Happy Merry Holidays

Snowldman snowfishing

1985 Halloween

The artist as a bear part II

Guitar spots II

Owl Moth

Nightcrawler

Q&A: "Jesse, how can I buy a print of your work?"

This is a question I hear at least twice a year, so I thought I should address it. Buy Jesse's prints here! I have an account set up with INPRINT which prints and ships right to you. I ordered a few prints myself to see what they were like, and they are just beautiful. "Gallery-quality giclée art prints on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks" is how they're described. And besides my stuff, there's loads of other great art up. If you see something up on my site you'd like to buy a print of, let me know and I will put it up if I can.

Also....they have free shipping till this Sunday (08/03/2014). They spend a lot to ship the prints so they arrive pristine and you can tell by the package it comes in and how much it costs, so go get 'em. Thanks for looking and supporting cute illustrators like myself.

Horsey

Mary and Martha

Nahrlicorn Tattoo

My first drawing to be tattooed on to real life people! This was commissioned by two lovely people, Ashley and Liam, and was tattooed by Naomi Welch in Lawrence, KS. The above photo comes from her Instagram where you can see more of her amazing work. I've not had much experience with tattoos and I was shocked when I saw how good it looked in the flesh. Here is what the drawing looks like when it is not on somebody's something or other.

So it grows...

Mermaids

Also: the secret origin of the Fiji Mermaid

Balancing Act

Chesterfield in the Rain

Marathon Weekend

I was in high school before I realized you could go to a McDonalds even if you weren't on vacation. It was around then (I wasn't that bright) that I realized most kids didn't grow up playing in a family band. My family band, The Stucky Orchestra, made up of my grandpa and aunts and uncles and parents and little cousins played all around south central Kansas in gazeboes and churches and floats in parades. We made fun lively music and if it wasn't the best band you've ever heard, it might have been the sweetest. Somewhere in high school I discovered bluegrass and old time music (via some important friends and an Old & in the way and The New Lost City Ramblers tape that got stuck in my car stereo for months) and realized that was the music for me. They say a poor fiddler is better than a bad violinist, and that was absolutely true in my case. I've played with friends and strangers all across the country, and even with a few of my fiddle heroes.
In July of 2013 I went up to Ohio and spent three days with my buddy Jesse Henry and the great band The Field Dogs writing and recording an album.
It was one of the most intense and amazing creative experiences I’ve ever been a part of. Here’s a beautiful video of one of the songs.

Jesse Henry and The Field Dogs - "Stay With Me" from Thinking Eye on Vimeo.

Duck Crossing II

This is what I did during spring break.

Jesse Henry & the Field Dogs

Classy guys

First Flight

The owls are not what they seem

Here's the awful truth: for the past several years, I've been working start to finish digitally, and I stopped using my sketchbook very often. When I did, I was frustrated that I couldn't draw in it the way used to when I drew in it all the time. I'd still draw everyday, but it was different, and it was mostly for jobs. About a year ago I started using it again for preliminary sketches, studies, and fun. I've come to realize the power of the sketchbook is that it makes me think and process in a different way than drawing digitally does. I can see and revisit my past work and there's a different and more immediate tactile experience*. The ever present need and fear to get it right or make it perfect is gone (or at least muffled) and I can concentrate on other, more important aspects.

A few days before we moved up to KC, I finished my previous sketchbook and replaced it with a sketchbook from Walmart, which had paper with the consistency of oatmeal and fishhooks. I finally got through it last week and have been enjoying drawing on regular paper again. It's like being able to breathe again, which is to say I do not recommend the sketchbooks from Walmart.



*To which you say "OF COURSE there is a different and more immediate tactile experience drawing on paper rather than digitally, Jesse." However, one of the most amazing things about drawing digitally (or at least on a Cintiq) is how natural and familiar it feels.

Spengler

2014 Mennoscah Shirt

For the last 7 years I've been fulfilling a childhood dream of designing the Camp Mennoscah shirts. Is dream too strong of a word? I'm not sure. I really loved those shirts growing up. Mennoscah is a small camp located next to nowhere in the middle of Kansas, and it's a wonderful place that holds a lot of great memories for me, and continues to be a place kids can go to get muddy, run around, see the stars, and live differently for a week.

Turtle Gurl

Turtle rider

A tale of two pirates

Recently I decided to make some new promotional materials and fondly remembered the boom box pirate (the second image) I did some time ago of which I was so proud. I opened up the file and experienced that wonderfully terrible my-insides-just-dried-up feeling you get when you see work you did some time ago. The drawing is stiff and out of proportion and dark and muddy and just not right. Belt buckles don't work like that, except on pilgrim hats, the scabbard is too long and the handle somehow comes over his coat and doesn't really read like a sword handle and the boom box nearly looks like an unfinished drawing of a boom box, but not quite. What time I didn't put into the boom box I obviously put into the background. I had been so proud of this image. I looked at the date on the file, and it's from February 2012, which seems like yesterday, but apparently was nearly two years ago.

Still, I liked the concept.

So I did it again, just now, started from scratch, and I'm very proud of it.

Here's the scary thing: what if I look back in 2016 and get that terrible feeling again?

And here's the Twilight Zone twist ending: what if I don't?