Callan's Sketchblog

Silly photo shop doodle inspired by Jose Posada's etching of calavera de la catrina

I briefly met the lovely young men who do Baritarian Boy (a comic about the history and culture of a fictional eastern european nation) at mocca, so when they ran a fanart contest I decided to toss something off last minute to send in, and lo and behold, I won The Bronze Frolicking Chinchilla for hilarity :D
This is King Einrich the Unwilling, here depicted with the loaf of bread used to lure him, begrudingly, to his coronation. Check out the other entries, there's some fun stuff.

Hey kids, long time, no see, huh? I saw Julie & Julia on friday, and in addition to being adorable and very funny, I found it very inspiring- as someone who can get hung up on failing & not knowing what I'm doing, it was great to see characters face that and get through it, to complete the daunting projects they've taken on. So, in that spirit, I think I'm going to try to do & post a drawing everyday. Will I actually follow through with it? Hopefully! We shall see.
And in honor of julia, a pretty good looking insalata caprese I made the other day.

At around two o clock in the morning, they start playing 'Girls Gone Wild' commercials, and me and lene have some variation of this conversation pretty much every time I'm over her house. Click to make it bigger, as always.


The Creative Process.


If you've somehow managed to miss it (lucky you), Twilight is a series of books (and now a movie) about a morose mood swinging vampire named Edward Cullen, who despite being 118 years old, still goes to high school. You're 118! GET A JOB! These are a few career suggestions.

MY DIPLOMA FINALLY CAME IN THE MAIL TODAY! No more F.I.T! In other super news, I saw the new batman movie- the Joker is fantastic, genuinely funny & creepy without being camp- and I have succumbed to the internet phenom Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog. Will I one day post art that ISN'T fan art? Will I do something useful with my degree? Stayed tuned! Same cal time, same cal blog.

I saw both Hellboy movies recently & really enjoyed them- a good balance of fun characters and really interesting visuals. I think this is the first time I've really inked something in photoshop; still kind of clunky but i guess that's a matter of practice.

Wall-e was fantastic! I'm trying to draw more directly in photoshop sans the use of an scanned in sketch, but its still a little wobbly at the moment.

My friends made the mistake of letting me watch Enchanted. I think they realized the gravity of their error around about the tenth chorus of 'happy little working song'.


On the complete opposite of the spectrum, I recently saw V for Vendetta, and this is basically what I took away from it. I, for one, would have held that grudge a bit longer.

Mary Engelbreit has definitely been an influence on me.



My favorite thing about Otto Dix is that he loved to dance, and according to the book I'm reading, was occasionally known as 'Jimmy the Shimmy King'.

I watched Juno with my mom tonight, it was really cute. The second drawing is a quick doodle of Beth Ditto, lead singer of The Gossip.

Lizzie was gracious enough to post her magnificent 'nude model and hammerhead shark'; its only fair I put up my 'nude model and overly friendly squid'. The model does not seem as perturbed as she should be.

and just some faces from the sketchbook. I like the one on the top left :D

I was looking at some of Ludwig Besselman's work last night and realized I'd probably been a bit more influenced by Madeline than I had thought.

About 90% of the conversations I have with my friends sound like this to people who aren't us.

Look, its a drawing thats not actually about me! I like the conventions of early american child portraits.

That Penelope movie looks really cute, I love the pig nose :D. Random dandy from the sketchbook, and why isn't spring here already?

I'm working on srz bznz pictures, honest :D

My final for the eustace tilley new yorker contest :D

I was just playing with a brush pen (not waterproof, unfortunately) and some silent movie reference.

This is the little christmas comic I did for my friends- I was playing around with bitmap tiffs & I think it turned out kind of fun; its prints much nicer than it looks here. I saw sweeney todd yesterday & doodled the mrs lovetts- Helena Bonham Carter was a much lower key mrs lovett & I sort of missed Angela Lansbury's blithe mania.