I watched "I Heart Huckabees" this evening. That is why there is a tall, African man on the far right. I do not have an explanation for any of the other drawings. I suppose the previous entries were all mostly white males, so, I wanted to mix things up a bit.

This is a drawing of my brother. He was wakeboarding. He actually has larger muscles but I thought the drawing would look better like this.

Back to the single figure. The top drawing is a self-portrait of a horrible Friday night. I am still working on two large drawings. Hopefully, one will be finished by the end of the week.

The man on the left is the manager from "Flight of the Conchords." It is the funniest show on television right now.

I finally finished this peice previously posted in late July under "current" and "potential." And, as previously mentioned, I really liked the wood showing through but I felt it was very necessary to obstruct the color field with white. I also started a large drawing today. It is another "war" drawing. For those not familiar with the war series I did this past spring, examples are available on the "Interactive Showcase" mentioned in yesterdays entry. They are drawings that reflect upon contemporary war crimes.

Here is a classic example of my habit of drawing ridiculous men in their 20-30s. I am sure I could come up with lots of reasons why that is my habit but I will spare you all (and I know there are many of you) my self-psychoanalysis. So, for your pleasure, here are five men.

An Oompa Loompa type figure with a Starman are today's main attraction. I also finished updating my website so check it out at www.apologyexcepted.com

It only has three main updates along with a new host server. If you do not have time to search for the new features, here are links to them:

Global Warming PSA- An animation done with four other students from Kendall for the KAFI Cartoon Challenge 2007. The theme for the competition was global warming.

Interactive Showcase- A showcase of some of my favorite work I did at Kendall.

Virtual Tour- A virtual tour of the outside of the "Tangible Media" exhibition Kyle Morris and I had this past March. Click and drag to move around, hold "shift" to zoom in and hold "ctrl" to zoom out. The tour of the inside of the gallery is also available here.

I watched three great movies today. "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," and "Pan's Labyrinth." The bearded figure on the left was inspired by Melquiades and the skinny figure on the right is John Lennon. I am in the process of updating apologyexcepted.com so expect an update soon. There will a new animation and a virtual tour of the outside of the "Tangible Media" exhibition from this past March. So stay tuned.

"A Guide to Human Interactions" was my first interactive, online coffee table book. It has been online for about 6 months but has had a couple of spelling errors. Well, I finally got around to correcting them and if you haven't checked it out yet, I suggest you do so. Click here to view "A Guide to Human Interactions"

I sent in applications for my visa and passport today. It only took about 5 hours! After being sent from the county clerks to the post office, then spending over an hour looking for my birth certificate, I found out that I do not need my birth certificate because I was fifteen when I recieved my previous passport. Anyways, I after recieving some top notch advice, I have been trying to have my figures interacting with each other. So, here are two men interacting.

I absolutely hate when I am not able to post before 12:00am. I try to post on a daily basis and this sort of business throws my whole system into complete chaos. Tonight, I watched "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" for my first time. It was extremely entertaining. I started drawing this scene from the very beginning and, consequently, missed out on some far more interesting characters. I may watch it again tomorrow because, since it is a musical, you really need to watch rather than simply listen. The DVD provides a UK and a US version, which gives me another reason to watch it again.

Aside from watching yet another movie, I filled out my visa and passport information for Mozambique today. I also had my picture taken, which should look something like this:

How professional, how stoic.

Tonight I watched one of my all time favorite movies, "Me and You and Everyone We Know." The drawings on the bottom left are characters from the movie. In fact, the younger girl on the bottom right reminds me a bit of another character in the movie. If you haven't seen it, you should definately go out and rent it today. It was written and directed by Miranda July who also wrote a great book/series of short stories called "No One Belongs Here More than You."

Anyways, I said I had big news. Today, I accepted my assignment/invitation to volunteer with the Peace Corps in Mozambique. I will be teaching English as a Second Language and have have orientation in Philadelphia, PA from September 23-25. I will begin training immediately after that in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. I will try to periodically update this blog but I am not sure what access I will have to the Internet, or electricity. Here is a map of eastern Africa.

Maputo is in the very south of Mozambique.

After finishing off my previous sketchbook, I started using my big 11x17 inch sketchbook. The problem with using such a huge sketchbook is, aside from its general transportation, that my scanner is too small to scan a whole page all at once. In the meantime, I have been using my small, pocket Moleskin® while traveling back and forth to Grand Rapids, MI and Humbolt, TN. I should have some more drawings, as well as some big news, by tomorrow.

Tonight, I filled the last page of my sketchbook with a self-portrait. This may be my favorite self-portrait I have ever done. I struggled deciding what kind of shoes I should be wearing, and I definitely think that may have been the weakest part of the whole figure. But, I find the face very humorous. Speaking of humor. I saw "Hot Rod" today. It was pretty good and ridiculously outrageous.

My Moleskine

I did these drawings today while sitting around my house watching old movies like the Princess Bride and the Highlander. To me, the top page looks like two guys checking out a good looking person. The bottom left is of two brothers. The younger seems to have missed out on the kazoo and lolipop give away. The bottom right is for all of the people that enjoy realistic, representation drawing. The only reason she is missing her feet is because the drawing is from a photograph that cuts her off at the feet.

The power of three. It seems like a good number of characters to have on a page. I think the figures in the middle are consistently stronger because they are the first ones I draw and it becomes harder to station my hand on the sketchbook as I move towards the edge. It is a rough life that I live. These people are waiting for a train. Which is weird because last night I had a dream I was in New York taking the train around Manhattan and encountering all the bizarre things one might in the New York City of my mind.

Here are three boys. The one in back is slightly younger than the other two. They were drawn tonight while watching Syriana.