Kavalier and Clay

I've been working my way through Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. It's one of the most insanely well-written books I've ever read, but I've been having a hard time getting through it because I feel guilty spending my free time doing anything other than drawing. Also, my smartphone has completely destroyed my reading habits... any time I would've grabbed a book before, I just go on my iPhone now (which is really sad). But I digress. This book is amazing. It's about two young guys making superhero comics in 1940s New York City. I was reading a little last night and one sentence made me laugh out loud, so... I had to draw the two main characters.

"And Joe, of course, looked as if he had just fallen out of a hedge."

Updates may be a little bit less frequent for the next few weeks. I've got a handful of different freelance jobs going on right now and they're consuming most of my time. But I'll try to draw a few things of my own because it keeps me from getting too stressed out.

-Anna

Pirate Girl

Doodle from yesterday I never got around to posting. Just messing around on Photoshop.

-Anna

Sketchdump 4.23

Some sketches from last night. I spent much of the evening laughing at Loki's hair from the next Thor movie. I also drew some random girls and Faith from Buffy.

-Anna

Quick Update

Ahhh, I haven't updated in over a week! I've been pretty busy with a few different jobs and portfolio stuff, and a lot of the stuff I'm working on can't be on the blog just yet. So just to keep this thing fresh, here's a drawing of Louis CK and Pamela (from Louie) I did as a warm up this morning.

-Anna

Satire

I spent this afternoon playing around some more with a 'lineless' style. I've worked this way before, but I usually just end up going back to what I normally do (keeping my pencil line). When you look at children's books these days, almost all of them have this sort of look to them. I'm torn between doing what feels more 'me' and what I think is more marketable. It is fun to work this way, though... so who knows. Maybe I'll try doing a children's book illustration in each style and see which I prefer. In the meantime, here's a silly illustration of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Tumblr has been enjoying it. 

"And that brings me to tonight's Word: Fanart."

Here's a close up of the faces, because I like how they turned out.

-Anna

Pink Dress

Saturday afternoon doodle.

-Anna

Silly Doodle

Doodled this while waiting to Skype with a friend. It's based on a sketch from the Dana Carvey show (featuring a young Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell) entitled, "Waiters Who Are Nauseated By Food." My brother and I can't handle how hilariously genius it is. You can watch the video here.

-Anna

Funny People

Last night I felt like drawing some caricatures. Since I'd been procrastinating by watching videos of Stewart and Colbert on Youtube, I figured I'd start with them. Then I was like, oh, I'll draw some comedians. So obviously, Louis CK was next. And then I drew Chris Hardwick, Matt Mira, and Jonah Ray from the Nerdist podcast. You know how when you look at a drawing you did and you can remember what you were listening to when you were drawing it? It'd be hard for me to look at an illustration I've done and not think of Nerdist. So yeah. Then I colored them this morning as a warm up, because my favorite thing is waking up knowing a drawing is waiting to be colored.

It's funny... I really struggled with Jon and Stephen. You can even see how much more confident my lines are in the other drawings. I think it's because I've been watching them for so many years, their faces are basically embedded in my brain, and sometimes it's hard to step back and look at them objectively.

-Anna

YA Mag - April

These are this month's pieces for YA Magazine.

The Girl with the Hat #10

At the Dinner Table #6

-Anna

GO ORANGE

This is me today. FINAL FOUR.

-Anna

Khaleesi

Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. I actually haven't watched much of the show because I don't have HBO. If it ever ends up on Netflix, I'll watch it for sure. But I've read the first book, so that's something.

-Anna

Whitefoot

I always see the same deer in my backyard. I can always tell her apart from the others because she's got these bright white feet. I've decided to call her Whitefoot (oh my god I'm so good at names). She sort of inspired me to draw this. I'm thinking of making this into a promotional postcard... My only hesitation is that it's kind of wintery, and everybody is sick of winter!

-Anna