IRATION, JUBILATION

The day after Christmas, the snow is still here, but things look to be returning to normal.

I got two marvelous gifts from my friends Terry and Joëlle, who are basically my Portland family. Rather than spending money, we had a rule of only giving gifts we made this year,. As a non-artist, I feel horribly inadequate about my efforts in comparison to what I got, especially with Terry. A mix CD and a poem I wrote to commemorate the year (and go along with the Pushing Daisies drawing Joëlle did for him) doesn't seem like enough next to this gorgeous watercolor:

Maggie Cheung from In the Mood for Love.

More from Terry Blas at his blog.

With both of these drawings, you really want to click on the image and go to the host page and view the larger sizes to see the detail.

Joëlle drew the cast of Arrested Development.

Joëlle inked this with a brush (I believe), with the logo cut out of zipatone patterns. This is actually a photo of it taken through a glass frame, no flash. It's too large for my scanner, I need to take it and have a photocopy made and shrunk down at some point to do a proper scan. The biggest problem with this photo is the image fades to the right. Strangely, the photos I took of it out of the frame had way more problems.

Of course, see more of Joëlle Jones' art through this link.

In this theme, Mike Allred did a drawing for Joëlle to give to her husband, illustrating one of his favorite movies, The Big Lebowski.

Mike's comics can be explored at AAA Pop.

Current Soundtrack: Antony & the Johnsons, "One Dove;" One Dove, Morning Dove White & "Why Don't You Take Me" singles & B-sides