Terms of Use

I was going to post new work but the new terms of use contract will grant google the ability to use my work - and anyones work - for any advertisement purposes at their discretion. 

So this is the end of this blog from a new art standpoint until their terms of use are changed. Occasionally I'll maybe post a short story, but you all don't really care about that so who knows. 

Sorry Ruthie, David, Em, and "Aubreth." 

Matt

Doodle moments

Church Doodle - Apologies to Ben Sternke.

After last week's post I started thinking about all of the times and time I've spent over the last several years listening to someone speak, teach, preach or lecture all the while doodling on whatever paper is in front of me at the time.

Lecture Doodle - Just after spending an hour listening to Mort Walker and other cartoon creators reminisce about the good ole days - while remaining pleasantly detached from current industry realities - I started on this drawing just as the next lecture about the importance of original art began.

Hot Wind doodle - This came out while listening to a good friend and an acquaintance blow hot wind about various social injustices...I there is a message here, but I'm not entirely sure what that message is.



Over the next several weeks I'm going to attempt to dig up some of those drawings and if I'm lucky, some short stories. Until then...

Doodle Boy

Church - Sun 7-19-09

When I was a little boy sitting uncomfortably in church on Sunday morning, I would steal little scraps of bulletin paper and draw. Over time this became how I was able to concentrate best during meetings and presentations. In both high school and college I obsessively doodled on syllabus and notebooks and to this day I do so on my desk calender.  

For onlookers, to draw when someone is speaking is "horribly rude and inconsiderate." In a two or three person discussion I would agree, but when you are just listening to the performance or lecture, it is one of the best ways to keep your mind active...

In this post are two such doodles.

During a lecture at the opening of The International Cartoon Art Museum in Columbus.  It was fascinating to see the reverence towards what many consider disposable art juxtaposed with the uncertainty of the medium. The character to the left is a caricature of Mort Walker...

Happy Drawing

M

7 Months Later...

Let me start this post off by apologizing to those of you who've noticed that I haven't posted in months. Between then and now I fully immersed myself in the completion of a book that is very dear to my heart. It's been 7 months since I started working on my latest book, a allegorical fantasy called Children of Apologue.  Prior to this 7 month labor of love - and an abundance of migraines - I attempted to tackle this story close to 3 years ago. In fact I made at least 4 attempts all of which failed thankfully. The above image is from the book's prologue and I felt that it is the most appropriate. It is the image of a man who has been used up by the process of bringing his creations into existence. 

"For with every act of creation, the instruments fed on the souls of their mortal caretakers."

More to come in the days ahead. 

Water, Water, Water

Creative dehydration - a thing that occurs when the creative body is deprived of fulfilling its intended purpose. The resulting dehydration may result in bursts of energy, phantom physical pain, irritability and minor depression. Occasionally mild digestive problems occur...fun times for all.


Over the last several months as some of you know - according to statistics I'm guessing 3 of you - I've been working on a new picture novel. Novels - or very complex lies as some people call them - by there very nature are often big, scaling epics and as a result require a lot from their creator. It's like long distance running, or in this case endurance writing/illustrating. The problem is not that it takes several months to complete, if not years - in extreme cases - , but that it feels really good. In a way it's like drinking a crisp glass of water on a hot day.

However...

Life happens. Responsibilities scream for your attention and pretty soon it's been a week since you've created and your creative body is downright dehydrated.

Sometimes it's such a shock to our physical system that we have to slip back into creating or our creative body will reject it.


And that is today's blog post.

As Promised - Preview Image

As promised...

I won't tell you who this is just yet. Soon Enough.

Hope...

Several months ago I posted a single page version of this story. By months I mean October. During my break from posting I expounded on the story utilizing more of the inks and stylization I enjoy. The story centers around a brave little seedling trapped on a wasteland planet; it is the place where hope goes to die. In one final act of resistance, he tries something that could only work in the world of fantasy...

Goodbye Winter

Back in December, I wrote and illustrated this little comic as a holiday card. As the winter is slowly reaching its hopeful end I figured it was an appropriate post.

At the end of this week I will be posting some images from the new picture novel I am currently working on, a fable of sorts about dangerous truth that lives inside the essence of all fiction.

Matt

The Boxer

There is a place I go mentally in between projects; it is a place of escapism and guttural hope. In this place of mixed emotions I often observe characters too wild or cunning for me to capture. So I observe. The figure I know only as "the boxer" - pictured above - is one such character. On a bitter winter day of ice and wind and brittle nerves I saw him. The boxer was warm lying there, surrounded by putrid trash. It was the warmth of a body ripe for death. When he died I watched as his soul, a molten fever dream of vengeful strength, floated into the bitter night air. His was the soul of a fighter. As he faded into the gilded skies of memory, I noticed his eyes. The boxer had none.


See you next Year!

In between times

Since my last post I've been engulfed in - what at times feels like - a swarm of projects and holiday travel. I will share more on these projects in January 09, so until then here is a little piece of whimsy to hold you over.



I hope to post once more before the end of the year so until then...

Death and Marla

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I journeyed several hours south to see My Brightest Diamond perform. We were almost dumb struck by the venue...a little vintage playhouse in the center of what appeared to be a sleepy Midwestern town square. The performance itself was full of musical intimacy, childish whimsy and an energy that made the small crowd of about 30 feel like a subdued 300. The drawing pictured above is from my sketch book or journal or doodle book or whatever you'd like to call it.

The illustration below is just some I came up with not along ago when I was bored and day dreaming. Why does "Death" always have to be ugly?

That thing called hope...

On a Hill Far Away...
Pen and Ink - 9 X11.5



Last Thursday the winds changed. Every year at the changing of the seasons, there is a period of time where the old and new engage in a tug of war. Two years ago it seemed as if Autumn had held off Winter's brittle chill until the very last possible moment. Turns out, Winter had been saving her strength. I thought of that image last week as I went for a run during what would prove to be one of the last warm days of Autumn. It was a day of fatigue and hope, one where I could feel the rope of the seasons slipping through the bleeding skin of my palms, still griping the rope of the past.

And when we finally let go of the rope, our hands bloody and rough, a melancholic euphoria ferments inside our imagination and births hope.

Dreams
Pen and Ink and Brush 9 x 11.5

Kansas City Journals

Dinner Conversation - Said's first day of school

Strange Cargo - The Irony of Holloween Travel

Old Man Snores-a-lot

At any given moment, someone somewhere is complaining about where they live. For some their complaints stem from poor housing conditions, a lack of necessary food, a dead end job, or the poor city planning of their current residence. Last week at this time I was in Kansas City. Those who know me are all too familiar with my venomous rantings and nonsensical ravings about Fort Wayne's many problems - the city I currently reside in. Going to Kansas City put things quite drastically into perspective. Like Fort Wayne, Kansas City is a place struggling to find an identity amidst the urban sprawl and neglect that has for so long nibbled away at these city's very quaint central areas. Even when eating in a newly revitalized area of downtown, I couldn't help but feel the wafting resonence of despair.





However, the trip was not without some great moments Such as the bald man snoring in front of me on the plane, the insecure model being hit on by a business traveler, or the human eye that was being transported on to the plane. Just the journey....

In Columbus

This past weekend I was in Columbus working on a project with illustrator extraordinaire Wes Ruv. During some of our down time we sketched in a neighborhood coffee house. This is one of the drawings that came out of it. It's an absurd and whimsical take on inspiration and life through death. I'll be posting more on the project in the coming months.

In Flames

He could not die say for their lack of belief and so he burned. The people of the world hated him so strongly that they could not accept non-belief, could not understand turning their hearts and minds away from this man-god. So they trapped the hero and bound him to the earth. He was their servant, their god unable to defy the will of the masses and so he laid down upon the pyre of their hatred. The roar of the flames danced within the chants of "burn, burn, burn" and deafened his heart to the people he existed for. He did not die, only burned until the flames could burn him no more leaving the man-god a deformed shell of his former glory.
And still they refused to stop believing.

In a gust of wind...

The Autumn chill had yet to visit itself upon the tall grass of nowhere town. Far above their underground sidewalks and boroughs and birds nests and graveyards stood Alexi, tall and gaunt and hairless as an unborn baby; he stood on the grassy rooftops of their underground nowhere town watching the heavens. Nothing, no rain or wind or clouds or birds or sun or moon. Above the land of nowhere town there was nothing.

And then he felt it, a twitch of air cool and refreshing. In his mind's eye he caught the breeze between his fingertips and held it close passing his own life into the breeze. Three times he caressed the lamp of his life into the breeze until he could hold it no more. Alexi filled with excitement hurled the autumn breeze into the cloudless sky. At once he could see it change. Swirls of air and tendrils of clouds danced like an oceans surf above him and the simple people of nowhere town. Atoms moved, pressure changed, and the fibers of life swelled into one another like the pregnant belly of a mother come to term. Alexi breathed one long anticipatory breath and then he saw it. For some it was just a whirlwind of little consequence, yet for Alexi it was a being of change.

Violent Things

"And gerry created Adam in his own image..."
"But Adam and his kind were just the result of bad left over takeout.
So gerry died and they called him god... and it was good."

The Majority vote



...


Death and His Pals (Ironically, they are alive)

Bird Children and Other Nonesense

"Are you my mother?"

That guy, you know the one.

More tomorrow

It has buggered my mind

It's been several weeks now of this fear mongering about the state of financial affairs. Some of this fear has manifested itself in loss of money and financial stability for some organizations. While I love to learn more about such things, I can't stand it when such blind fear and trust over take our collective judgement. I say all this because the little comic in this post has been swimming in my head all day as a sort of mental temper tantrum.

Obama, War, McCain, Money...This has nothing to do with that.

Pen Ink and other Art tools 9 x 12