April in Chicago - five years ago!

Just a quick post for now.....

Here are a couple of sketches from April of 2006. I found 'em recently when I was going through a bunch of older sketchbooks, and I thought perhaps my brother and his wife might get a kick out of 'em - though they have seen them before. They were both drawn while I was visiting them when they lived in Chicago. I seem to recall my brother particularly liking the one of him putting away dishes... for some reason. As I recall, even though you can't see it in the drawing, he had a plate or something tucked under his chin as well. The other is is a view of their backyard. Enjoy, and more coming soon!

Quick sketch with conté crayon 9" x 12" (4/06)

Pencil 9" x 12" (4/06) - this one took a little longer than the one above

And thus, I carve my name in the bathroom wall of the Internet....

Soooo... yeah.... Because that really is the best phrase to kick-off an inaugural blog post. Anyway, here it is! So begins my contribution to what is essentially World Wide Web graffiti. I intend to post not only random writings, interesting links, etc., but also art, insights into my works and processes, and perhaps even some comics and cartoons. Be warned, however; I am currently without a scanner, so, I may not post as often as I would like, because I'm gonna' have to take snapshots of stuff and tweak 'em for clarity's sake - not quite as easy as scanning. (Initially, I expect to post at least once or twice a week so check back with some degree of regularity, jump on my RSS feed, or follow this blog via email.) The work I upload may be quite random, and not necessarily current or important (I guess one could argue that all of an artist's work is "important," but just bear with me....) like this:

Conté crayon sketch from 1/11

Oooorr, it'll be artwork with more purpose (yes, I know, all art has "purpose," let it go, a'ight?) like this:

Charcoal concept sketch fragment for UNREFINED series (4/11) - photo taken at a skewed angle

Oooorr, it might be stuff that, quite frankly, isn't very good and should probably be burned. As for the above, the wine glass sketch was something I just executed spur-of-the-moment while chilling on the couch a few months ago, and the charcoal piece is a concept sketch for my next painting in the "Unrefined" series.

I aim to keep this blog laid-back and enjoyable for everyone involved and maybe I'll even add to the design of it at some point to get away from the prefab Blogger template - or not. Feel free to contact me and/or comment whenever you wish and stay tuned!

In the meantime please check out my other sites:

Ian Chrystal Fine Art and Illustration

Ian Chrystal Fine Art and Illustration: UNREFINED

Thanks!!!