Chris Leavens: May 2008 Archives

Nor do I usually draw baby noses. (Illustration Friday, topic: baby)

Prints: chrisleavens.imagekind.com

When your home is overrun by orange and yellow vines and vegetative cyclopes, it's time to worry. (Illustration Friday, topic: worry)

I put a little extra work into this one, hope it shows. Now the tired is setting in heavily.

On an Adobe Illustrator-related tech note, I've found the root of my computer's slowness when confronted with complex images. It's all tied to the thumbnail previews in the layers pallet. After each new item is drawn, it's redrawn in the layers pallet. If I hide the layers pallet momentarily while working on complex images, the slowness disappears. This is a minor nuisance for me because I like to keep the layers pallet exposed all the time -- I use lots of layers (I like my files to be somewhat organized). But I guess if it helps me to put off dropping 2.5 Gs on a new computer, I'll deal with it for now.

Prints: chrisleavens.imagekind.com

The large-footed bird strode along happily in his new extra-wide loafers he picked up at the factory outlet store in Camarillo. (Illustration Friday, topic: wide)

I'm super busy this week, so I figured I'd just throw together a VERY quick ink & paper drawing this time around. It's too bad, because I'm in the planning stages for a piece that would've fit this topic perfectly.

So what's keeping me so busy? Tonight, I'm taking part in a group art show in downtown LA, so I've been prepping for the show for the last couple weeks, putting together promo materials, carting prints to the show location, and updating my portfolio site, which isn't quite done, but it's definitely informative enough and functional.

Two sky arms develop the land, ironing away the mountains and electrically binding buildings to the flattened earth. (Illustration Friday, topic: electricity)

I'm really not sure about this one. I had to finish it on my 12" iBook G4 because Adriana and I went out of town this weekend. The colors on the iBook are really hard to gauge. Creating something like this on a computer of this caliber is a brand of masochism I'm not eager to soon repeat. I'll probably go back in and fix it when I'm on my home computer.

The seemingly endless parade of oblivious birds chomping his brethren had planted enough seeds of resent, anger, and hatred to animate the building. (Illustration Friday, topic: seed)

I've been invited to display some of my work at a group show here in Los Angeles on May 17, so I've been busy preparing (hence the lateness of this post). If you live out here, or you're going to be in the area and want to check out the show, feel free to email me for more details: chris[type at symbol]unloosen.com

And yes, as one might imagine, I was really, really tempted (in a heavy sort of way) to use this topic as an excuse to draw multiple Neils from The Young Ones, but I found restraint.

Prints: chrisleavens.imagekind.com