Ha-ha! I'm STILL a nerd! Not nearly the same nerd that I was back then though. This was really was a fun exercise, and really got me thinking about self as character design. Every day, we get up and make decisions about what we are going to wear... Some of those are ongoing, and that reflects on how the world sees us. If our life was a movie, what kind of character would we be? It also got me really looking at the characters on tv... not just the main ones, but also the minor, and background characters.

What sets them apart, besides the focus of the camera?
That's it for today. It's late, and I have to work tomorrow. Hope everything is well out there.

Your friend
Jeffrey

Self Portrait 41 of 100: 1996(ish)

I was tooling around the interweb last week, and stumbled across the Flight blog There was a post about members of the illustrators for the Flight comic collection doing self portraits of themselves as teenagers, and then of their current selves. What an awesome idea! There are just too many funny things about our past (and present) selves, and the comparison between the two. At any rate, I decided I was going to do it.

THEN, today on Lines and Colors, Charley Parker posted the same thing. Apparently this is a bit of a thing on the interweb lately. So... at the risk of looking like a band-wagoneer who can't think up his own ideas. I did the first half today for SP 41.

God I was a nerd back then! Ha-ha! This was fun to do. I wish I'd had a little more time to work on it, because it would be nice to color... maybe this weekend I'll come back to it.

Thanks for looking folks! Take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey Johnson

Self Portrait 40 of 100, Illustration Friday: "Worry"

So... The topic for Illustration Friday this week is "worry". every week, I mean to do something for it, and every week I don't. Either I wait until too late in the week, or ... Whatever. This is really just more excuses. So here we go!

I kind of envisioned worry like a monster, or a demon or something that is a tentacled critter with a list. It wraps itself around your head, pries your eyes open no matter how much you try to close them, and whispers in your ear. No matter how much you try to ignore your worries, they always seem to rise back to the surface... Like pond scum.

It was hard to come up with something to act as a header on the list... I didn't want to just put "Worries" although that would be the most straight forward, I guess. There were other options, like contract, reckoning, bill... stuff like that, but I kind of felt like that would imply a deal with this demonic creature. If this was just some dude, well, okay maybe that would be fine, but this is a self portrait. I don't ... Okay, so I settled on the future for the header. I guess that's cliche`, but it's a legitimate worry. I worry about what I'll be doing. I worry about my daughter. I worry about it all... it's hard sometimes to not worry about those things that you just can't see.


Wow. What a lot of exposition for such a stupid drawing. I was thinking about Art Adams, and William Stout when I was working on it. Also Victor. Always think about him.

I hope everything's going well with you all.
Take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

Self Portrait 39 of 100: There Is No Holy Grail

Back to graphite. ... Here I'm using a 2B pencil with a 4B for final clean up. I talked to my friend Andrew (ThatFat Kid) on mothers day, and we talked a lot about art... sketchbooks, and design. There are a lot of artists out there that we admire, and It almost seems like magic, the work they do. It's not though... It's hard work. I'd like to do a page a day in my sketchbook. That doesn't seem unreasonable. Most days I do nothing. I do have other responsibilities, but that's not really a good enough reason to not get some personal work done.

This is the gist of the conversation... Those people are the artists they are because of the things they gave up. And because of the hard work they put into it.

There is no Holy Grail. There is no book that will give you the answers you need to suddenly, magically be better. There is no Video, no Pen, Pencil, Brush or Software application. The quest is worthwhile, I guess... But the goal is back at home.
Sometimes I get tired and disillusioned. I don't know what I want to do, or even where I want to be.

Jeffrey

Self Portrait 38 of 100

Hey guys!

I was trolling around CA today, and was inspired by Flaskpost and some of the design/pattern integration he's been doing in his illustration lately. It also got me thinking about some other artists that I've been admiring for awhile. Sooo.... I had a little more time than normal today, because Amy and Squirtle went out to the city. I decided to give it a go. So I'm not the greatest painter in the world, but that's part of the point too, practice, and trying out some new techniques.
Thinking about it now, I wish I'd made the background darker... Something to remember next time.

Until next time, Take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

Self Portrait 37 of 100

Hey kids!

So...I gots another one for you today. I'm doing a really terrible job of keeping up on this as a daily thing, but it's important to me to at least get the 100. It's still soooo far off though.

-sigh-

It'll be okay. In the meantime, Ryan was looking at some stuff the other day, and said he would like to see more, um, rendered sp's so with that in mind, I sat down this morning to do just that... I'm still kind of experimenting to find what works best for me. I worked for about an hour and fifteen minutes on this drawing... Pretty fast, really. I wish that I was better able to tap into that speed and confidence at work. I know part of the issue is that I have to answer to somebody else there, but I wish I could get around my desire to not dissapoint him, and just relax. Well... that's something to talk about some other time.

Thanks for looking! Until next time, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

P.S. I just realized that apparently I've miscounted, and this is actually my 37th Self Portrait. Ha-Ha!