Random Doodle on an Envelope...

Here's a random doodle I did on some package I sent out to somebody. Can't remember who. ...yeah, it's slow at Onsmith Studios, Inc.

Another New Painting.

New Painting.

New painting with sickly colors (click for larger version). Thanks to the folks at Drawn! that posted about my artwork and appearance at Partyka.

Guest Appearance At Partyka!

I am currently the guest artist at Partyka, featuring a gallery of some of my random drawings, paintings, and doodles (a few of 'em are above fer ya).

Partyka is a collective of cartoonists/artists from New York (Shawn Cheng, Sara Edward-Corbett, Sean McCarthy, & Matt Wiegle) and they feature daily drawings and weekly comics from the members. "Paping" is their anthology and they sell it, along with other comics/art books on their site. There's SO MUCH friggin' stuff to look at on the site, so you may as well get started now.

New Illustration for The Common Review...

Here's an illustration and initial sketch I did for The Common Review for an article on a man teaching Shakespeare's "King Lear" at 8am.

"Asthma" by John Hankiewicz

My pal, John Hankiewicz, has a new collection published by Sparkplug Comicbooks and I gotta say, this is his most ballsy approach to that thing we call "comics". John plays off of the formal aspects of the medium, the use of titles/labels, time and setting, and even distorts the figure more so than he has ever before, giving abstract and fragmented emotional responses. Can you tell I'm digging this new book? Can you tell I'm telling you to buy the sucker? Do it here or at a comic shop in the not-to-distant future. Here's some more info from the Sparkplug site:

Asthma is a collection of recent comics by John Hankiewicz. From story to story, even page to page, the book mixes a startling range of graphic and narrative styles to form a dreamlike whole.

"Amateur Comics" creates a wordless lyric of body, chairs, and space. "Martha Gregory" delves into the rhyming psyches of a young woman and an old man. "Jazz" charts a single day through the lens of the unconscious. Also included are the visually abstract "The Kimball House," the autobiographical "Westmont Is Next," the elliptically humorous "Dance" (printed in black and red), and several other ineffable pieces.

At once perplexing and moving, disturbing and playful, Asthma explores the formal and emotional reaches of the comics medium.

Sacha Mardou's Playing Cards...

Sacha Mardou has several playing cards she's taken around to cartoonists and drawers of all sorts and had them doodle out some pretty cool stuff on 'em. I forgot that I did one of these and I came across her Live Journal page and found it. She has several other cards too, as well as (of course) her own very cool artwork.

Above (click for larger version) is: First Row: Jessica (Paperrad), Ben (Paperrad), Onsmith; Second Row: Zack Soto, Andy Roberts, Jason Robards; Third Row: Dan Zettwoch, Dylan Williams, Karen Schneider.

A sample of Sacha Mardou's work:

Four Self-Portraits...

These are four self-portraits that I did for a class, in the styles of Renaissance, Baroque, Post-Impressionism, and Cubism. The first was Renaissance and I decided to show myself doodling and so I kept the theme going in the remaining ones. Eh, whattya gonna do? It's friggin art school...

Karl Wirsum Inspired Doodle (sorta)

New doodle up - kinda Karl Wirsum inspired, but not at all as cool.

Recent Comic Strip...

Small Chipboard Painting.

Well, it's not so much of a painting really - it's a matte gel mixed with titanium white with ink over it. Eh, I did it the other day.

Comics Exhibit at Art Institute of Chicago Library...

Currently, there is an exhibit of comics from Chicago cartoonists at the Ryerson Library at the Art Institute of Chicago's museum. The comics are displayed under glass on the tables in the foreground of the photo above. The exhibit includes a few of my own mini-comics (Spit-Toons, Gag-Hag, etc.) and comics by other Chicagoans: Ivan Brunetti, Chris Ware, Anders Nilsen, Paul Hornschemeier, John Hankiewicz, Jeffrey Brown, Skip Williamson, Jessica Abel, and others that I can't remember right now. If you're in the neighborhood, check out the Ryerson Library (the show runs until the third week in June, I believe - call to make sure) - info below:

Saturday - Tuesday Closed
Wednesday 12:30pm - 5:00pm
Thursday 12:30pm - 8:00pm
Friday 12:30pm - 5:00pm
111 S. Michigan Avenue
Ground Floor
Chicago, IL
Info: (312) 443-3666

Now in Stores - Hotwire Comix & Capers...

The Fantagraphics anthology, "Hotwire Comix & Capers" (that includes five pages by me - all under the theme of Oklahoma-livin') is now in stores. You can order it here. It's a damn fine book, featuring new work from Ivan Brunetti, J. Bradley Johnson, Johnny Ryan, Mats!?, Tony Millionaire, Carol Swain, and several others. Below is one of several one-panel gags I did fer it.

Vice Comics Issue...

I have a one-page comic strip in the Vice Comics Issue (along with Robert Crumb, Gary Panter, Johnny Ryan, Marc Bell, Sammy Harkham, Ted May, and several others) that's supposed to be out sometime this week. It's called, "I'm Evil, Randy!" The character from my strip is the blue-skinned guy on the top of the head explosion above. Pick it up if ya can.

Chris Ware Exhibit at The MCA in Chicago.

Featuring old and new work, The Museum of Contempory Art in Chicago will be hosting an exhibit of Chris Ware's work starting May 6th and will be up until August 27th. From the MCA site: "...his first museum one-person exhibition in Chicago, Ware presents works he created when he first moved to the city a decade ago, and works from his recent series set in a Chicago apartment building."

Also another item of interest at the MCA: "Zines, Comics, and Other Hip Lit Book Fair" - Chicago's finest alternative pressers giving talks selling wares. I'll see if I can sell some minis or something. At the very least, I'll be there to see how hip it really is. It's on May 20th from Noon to 4pm. If any of you midwesterners are considering checking out either event, go to the MCA site for further info.

Triptych of the Primary Colors as Cartoon Characters

The final project for one of my classes was to create three images with a unifying theme and visual style. When thinking of three's, I could only come up with playing around with the primary colors or the Holy Trinity and well, I chose the primary colors. So here they are with their supposed meanings: Red = Anger Rage, Yellow = Joy Happiness, and finally Blue = Sadness Depression. (Click on images for larger versions.)

Comic Pinbacks Online Gallery!

I recently came across Mark Lansdown's online gallery collection of comic pinbacks from the late 1800's to the 1950's. Had a swell time looking through them too... Here's a couple of samples.

Vintage European Matchbooks...

I've been super busy with finals for school, so here's some vintage European matchbooks. At least when things cool down, I'll share some jpeg's of my final projects.

Update: Oh, and I guess Monte Beauchamp's newest book is out - a collection of matchbook covers. Pretty cool.

Doodled Heads...

New doodle in the Doodles section.

Two New Illustrations Up...

I've posted two new illustrations up on my main site that I recently drew. Above is an illustration for the school I'm attending (combining the interior and exterior of landscape/space designs). Below is another illo for Reverie Theatre Company, for the play "Emma." I wasn't too pleased with the outcome of the Emma illustration, as I'm not the greatest with any degree of realism in my artwork. Eh, but there it is...