

Clefable by Katie C. Turner

Drowzee by Kali Ciesmier

Cloyster by Sabrina Paralin. I don't know if you can tell, but this print was made from a cross-stitch.

Hitmonlee by Dustin Harbin (1/2)

Hitmonchan by Nathan Bulmer (2/2)