The Crimson Phoenix

I was recently made aware of a collective blog of several kids who, among other awesome things, apparently like my drawings! They post their own original work as well as occasional studies and paintings based on some of my work. Pretty awesome!

Click over and check them out. They are The Crimson Phoenix, and they are formidable.

Éowyn pt. 3

From under-drawing to final drawing.

Éowyn pt. 2

It took me a little longer to figure out Éowyn's pose. The fell beast and Witch King came together quickly but she took longer.

You can see below several versions and trying it out.




So I felt pretty comfortable with it and decided to make a go of it.

Éowyn pt. 1

I've been a little slump the last few days, finishing up several rush jobs and all around feeling bogged down. I wanted something to break that before I dive into my annual sketchbook for 2011 (previously, 2008, 2009, 2010) so I stumble across this ArtOrder challenge. I've never done one for ArtOrder before but I love the site (I got a nice mention a month or so back) and this time the challenge was to recreate the scene in The Return of the King where Éowyn fights the Nazgul. There's nothing like Tolkien to recharge batteries so I've gone for it. You can be the judge as to whether or not it's been successful. Either way I got what I needed out of it (and got to draw a monster.)

I'll be posting the progression of the piece. Beginning with the thumbnail here.

For good or ill, I settled on this composition quickly. I looked at this challenge as a fun exercise and didn't want to agonize over it. I wanted it to jump start my drawing again and at least in that respect I've found the endeavor successful.

Next post, the drawing.

Spectrum 18

Hard for me to express the satisfaction and excitement I felt when I saw my name on the Spectrum 18 list. I've entered the annual the last five years but never made it. I saw the list was posted and clicked over not thinking one way or the other when BAM! what did I see but my name on the list. So excited.

A huge thanks to the judges this year,



And be sure to check out Greg Manchess' post about the process and what goes on during the Spectrum judging here.

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Here is the piece that was accepted, one from my Alice series.

The Gryphon.

Scissorhands 20th - show

This past weekend Gallery Nucleus hosted my friend Seb's Edward Scissorhands 20th anniversary tribute. I hate that we couldn't make the show but it looks to have been a huge success and I wish Seb the very best! What an awesome collection of work he has created and curated.

Check out this link here to see a ton of pictures of the opening. It was one of the largest they've had!

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And hey, you can check out my piece here!

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Above. Seb is a famous guy!

unintentional, intentional haitus

I vanished for a little bit there, I took a the last three weeks or month or whatever off of blogging (sort of unintentionally, then intentionally) been using my free time to plan a whole lot of new things. That and the last couple weeks have been pretty busy with client work.

I've been going back and forth for quite a while as to what my big personal project this year would be and I think I've finally settled on it (it was a toss up between three competing projects.)

A couple things and then I'll be getting back to my regular M/W/F posting schedule.

* I was accpeted into this year's Spectrum!



This is a dream come true for me, I've been entering every year since college and this is my first
time to be accepted. I'm still not sure which of my entrie(s) were accepted.

This is the piece I did specifically for Spectrum (along with several other pieces from this past year) so I'm hoping it was this one.

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Here's a round up of what I've been doing on the internet in the mean time since my last blog post. Mostly this is from Twitter where I hang out all the time.

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I tend to take pictures of my cat James with Photo Booth all the time, he wanders across my desk and plops down so frequently. Well, I discovered Photo Booth on my iMac can take video. I accidentally set it to that and captured real, genuine Cory surprise. Click for the unintentional video.

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If you know me at all you'll know one of my favorite things is Nintendo. I even just love them as a company. When asked about their competition any response is some variation of "We don't look at what others are doing, we compete with ourselves. If you look at what everyone else is doing you only become reactive." That's so applicable to art (and a great deal many other things.) Anyway, the new Nintendo 3DS came out at the end of March. It's an amazing little machine. And I'm pleased to report that I can see the 3D. (Can't really see 3D movies so this is extra great for me.)

And hey, if you want, I can invade your 3DS, should you choose.

Anyone else on 3DS? Here's my friend code 4296 - 2997 - 9796

Oh and hey, here's the first 3D picture I took with my 3DS, a disorienting, seizure inducing photograph of my cat James.

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Got my Scissorhands piece framed and mailed off to Gallery Nucleus.




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These days I have let my beard go and my hair into a sort of top knot.

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It's that time of year which means I'm breaking soil and working in my garden.



I've you've got the slightest interest, you can keep up with my garden the Facebook album here. I try to write funny things to go with pictures of dirt and peas.

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I also just got this super adventurous Zelda cross stitch.

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I was invited to contribute to Meg Hunt's Art for Japan so I donated this drawing of Pokémon.

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And to bring it right up to present time, tomorrow, Saturday Erin and I are exhibiting at Crafty Feast in Columbia, SC. I've got a few new prints ready.

We'll see how the show goes. If you're around Columbia stop by!

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Ok, I'll see you guys back here Monday on my regular blog schedule.