New Illustration For The New York Times Letters Section. This One's About Reigning In Health Care Costs

This warm and cozy illo for Wassail, an amazing-sounding Lower East Side cider bar, appeared in the Bar Tab column of the New Yorker’s April 10th issue. You can read the article online here. Thanks to my AD Deanna Donegan!

what's this then?

Do you have any tutorials for painting with gouache? I really want to learn some techniques!

I did this process post on my gouache techniques a little while ago. It's a really fun medium but it can be tricky when you're first learning it. The biggest issue folks seem to have is that, since it's water soluble, you really can't work back into it too much, at least not at all like you would with acryllic. I tend to work very graphically with gouache so laying down flat areas of color next to flat areas of color suits me as much as does the medium. You can layer over it, it just takes a bit of practice until you nail your preference for applying your paint down.

Other tips! I find inking brushes work very nicely (I like Winsor & Newton 222 Cotman). Stonehenge brand paper has a great tooth for painting with gouache. Look for a yogurt-like consistency when you're loading your brush with paint. And, I always tell the students I do demos for this, but - for serious inspiration, if you want to see an artist who really kills at gouache and in a little more painterly style, check out Israel Sanchez (his work is fantastic).

Good luck! Have fun!

Really excited to share the final product with everyone with weekend #spx2015 #cauldronsandcasseroles

I decided to paint a little Japanese beetle tonight. They have furry stripes on their bellies! #gouache (Taken with instagram)

kellylasserre:

ink on dead magnolia leaves. is this “anthropomorphic fallacy”? uhh, too much time down here.

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My lovely friend Kelly Lasserre's handwritten type is so good and so enviable!  There's something really sweet and silly about this that I adore, and all the painted objects she's been creating just make me so happy.

!!!!!

Jimmy's video game fan art book "Bits in Multiples of 8" went up on Kickstarter last NIGHT! Amazing. Now look what you've done, guys! He's gonna have to print more books!

Way to go, Jim Jams.

"Suzy, do you know anything about...witches?"

Suspiria, a masterpiece by Dario Argento. This trippy, amazingly surreal horror film is the subject of my newest tshirt design for Pizza Party Printing's upcoming movie night at the Ottobar. They'll be showing not only Suspiria, but the 1989 horror, The Church (paired with a fucking metal shirt by Jimmy Giegerich), so if you're in Baltimore at the end of the month, be there! Immerse yourself in blood and beer (and the music of the one, the only Goblin). It's gonna be spooky.

The Suspiria shirt is up for sale now at Pizza Party! Pick one up while you can!

The trashcan droid from Star Wars, whose name is apparently Gonk? (dumb) Jimmy and I had a moment when we discovered that, growing up, we each felt sorry for this lame little droid stuffed in the corner of that sand crawler because he was so ugly and all the other droids were probably mean to him.  That never stopped me from making fun of him either though.

Yesterday, Comics Alliance posted one of the friendliest reviews of my work I've yet read. You can read the full post here. Thanks, Lauren Davis for the very kind words!