New Etsy Shop!

After the gentle suggestion of some family and friends, I’ve decided to open an Etsy shop for those interested in purchasing prints of some of my art.

For now only some of the drawings are available (six, at the time of this post), but I hope to add more. If there’s a particular drawing I’ve done that you’d like a print of, please contact me and I can special-print that one for you (and we can just handle payment directly thru Paypal). All prints can also be personally signed by me and addressed to you or anyone you’d like!

Here’s the store link: http://www.etsy.com/shop/JohnDiBiaseArt

Whoa Doc! That’s Heavy!

I was paging through a comic book recently and saw this really excellent drawing of a person that bordered on portrait quality while still being comic book art. In the drawing there was great detail where a lot of the features were defined with lines — like where little shadows and minute details would be.

I decided to try out this technique myself. I took a photo off my wall (I have framed 8x10s of movie characters on the wall leading down to our basement) and tried out a sketch in pencil. It wasn’t bad… I was moderately happy with it, but not completely, so I traced my drawing the next night onto marker paper and colored it in. After I was done, I realized I had made some mistakes AND over shadowed it.

I threw it out.

Then I took another photo down and tried it again. This time I TRIED to keep it cartoony and more to shapes, but it’s REALLY difficult. I naturally want to make it a realistic portrait.

I kept working on Michael J Fox as Marty McFly and tried to discipline myself not to overdo it. I may have a bit, but I’m mostly happy with the result. I want to try more of these!

There should be a “Captain” in there somewhere…

Sorry for the inactivity on here. I’ve been busy with a ninth-month-old crawler, a sick guinea pig, a stolen Honda, and work. But in the midst of it all, I’m still trying to find regular time to work on drawings. I recently completed my first attempt at a portrait done entirely in marker. I drew it in pencil first, then went over it with a translucent sheet of marker paper using a variation of gray markers. It was fun and different for sure, but I saw mostly just its glaring flaws after I finished it, so I won’t be posting it here.

I did, however, follow that up with a pencil portrait, which I was also unhappy with, and then another pencil portrait which I actually WAS happy with! I’ll post a photo here, but I’ll try to get a HQ scan for the portrait archives soon. Using a plate from the party goods my parents got Amy for her birthday this year, I drew Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. I worked on it on and off for about a month with a couple hours here and there (not every day though). It was fun and a neat project to work on. I have no other portraits planned at the moment, so I’ve returned to drawing cartoons. I recently exercised my nerdy-ness some more and picked up some new comic books that should make good sketch sources to stretch my abilities some. I’d love to get better at drawing people (in a comic-book-style).

In the meantime, here’s Jack… Actually, maybe I’ll even post the various stages the drawing underwent in a post here, hmm? Would that be interesting to anyone? I took various iPhone shots of the drawing in various degrees of completion…

(Here it is finished)

 

Roll Out

Well, it’s been three months since I made the goal to do a drawing a day. So far, I’ve missed plenty of days to say I’ve missed that goal, however, I’m still drawing more than I have in years and I’m continuing to stretch my comfort zones in the process. As I stated before, I had dug out old comic books from my early teen years and have been practicing drawing some of my favorite covers and panels. Recently, I tracked down one of those artists who worked on the G.I. Joe comic books in the early 90s and found some more recent sketches from the artist online. His name is Andrew Wildman and he often signed his work as just “Wildman.” — wonderfully expressive stuff with eye-popping detail. I found two sweet sketches he’d done of Optimus Prime online — one was in color, one was not. So I drew the black and white one in pencil, went over it in color, using his other colored drawing as a reference, and went over it in ink. I’m quite happy with the result.

I’ve invested in a set of Prismacolor Premier markers (and got most of them as a birthday gift this year!), and as I work on my latest sketch — a marker drawing of the Transformer Hot Rod — I’m practicing blending and layering shades and colors. It’s great fun and I find myself anxious to get to drawing again before the day’s end these days.

Here’s the Optimus drawing I mentioned above. It was done on a Canson Marker Pro Layout pad. I can’t wait to keep trying new approaches!

Continuing to Exercise

Since the aforementioned Nashville trip, I’ve considered revisiting Blick to obtain some of the art markers I saw the random artist using that day in Starbucks. I’d used some in college many years ago but they were mostly for sketches, not full on projects.

I’m still drawing regularly, mostly cartoons and comic book art, but I’m constantly trying to stretch my abilities and comfort zone.

On Friday night, I learned how unreliable the well intentioned Google can be and arrived at Blick 15 minutes after closing…. instead of 45 minutes before closing. Today I arrived 45 minutes before closing and browsed their various brands of pens and markers.

Before leaving home, I’d begun a pencil sketch of Cobra Commander from another GI Joe comic book cover I’d recently dug up. I thought how interesting it might be to try it in color and left for the art store.

First of all, $3.29 a marker is a wee bit steep, but I knew they were what I wanted and would need for a nice outcome and knew it’d just have to be an investment into crafting my abilities. I got right to it after arriving home with 10 new, specifically chosen colored markers.

The end result? It’s far from my best sketch but I found the process challenging and awfully fun. I’m eager to try them out more!

Drawing Fever

Since launching my “drawing-a-day” campaign, I’ve just been focusing on having fun stretching myself and making sure it all stays fun.

As mentioned earlier, I did unearth my old comic book collection and have been using that as inspiration for different styles of drawing. Before leaving for work in Nashville for a few days, I devoted a couple of those daily drawings to one pen sketch of a Real Ghostbusters comic book cover….

It sort of breaks the goal but it’s still having me make time for more drawing time. I’m already feeling less rusty.

And while in Nashville, despite thoroughly enjoying my time there, I felt myself genuinely missing drawing. One afternoon, my buddy Kevin and I stopped in a Starbucks to hang out and I saw a middle-aged man sitting by the entrance with a huge drawing pad and a box of professional grade art markers. He was working on some kind of cartoony map and it looked fantastic. I knew that man hadn’t gotten as good as he did at his craft by taking time off for other things. He had to have practiced and exercised his talents. I was inspired and it just made me miss my new artistic goals more.

Now that I’m back home, I look forward to trying to get back into the swing of this!

A Drawing A Day

Since my Blick Art store experience this past Monday, I’ve been feeling inclined to DO something about the lack of drawing in my current lifestyle.

I’ve decided that the best way to not only try to get back into it but to get some good, hearty practice at it again would be to try to do a drawing a day.

I started on Tuesday night, just sketching from an example, then following it up, Wednesday night with some quick cartoony sketches.

Earlier on Wednesday evening, my wife and I visited my parents and my Dad and I dug out some of my old comic books that had been “lost” since I impulsively tried to get rid of them somewhere around 1993/1994. As I sifted through them, I found my collection of G.I. Joe, Real Ghostbusters and Ren & Stimpy comics that I’d largely collected during my B.C. days. I paged through some and found some fantastic drawings to inspire me to stretch my artistic abilities again. Let’s face it: after college, there hasn’t been anyone giving me assignments in different mediums or challenges to test my abilities. On Thursday night, for my daily drawing, I attempted a pencil sketch of an ink drawing from a panel in a G.I. Joe / Transformers brand crossover comic. I remember even when I first read these books that there had been a short string of issues where this incredible artist, whose name is Andrew Wildman, had really captured amazing detail and expression in his work.

However, I was quickly reminded of how different pencil and pen are as mediums. I don’t dabble much in pen because I love the quick and forgiving control of pencil.

Recently, I dug out some drawing Micron pens to create a new 404 Error page image at JFH – just for fun. These pens had to be a good 10 to 12 years old and the ink was definitely running out, so I ordered a new set online for future use.

Last night, I chose a G.I. Joe comic book cover drawing from 1992 and worked up a light pencil sketch first with a 6H pencil (newly bought at Blick, mind you) and then proceeded to go over that with the new ink pens of different weights.

The result has been fun; It’s to the point where I can’t wait to dabble more with pen! I tend to rush into projects out of sheer enthusiasm and am not usually fully satisfied with the outcome, so I’m going to try my darndest to take all of this slower and practice, practice, practice!

The liberty that doing ‘a drawing a day’ brings will hopefully break me of some of my perfectionist mentality. I usually drive myself to draw, re-draw and often just abandon stuff I’m not happy with. I feel like, with this new approach, I don’t need to display these sketches or enter them into any contests or have them critiqued. It’s for what these should be for — fun! (and practice!) I’ll never forget one of my art class professors telling me that every artist has about 10,000 bad drawings in them and the more we draw and practice, the more of those bad drawings we get out of the way to discover the good ones. … So here we go!

Tales from a Blick Store

I thought I was too busy for art stuff before – thanks to work, but with a baby in the mix? Forget about it…

I reconnected with an old high school buddy on Monday and grabbed lunch at a hibachi place that served as a midway point between our locales. Incidentally, right next door to the hibachi place is a Blick art supplies store that I hadn’t visited in many years. In fact, it’s been a couple years since I’ve been to ANY genuine art store.

After my friend and I parted ways, I walked into Blick with the intentions of just perusing the shelves within. Even before I learned to draw, I LOVED stationary stores. Why? I’m not sure why, but perhaps it was just that part of my future was beginning to rise to the surface.

It felt like a mixture of being back at home while also that bittersweet, disjointed feeling you get when you first return to your former school after graduating and realize you just don’t belong there anymore. However, unlike high school, I WANT to return to my art roots.

As I walked through the aisles, it was a gorgeous sight to see all varieties of brand new pencils, drawing pens, colored pencils… Erasers! Drawing-enhancing gizmos! …. And a leather-bound pencil pouch?! New paper pads! I didn’t want to leave.

As I stood and ogled the brand new drawing pencils, and soon circled the displays and various styles of art tools and equipment, I could feel the creativity in the room. The woman behind the framing counter knew her patron and a sophisticated and confident looking lady, dressed as you would expect any woman who probably owns as many easels as she does purebred felines might, carried herself as if she owned stock in Blick. For a moment, I was a kid in college again. What supplies did I need for Mr. Lester’s lesson in design and space? …oh, right… Every moment I was “wasting” here meant a minute not getting real work done.

I grabbed a couple pencils that I didn’t really need, some pads that also weren’t required and that fancy shmancy pencil pouch, purchased them, and exited. It was this half exciting, half depressing feeling that although my art years seem to be a distant memory, I can still find time to be creative again…. And I pray to God I can!

New Year, New Site

Last year, almost a year ago actually, I redid “JohnDiBiase.com” as a blog to hopefully make it more interactive. Unfortunately, the blog setup I chose didn’t work quite right so here I am again re-submitting my catalog of works into a new site altogether… on WordPress.

Life has been crazy lately. 2010 brought some big changes, particularly the birth of our first child – our son, Will. The little dude just turned 3 months old… and like last year around the holidays, I’ve started to get the itch to draw again.

Part of the problem has been losing my drawing space with the transitioning of our spare bedroom (which contained my drafting table) over to being Will’s nursery. We wedged the drafting table into the only possible corner in my office and it’s quite far from cozy. So that, along with work and family, has made it quite difficult to devote time to drawing. I did work on a new drawing in 2010… sadly, only one… but never finished it. It was a drawing of a live concert photograph that I took, so I was looking forward to that turning out, but I just kind of abandoned it. (I should make a section on here of “Unfinished Works”… what do you think?)

Anyway… I am hoping to make some time real soon to jump into a new drawing… we shall see! Stay tuned to this site for updates and hopefully some new works!

Info On How To Get Drawing Prints!

I recently received a few inquiries on how to get prints of some of the drawings seen here on my site. If any of you are interested in prints of any picture found here (well…. MOST of them!), please contact me via the JFH contact page (don’t forget to select John DiBiase) or through Twitter and let me know what drawing you would like a copy of! All prints are made on the kind of art paper that the drawing was originally created on. And I can sign and even personalize the drawing if you wish! The print size is 8×10 (some pictures will need to be cropped to fit it… but I’ll make sure I’m happy with how that is managed).

Each print is $20, which includes US Priority Mail Shipping. However, I’m offering a special that if you want two copies or two different drawings, it will be only $35 for two (including Priority Mail shipping)! I can usually get them in the mail to you by the next day.

Thanks for your support!

-John