Illustration by Joe Lamour for Racialicious.com.

Thats some mighty fine balloon making there Mr. Joe.

(Balloon render in progress for a little assignment. I’ll share more of it later on.)

My friends Carly and Ed are getting married, and as is the custom for close friends and family, I will be doing their invites and other paper goods. They requested that another close friend, and illustrator, Carin Johnson help with the portrait aspect of the process. 

Sketch of Joe, 2010

Since our styles are different I wanted to see if the layering effects and such that I use would work with her drawing style.

I’m thinking it does. So, I’m excited to get cracking on these!

So a couple of years ago, I found myself on my FFFFound! looking for stuff to add to my collection, and I came across this image:

And frankly, it was so delightfully absurd that I could not stop laughing. And my friend Jessie and I quoted it perhaps every two hours for the next two weeks. (“What’s up?” “My beard is crazy delicious.”-“What do you want for lunch?” “My beard, crazy delicious.”) I looked up who created it, an artist by the name of Marc Johns.

His schtick is absurd comedic watercolors.

The other day I was perusing his site, and I saw that he had something for sale. An original! I nearly lost my gourd since his drawings sell out seconds after he posts them.

I now welcome Snake Eyes to the Lamour Art Collection. Inventory: two. Hurray!

He even did a little doodle on the recipt. How nifty. 

Candy Hearts
Eli Nesson & Joe Lamour

My old roomie had a bunch of doodles that I thought would make excellent finished illustrations, so for fun last night, I started on one of them. Themed posts! There are a lot more in his, so I plan on eventually finishing it. 

Progress on the second illustration for my Racialicious article. In fact, I’ll let you know what the title is: Musings on Attraction and Entertainment.

I was sick and clutching my pillow, rocking back and forth yesterday, so I didn’t get to post. :-/ Sorry y’all! Here is the first final illustration for Racialicious. Showing that you shouldn’t jump the gun, my editor edited out the sentence that the illustration refers to. Phooey. So I’ll show you the new illustration(s?) in the coming days.

And from the sketch, the illustration begins to emerge.

I’m buying myself (a few) Christmas presents. 

First, I’m getting myself an Acoustic Electric Guitar, since for my recent classes I was teaching myself on my brother’s guitar. 

Second, and most life changing, I’ll be getting myself a little tattoo. It takes me SO LONG to figure out what I want to tattoo on myself- I mean it took me about a year to decide on a line. A LINE people. I decided for my next tattoo, that I will be getting a half sleeve above my line. But… not the normal flames or skulls or roses or whatever, I’ll be getting my favorite pattern: Toile.

Save your jokes, I already know I’m a homo. Deal with it. :)

I’ve been looking at toile de jouy fabric from several different sources, and I just have to marry that style with the Kat Von D tattoo shading style that I want. 

Most of all I’m giving myself a little happiness, cause lord knows I need to. :)

So, in the coming week(s?) I will have my first article published. (EEE!) Although I did minor in Creative Writing, I never really explored what I could do with it until I joined the Racialicious roundtables. As an extension of that, I’ll be done one (or more) articles about race and dating for Racialicious’s blog carnival, Love Anonymously. Although, since I’m telling you this right now, I’m not sure how anonymous it’s going to be.

Also, I’m not sure it’ll be anonymous at all since I plan on including some illustrations to go with my article. The three word boxes in this post represent parts of the 1600 word article (i had a lot to say, apparently) about my preferences while in the gay dating world. 

So, I’m going to print these out and look at them and see if those four years at RISD were for something or what. :)

Today I’m wearing my:

• Benjamin Bixby Sweater
• Levi Black Skinny Jeans
• Argyle Socks
• Cole Haan Wingtips

We’re starting a new thing here at JL Everyday. Wardrobe Wednesdays. This weeks is basically the color story of the outfit I’m wearing right now. 

UPDATE:

Maybe I should show you what I’m wearing (basically, since some of it is older):

• BDG Shawl collar sweater in Mustard, Urban Outfitters ($48.00)
• Tan Habitual Jeans, Asos ($99.00)
• Black J Lindeberg Belt, GPP Golf, ($99.00) 
• Brown Suede Loafers, Aldo ($49.00) - I paid full price for these suckers! UGH.
• Argyle Polo, Old Navy ($9.99) - Mine are in fall colors.

Sub page illustration for BRIA website. More of them to come! Click here to view it full size.

Illustration in action…

Last of the 5 illustrations. Wee!