Self Portrait 46 of 100: Starting a push towards the end

So... I've been checking out this daily photo stream on Flickr. Real inspiring. It's weird how having a kid, and maybe even especially a daughter, changes you. (I've not had a son yet, so I don't know how that would be different.) I find myself looking for good examples of strong women... I really would like Abby to grow up strong, and independant... but still a girl. If that makes any sense. There's such a thing as too much, I think. I don't want her to be a bitch. I think that's where I'm going with that, but I do want her to be capable of taking care of herself.

At any rate, this drawing is over a week old. It's been busy as hell here. My older brother got married, and my younger brother came and stayed with us with his wife and son (three days younger than Abby, and cute as a bug's ear!). It was a good visit, but tiring. It's nice to have the house to ourselves again, and get back to our normal activities.

On another note... I know I've been kind of sporadic with my posts, but I'm going to try to finish this set by the end of the summer. Wish me luck!

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

Self Portrait 45 of 100: Feeling good, moving forward

Hey guys!

It's funny how doing something two days in a row that you should have been doing every day for half a year makes us feel good about ourselves. So... here I am again, working on another 3/4 view. Scary how used to full frontal I'd gotten. I guess this is another step in the right direction then? Maybe a little more progress will be made.

I really can't stay and chat, because I NEED to go to bed. But I do want to say that I have some ideas for stuff I want to work on that I'm very excited about, and maybe I can start working towards that soon.

I hope everything's going well out there in blog land, and that you all are happy, healthy and whole. Keep on being good, and working hard.

Your friend
Jeffrey

Self Portrait 44 of 100: Time to get some work done

Hey everybody! Okay... to be honest with you, I wasn't going to do this today (In spite of it being two weeks since I've posted :( ) but I was checking out a a daily photostream on flickr, and was inspired to do something before bed.

This is important to me. It seems like my whole life is just running against time. At work I have to move my ass to get work done in the most timely manner. Then I come home and make time with my family (Which I ABSOLUTELY do not begrudge them... If I can't make time for my girls then none of the rest of this is worth it. So, that leaves just a handful of minutes left to drawing. And sleep. Ha-ha! Okay, so where was I going with this?

Not every one has to be "The current masterpiece". That isn't what this is about, and I need to keep that in mind. I only have time for that sometimes, but the days I don't have the time for it, I am actually freer to experiment, and do a little playing. Tonites drawing isn't exactly what I had in mind when I started it, but I'm not totally unhappy with it either. And I'm glad I did something tonite. The point is that I did have the time to do something kind of fast and dirty. I have plenty of wiggle room to search out directions. Also my friend James told me that he wanted me to do something other than a head on sp for my next one. So, here's a step in that direction.
I've been giving a lot of serious thought to the holy grail lately, and want to talk about it, because it fits in with the current works.... but I think that's a post for another night when I have a little more TIME.

I hope everything's well with you all. Until next time, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

Self Portrait 43 of 100: Illustration Friday, "Baby"

The topic on illustration friday this week is "baby". Which was really weird, because I was just thinking that that would be a nice topic to draw.

This is me and my daughter Abby... I know I look like a crazy guy who just won the baby prize, but that's kind of how I feel. She often has this look, like "What now?"... Such a funny baby! Ha-ha!

Babies are hard to draw... they have all the same stuff as normal people, but it's all mushed together weird. While they ARE very cute, it's easy to draw them ugly. Had a lot of fun though, and I definetely want to do more drawings of her in the future. This was drawn with blue pencil then inked. Then vectorized and colored in Corel draw.


That's it for now. Until next time, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey