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This was a commission from a good friend of mine, a tribute to her husband’s guitar and other interests of his – surfing, fishing, music, and family. She married a man, in other words. She wanted his first guitar to be the centerpiece of the image. He also appreciates Day of the Dead-styled imagery, so the piece was done with that in mind. For some reason I thought it would be cute (?) to do [...]
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Some more Day of the Dead loveliness. The girl and her outfit were inspired by some of the people I saw at the Day of the Dead festivals earlier this year.
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I decided to do one-shot posters of all the girls from my “If This Hat is Missing…” piece. It started with just a simple drawing of “Mirela,” which grew to drawings of all of them, and then backgrounds, and then fully-realized poster designs (with hand-drawn type) that were artificially aged in Photoshop. There were clearly a lot of steps to the project, and a tremendous amount of work in each (times four), but I think [...]
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This was a full page illustration for the October issue of Culture magazine, a medical marijuana publication in Southern California. No story or anything, just a full-page portrait of Snoop Dogg. I don’t get asked to do portraits or caricatures of famous people very often, so I enjoyed the opportunity this assignment provided. Snoop Dogg has a pretty recognizable face and features, anyway. I enjoyed the almost religious aspect of the background design.
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Doing these digital pieces has gotten me out of my comfort zone somewhat, and in this image I tried some new things. There’s a more focused narrative aspect going on here than usual in my stuff (don’t ask me what though, is mystery!). I studied some Japanese ukiyo-e prints for inspiration, and while my image bears little superficial resemblance, it was instructive in an overall philosophical artistic approach, and specifically when it came to things [...]
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I felt like making a drawing of a happy redhead, and the following image popped into my head. But then I thought, “No, that’s much to similar to one I just did. I’m such an idiot!” But then I thought, “No mom, I’m not an idiot! What if I make a drawing that is the opposite of ‘Lydia?’ Except still a girl.” So I did that. In my initial sketching, I even traced the overall [...]
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If you take a gander up at the menu at the top of the page, you’ll notice I’ve added a “Store” section to the site. You can now purchase high-quality art prints of many of my works. I offer a variety of sizes starting at 8 x 10″ prints for only $25. I will be adding more products in the future, including items beyond prints, so check back often. I accept PayPal, but you can [...]
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Doing the “Vamp” piece put me in a mood to do some digital pieces,so here’s another one. I didn’t give any thought towards color until after the thing was already drawn, and I tried a couple different options before settling on green. Red looked cool, but that was too much like the Vamp drawing (and plus the whole black-and-white-with-red motif is somewhat played out). Purple looked cool, but I had just done another project with [...]
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I felt like doing something a little flatter and more graphic than my typical stuff, and this was the result. I sketched it out by hand fairly quickly first, and then scanned and re-traced it in Illustrator. After I was done I noticed some faint similarity to Shepherd Fairey’s iconic “Obey Giant” sticker. People routinely ask me if I do my work in Illustrator, I suppose since a lot of the shapes and designs seem [...]
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The Union Tribune, probably the largest newspaper in San Diego, ran a contest for Father’s Day ’11 to do a portrait of your father. The UT was also where both my parents worked (and met). My father Bob Ivins was a photographer there for many years before passing away in 1991. My mom urged me to do the contest, and instead of arguing with her (Standard Operating Procedure), I decided to give it a go. [...]
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