2007: The Year In Review

This past year was definitely a year of changes. And I do hate change (well, unless it's really, really, really good change). My comfort zones were pushed quite a few times I can honestly say. Change can and will be bad at times, so I will start with that.

As some of you know, this past year we lost one of our dogs, Rita, and her passing was hard on us as she was an awesome pooch that had qualities that most people don't possess. We miss her everyday. This past year some friends fell to the wayside. I won't go into details, but there are some things that I used to tolerate that I will no longer put up with. I'm just surprised and disappointed that it happened to who it did. Those were the bad hurdles that I had to contend with this year, but there is a lot of good too.

This year I finally put the factory that I worked at for the past year behind me. My wife and I worked hard to make this possible as it was affecting every part of my life and was making me a miserable s.o.b. My decision to try my hand at freelance illustration was the best one that I've made and I know it will be a long, uphill struggle for some time, but this is much better than the life I was leading. Starting this blog (which is a year old today!) and finally getting my website online were very helpful and much needed for this to happen and I've enjoyed the process.

My artwork has been in nine shows this year and I actually sold a painting, a few prints and some copies of my self-published collection of cartoons along the way. This fall also saw me landing a gig with Topps/New Line Cinema doing some Lord Of The Rings sketchcards, so I'm real excited to see where this leads and to see how they will be received. It's a good start.

I've made a few new friends this year (some were very unexpected and most welcomed) and I feel that some of the older friendships have become stronger. There's work to be done there too, but I'm on it. So, here's to a fantastic 2008! I hope to see all of you there.

Oh, btw, that's a Judge Dredd sketch that I did earlier this summer. I had to put some kind of art up!

Giraffeness

I'm still working on the Lord Of The Rings sketch cards, as I've signed on to do another batch, but still can't show any of those yet. Hopefully soon. So, I have nothing to show artwise right now.

This post is for Sandra way down yonder in the big state of Texas. It's her birthday today, and her request is that she gets lots of pictures from all over the place, so being that she likes giraffes (and that's what drew her to my blog in the first place!), I thought that this picture would be best. This here giraffe picture was taken last August at the Toledo Zoo. On a much warmer day that today, I can add! So, happy birthday, Sandra! Hope someone made you a whole batch of margaritas.

Merry Christmas and all that crap!

Happy Holidays to everyone from a Merisi inspired Muck Man and myself. Maybe next year, I can get Muck Man to belt out a rendition of White Christmas alongside Bing Crosby. That would be very Mucky.

Jennifer Connelly

Why don't I draw the babes more, I ask? I don't know, maybe it's because they are harder to draw for me with their smooth features. And it's not for lack of trying, I tell ya. So, that will be my New Year's resolution, to do more women. Draw more women! Jeez, if my wife saw this...

She knows I'm a dork.

Jennifer Connelly
18x12
colored pencil on tinted paper

Rice On The Other, volume 1, number 3

I have a one page Muck Man story in the fall edition of a publication called Rice On The Other, which is a collection of comic related material put together by Joel Ball (Guggenmanuever over at ConceptArt.org). Guggen is one of the most creative artists that I've been fortunate enough to associate with on the internet, so check out the link to Rice On The Other (on the right) and you too can admire his hard work, too. I believe that you can also order a copy as long as supplies last. I eagerly await my copy.

Muck Man is a character that I invented a year or so ago and really should explore this guy more often. What would it be like to be a superhero made of muck? Not industrial sludge kind of muck, just a kind of all around...goo. As you can see, he doesn't have it easy.

This is the page as it will appear in the fall issue. So, a big thank you is in order for Joel for letting me play a little in the ROTO sandbox.

The Experts #2

I didn't think that I would do another "expert" so soon, but chance sometimes necessitates such things. This past Saturday was my wife's work Christmas party in which we braved icy and snowy conditions to participate. Well, it's never really about the ice and the snow, but always about the other drivers. But I digress....

The party had been going on for quite awhile and I found myself darting outside for some fresh air and landed smack dab in the middle of a bunch of smokers. The conversation was interesting for a bit, so I stayed. Kind of a mistake. This one tall, gumpy, pony-tailed jackass was controlling the conversation and he was blathering on about how he was Swedish (descent) and how he could handle any type of cold weather. He amused me in a way and I was well into a jack n coke and wine filled evening, so I listened to his nonsense for awhile. He actually said that George Bush was an extremely intelligent man because he had convinced not only our nation but the world that he was an idiot. Huh? And he continued his rant saying that global warming was nonsense because it's just natural temperature change and when I tried to explain to him that natural temperature change takes hundreds of thousands of years and not 30 he then interjected that Al Gore is truly an idiot because of among other things he married Tipper. Because that truly matters, after all.

All of this AND he actually held his cigarette in that pretentious way between his middle and ring finger. What an idiot. Very soon, I went in search of another drink. I needed it.