girl sketch

I've got a ton of these teeny little sketches kicking around my room right now. This one's about 2 inches tall. I cut up a bunch of small pieces of illustration board as a way to get me to create some more quick sketches. It's kind of nice, but then everything ends up looking really rough. My next goal is to work on some large, finished pieces. I think this will help iron out some of the imperfections once they are reproduced.

NEW WEBSITE

It took a little longer than I had anticipated, but it's finally done. I'm pretty happy with it, and hopefully I'll be adding even more new stuff in the coming months. Check it out here:


www.kcarterart.com


I hope everyone likes it.

sketch 7

sketch 6

tree tattoo

Here's a tattoo design I made for a friend of mine.

Corporate Monster

sketch 5

sketch 4

sketch 3

sketch 2

sketch

Art Jam IV

I went to the 4th Art Jam this weekend. It went pretty well, I'm definitely happier with my piece this year as opposed to last year. I decided to practice a little before I went this time around, which helped. I always get nervous before I get up on stage, but once I settle in and start drawing then it actually starts to be pretty fun. Thanks to everyone that came out, it's nice to look out into the crowd and see some familiar faces.

Serenity Now

A landscape I did for my friend's birthday. Tried to make it as peaceful as I could.

Dr. Sketchy March 09

I went to my third session of Dr. Sketchy last night. This is the only piece that came out halfway decent. Sometimes when I take part in any fast life drawing sessions I start to get very self conscious about how slowly I move compared to other people. This can be very discouraging, and sometimes makes me shut down. I left feeling pretty depressed, but am trying to remind myself that everyone has different ways of creating art. Some people thrive in fast paced environments, but there are other people who have created some amazing things by simply taking the time to think about what they're doing before they do it. I read an article about John Singer Sargent once that described his process in painting. It talked about how he would load up a brush and sit with it hovering just above his canvas while he patiently studied his model, making sure that each and every stroke was placed for a reason. While I could never dream of being as amazing as Sargent, I definitely connect with his style more. Part of what attracts me to art is the act of studying something beyond what we normally see, the act of breaking things down, simplifying them, and then reconstructing them. To take that out of the process seems like it takes the enjoyment out of it.

Back when things were simple

I've got my acid-washed jean jacket, and my comic collection. Back then, that's all I needed. Things are a bit more complicated now.

Underpainting Time Lapse

I figured out that I can use the web-cam on my computer screen to make time-lapse videos, which is pretty cool. This way I don't have to bug Chris about always borrowing his camcorder (check out his blog by the way, he's been doing some kick-ass photography). This was just going to be a sketch, but I like the direction it's heading in, so I've turned it into an underpainting for a more finished piece.

Cocoon

I always intended when I first put my official site online that it would be a placeholder for something better, but over a year later I still hadn't gotten around to changing it. So I have decided to give myself the extra push and finally work on a complete redesign. I'm going to focus primarily on getting that done and also finishing up some new paintings for it, but I'll hold on to those until it's all done so there can be an unveiling of sorts. So I apologize in advance if my posting here slows down a bit, but hopefully the end result will be something I'm proud of and something everyone can enjoy.

Natural Armor

I don't have very much in the way of fantasy illustration in my portfolio so I thought I'd throw some in there.

Bird Prints 5

Bird Prints 4

Bird Prints 3

Bird Prints 2

Bird Prints 1

Sketchbook Vol. 1

About a year ago I told myself I was going to make some zines to give out to people, as well as drop off at a few galleries to be sold. Well it's been slow going, but I finally finished one. I wanted the cover for this first one to be full color, which kind of blew my budget, but I'm happy with how it turned out. This is an edition of 30, with each one being 8.5x5.5 inches and hand made by me. It includes: full color cover mounted to construction paper, 20 b/w pages of sketches from the last year or so, one 4x4 full color print of a bird (I did ten of these so each one is a super limited edition of 3, I'll show images of all of these guys in the next week or so). It also has handmade title stickers that are glazed with iridescent paint.

If anyone is interested in a copy drop me a line at: keith_illustrator@hotmail.com

I'm selling them for $7 a piece.

Snow, a lot of snow.

Some people might look at these pictures and think no big deal, but for Seattle, this is a lot of snow.

#3

So I try to make it a rule not to post anything from my day job up here, since they already have their own site devoted to that, and this site is supposed to be dedicated to my personal work. But this was pretty crazy, so I thought I'd share. Apparently the shirt I drew for Ames Bros with the Shark fighting the Bear is #3 on Nordstrom.com's bestseller list for their t-shirts. It even beat out Obey....crazy. If you want to see more, go HERE, and some other shirts I did are HERE and HERE.

Batman, The Joker, and a Nude

Went to to the DrawingJam here in Seattle yesterday. I probably went at the completely wrong time in the middle of the day because during the 3 and a half hours I was there, the only spots I could find to draw were crammed in the far corner, usually sitting on the floor. So everything that came out of it was really loose, which I guess is okay. They had some costumed models with a Batman theme, and while we drew there was the soundtrack to the Dark Knight in the background, which is an amazing soundtrack, but it definitely makes you feel uneasy. Some of the parts where there's just a low screeching noise that slowly builds in the background.....yeah, it freaks me out.

Dr. Sketchy November 08

I went to another Dr. Sketchy session last night. Again, I wished there were some longer poses because I just can't draw as fast as some people. There was some really impressive art though, it was nice to help restore some inspiration. I like the final drawing I did, felt kind of like an old Mucha pose, so I ended up throwing some watercolor on it. I might turn it into a finished painting down the road.

Mother Nature

Five Days To Go

So I sent in my ballot by mail a few days ago. There's something very anticlimactic about doing it that way, but I'm glad that I was able to do it early and make sure that my voice was heard. I just finished this portrait, thought I'd put it up here as a not-so-subtle symbol of who I support.

I know, I know. Not the most original idea, but while I've seen a million Shepard Fairey style Vector portraits of Obama, I've only seen a couple painted portraits in a more classic style. So here's me throwing my hat in there with everyone else. It seems a little stuffy and constrained, but my attempt at a more stylized version started looking a little too comic-booky, which didn't seem appropriate for the subject matter. Hope you like it, and I hope everyone gets out and votes on tuesday, no matter who you support.

HummingTurtle

Sometimes I have creative blocks where it's tough to come up with ideas. When all else fails, mix a couple of animals together.

Work In Progress

Here's a preliminary drawing for a painting I'm working on. I have a pretty good idea of how I want it to end up, just have to translate it from my head to the paper somehow.

Seattle Underground

I took the Underground Seattle Tour a little bit ago, and managed to take some blurry pictures while I was at it. If you can't tell, I think flash lighting sucks, and I also kind of prefer a blurry picture over a sharp one. It has more personality.

An Unnatural Chicken

I saw some images of these featherless chickens and was pretty disturbed. So what did I do, I painted one. Why, exactly? Not sure.

coffee shop

Escher's Boat

color sketch 3

girl in a robe

I've been throwing layers of watercolor on a lot of my sketches lately, getting more comfortable with putting color down quickly, which in theory will help me with more polished paintings as well.

Dr. Sketchy July 08

I went to my first Dr. Sketchy's drawing session tonight. I'd heard about it for a while, and I know they have a bunch of different groups throughout the country, just never got my act together to go to one. Being able to draw costumed models is a lot of fun, and tonights model was fantastic with some really cool outfits. My only complaint is that there weren't any long poses, almost all of these are done in 1-10 minutes. There might have been one 20 minute in there, but I much prefer a few long hour poses myself. It's nice to warm up with gestures but after that I want to draw some details, especially when drawing costumes. Oh well.

color sketch 2