Category: Uncategorized

I finished my pieces for OVS Magazine today, which is really great since today was the last possible deadline that I had to finish my pieces. Whoops. Buuuut….I think the pieces are really good. I am very excited about one of them. The other three are pretty cool too, but the one is a combination of things that I have been trying to get at for a while, which leaves me immensely pleased.

Here they are, best first, to my least fav last. Just to show off.

I went to school for illustration, with the intention of starting a career in sequential art. Needless to say I have not really done much with the sequential art. But this is sequential and my style. I heart it.

This is an old idea, but I never had the skills to pull it off the way that I had wanted to. Now I think I’ve finally captured it. These Sharpie pens really are awesome. I’ve been able to get blacks that I’ve never gotten before.

And here we have some more of that loopy line that I attribute to the use of the Sharpie pen again. I really like the way this tool handles. I feel it brings out the best in my inking.

Last but not least:

Peg Leg. Poor bird.
Til next time.

Peace
-Mike

This year is the 25th Anniversary of “The Goonies”, and I have been working on a couple pieces for the Anniversary show in Astoria, OR, at Lunar Boy Gallery. I had been working on a couple portraits, one of Sean Astin which is coming around, but decided that I would like to do one of my quick landscape style pieces with One Eyed Willy’s ship.

It gave me an opportunity to do some cartoony water again. I really enjoy painting waves and breakers, as long as there is no necessity to make them realistic. Hopefully you folks like the piece as well.

Pretty successful, I think. Having seen this beach, I can say that it is one of the most amazing sights that I have seen on Earth. So it seemed natural for this image to kind of stick with me.

That’s it for today. Who knows, maybe I’ll fix the Sean Astin portrait or maybe scan in the drawings that I keep assuring folks I will scan sometime soon. Either way, I’ll see you when I see you.

Peace
-Mike

I have finished my train piece for the cover of the May issue of OVS Magazine. I am very pleased with the way that it came out. The magazine will include an feature interview with me, which I was quite honest with, hopefully people will enjoy that. I still need to provide 3 pieces for the interior of the issue. I’m trying to find some things that “speak” to what I do as an artist. Any suggestions?

Here is the finished cover piece:

I’m usually not done with any black and white piece until I add some cross-hatching. It is kind of my signature at this point.

Also I’ve added some older paintings to my Etsy shop in the past couple days, besides the $10 drawings which are all still available. Check it out, there’s some good stuff for good prices.

I’m also working on a sticker project which I would like to implement by mid month next month, which will give me a sticker to provide to anyone who orders a painting. If there is money left over then I will be pursuing a button project as well.

Stay tuned for more details. Until next time.
Peace
-Mike

While at home in New Hampshire this past week, I picked up one of my lady friend’s awesome sharpie fine point pens. I have been using Fabercastle fine point pens for a while now and have never really like them that much, to the point where I’ve started using a Bic pen for basically all of my drawing and shading. However, the sharpie pen is absolutely awesome.

I put together 3 new drawings this morning and inked my big train piece a bit more. The train piece is not ready to show, but the three bird drawings are. The three drawings are also available over on the Etsy Shop for 10 bucks each.

Here they be:

This bird is my favorite. I love the shape of his head compared to the shape of the wing, and oh so easy to get some loopy line work in. I love my new pens.

Another bird and headphone piece. Been kicking it old skool this month.

My birds are almost always giddie in my mind, so I decided to make a frustrated bird. A range of emotions is always better right.

Anyway, hope you like them, and will be back tomorrow with some more stuff. There is lots going on. Til then.

Peace
-Mike

I am in Portland. I have set up my studio and set up my scanning station and pumped up my air mattress. My clothes are neatly filed away and I have a new very awesome teapot and flamingo shower curtain. And so the summer begins. It is still nearly two months until my residency for MECA starts but I am here five days a week while working a day job and in New Hampshire three nights a week, hanging out with my lovely lady. Phew. So far everything is going pretty well, though tomorrow I need to get a couple jugs of water because I am dying of thirst, but on a more artistic basis, today I cranked out a sweet pen and ink drawing.

Check it out. I am totally obsessed with trains and with boomboxes so when I was in NYC this last time, it was not a stretch of the imagination for me to think of the boombox train.

So here it is:

What do you think? I think I might like to use it for my OVS cover that is coming up, well assuming that the OVS magazine hasn’t been put together in the time that I have been moving….Haven’t heard that that was the case, however.

Also, my Feed Your Soul free print is up and available on Indie Fixx now. So anyone who would like some Mike Lewis art, head on over and get a print free. Free! Sorry got carried away. In case you don’t remember it is this piece:

Pretty cool, huh. You should go get one. It’s free and available here.

I got some more stuff in the works for this week, so I hope to get some more things up later on. We’ll see what happens. Until next time.

Peace
-Mike

Time is slipping out of my grasp it would appear. On the list for today is to check out the Goonies from the library today, paint, draw out the cover for a magazine, do the pencils for the first couple pages of “Wings of Fury” and just generally start to get things more in order for my move which basically starts happening in two days.

Craziness. To top it all off, I was in no mood to work on any of the projects that I am supposed to work on today and started ripping into this bad boy. Though now that I think of it, I think I am going to do a black and white version for the cover of this Poetry and art journal that I am supposed to do the cover for.

What do you think? I think it would make an excellent black and white image. I need to come up with some stuff for this black and white publication. Mostly I work in color. Not too many pen and ink drawings this day that are complete pieces. But I think this and a couple sketches for pieces that were similar would lend themselves well. I’ll keep you posted as to what I end up doing.

On a completely different note, my cat was a total love bug today. It really helps to have a creature to take your mind off of the stress. Thought I’d show you just how big a fan of Cezanne he is.

Jasper really prefers planes that don’t line up from one side of paintings to the other. I think it’s because his eyes are so shifty, but whatever it is, at least we dig some of the same art.

Anyhow, I’ll have some more serious posts soon. Hopefully I don’t continue to procrastinate.
Til next time.
peace
-Mike

Ladies and gentlemen, can I get a drum roll please. We have made it to 200 posts on the Keep on Trucking, Man and his beer van blog. It has been a little over three years now and the blog is doing well. There are a lot of new followers this year and I thank you profusely for your support and for those of you who have been reading from the start, I know who you are, I love you, and thank you with a big, warm, fuzzy Mike-type hug on top.

Ok. The blubbering is coming to an end. I have said that along with the 200th post comes a limited edition print. I am fairly new to printing, actually brand new to printmaking so the edition is a little more limited than I had anticipated, however, I have two prints that look like this bad boy below. The deal is this: They are free! How do you get one of the two? Leave a comment by midnight on Friday night and I will draw names from a hat to see who gets one. You will have to of course leave your email address in the comment so that I can get your address to send your print out, and I promise that I will not be flooding you with any mailing lists or anything like that. Just a print!

Here tis:

Also in celebration of 200, I’ve made two small paintings, which are both for sale at $40 each. Drop me a line at mike @ lewis acrylics dot com if you are interested in one of these.

This one is titled “Jamming in the House”. It comes from an older series that I thought would be nice to visit for my bash.

This piece is titled “Old Skool Song” and is also from a different old skool series, that I thought would be good to revisit for the 200 celebration. Hope you like these two. They are both 5″ X 7″ and a deal at twice the price. Just email me or send a pay pal payment to the same address and I’ll send you a sweet little old skool Lewis Acrylics piece.

Coming up we’ve got some exciting things going on. I have been invited to be in the 25th anniversary of “The Goonies”, a show at Lunar Boy Gallery. I’m very excited for two reasons. 1.) It’s the Goonies, need I say more, and 2.) I get to work with Deborah Starr of Lunar Boy again. She is just such a pleasure to work with. If you don’t know the gallery, you should really check it out.

Next up, I’m working on a movie poster, a feature for OVS Magazine, and last but not least, I am getting ready to go to grad school. It is now just two months away. I am certain that this will all be amazing. I will be sure to keep you updated on the new work. Thank you for coming back, thank you for following, and please have an awesome night.

peace
-Mike

The 200th post to Keep on Trucking is coming up incredibly soon, and in commemoration of a project that I never thought would even last this long, I am creating a special print run. I am making five prints that I will give away to 5 people at random who comment on the 200th post. That is not this post, but I figured I would show you the sketch of the print, because I am excited to give back a little bit and very excited about the drawing in general.

So here’s the initial sketch of the print.

Be sure to stop back next week on comment on this upcoming post so you have a chance at being one of the lucky five. And thank you to you all for checking out the blog on a regular basis. It is much appreciated.

Til next time.
peace
-Mike

The Plumbing series continued this morning. My walk through the woods on Monday completely changed my position on where I thought roots and trunks belonged. There were so many trees with strange shapes bursting out of the ground. So I’ve been working at dropping the plane which the trees are coming out of.

Check it out.

I am really digging the color in this piece. I think that this will most likely come back to earth tones, but the greens are providing something good to do some scumbling over.

Second I’ve started thinking about the different ways to make these pieces more 3-d with the capability of more interaction with the viewer. Here is one of my first attempts.

Basically just a cube, but I’m thinking that I may put the different layers on a swivel so you can line up different shapes of tree piping by turning each piece, sort of like the kids books with three different panels making up a face.

still working. stop back later and see what comes up next.
til then
peace
-Mike

It has been quite a while since I’ve worked with the Mighty Lark. Shockingly people have noticed that he disappeared. For those who were concerned that they might never see the little bird scrapping with robots again, your concerns can now be alleviated. This morning I roughed out the first full mini comic featuring ML and a bunch of power line eating robots.

The drawings were coming to me easily in the sketch stage, which gives me great hope for the upcoming final drawings. I’ve also figured out that I will be posting this comic in installments on the Mighty Lark blogspot too. I’m going to give it a couple weeks until I have the first few pages and then begin posting on Wednesdays every week until the Mighty Lark show in September at the Blue Bottle in Seattle. At that show, I will be selling physical copies of the minis.

Here’s a couple of drawings so you can get the flavor of what’s coming up:

One of the beginning scenes here showing Mighty and a carpet-bagger pigeon. Think the pigeons name is Lenny. I really want the bird interactions in this comic to be reminiscent of the characters in a Damon Runyon short story. Those of you who don’t know Damon Runyon. Guys and Dolls was based on the characters and short stories created by Runyon. The books are way better.

I’m really excited about creating this book with a more horizontal format so I can get some big sweeping images in. I think it will really help convey some tension in the book without getting people too on edge. It is just birds and robots after all. We’re not talking about going hunting with Dick Cheney.

And here we have ML’s ode to MJ.

I love it, so pleased to be able to use this in the book. Hope you like the sketches. I’m looking forward to putting together the final and sharing it with you. That will be over on mightylark.blogspot.com.

Until next time.
peace.
-Mike