It's a Magical World

exactly 19 years ago today, Bill Watterson published his last Calvin and Hobbes strip. i did shift a few paintings around to allow this request to arrive on my blog today, but i still think it's serendipitous. happy new year!

This Post Is Written in Cat

meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow

My Art Predicts the Future. Probably Poorly.

this is RoboCop fighting zombie Abe Lincoln. i was going to complain that this is an anachronism but then i realized that it's possible because zombie Abe Lincoln could become undead once RoboCop gets built. so yeah. this painting could totally be a thing that happens.

Two Sweet Paintings

being off for the holiday has messed up my schedule. that's why i missed posting! hah, just kidding i don't have a job.



this is Bertie Bassett, the mascot for licorice allsorts. i guess candy needs spirit and encouragement. i wonder if he has cheers to get the candy excited to be eaten.




hah, the last time i posted i talked about how i had to explain my paintings online for them to make sense. looks like i just just write the explanation on the painting, too.

I Could Also Draw Comics

the guy doing the wingsuit flying is the requester. he's not a tiny little man the size of a cat. he's flying at a distance. thank goodness my art lives on the internet because it needs help from words underneath it to explain.

Happy Holidays! Life Is Fleeting!

i shifted some requests around slightly so this guy would show up on his birthday. though this technically should be an Easter painting because it's zombie Jesus and that's the day he rose from the dead. sorry Jesus, it's your birthday and i just gave everyone a reminder of your demise. this is like if i walked into a nursery in a hospital and shouted, "someday you'll all be dead!"

Purple Squid and a Purple Raven

i was distracted on Christmas Eve Eve. so here's yesterday's along with today's!



no only am i going to paint every sports logo, i'm going to paint every combination of sports logos. two down.




they could play four hands of cards at once.

Increase Productivity by Doing Less

this request was for a turtle painting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. what you see this turtle painting is actually somewhat similar to what my paintings look like before i put the black lines down. my mom always says she likes them better that way when she sees them at this stage. maybe i should just half finish them from now on. it would be faster. i could do two a day!

Those Paint Fumes, Though

this requester wanted something psychedelic. am i a fraud because i didn't paint it while on LSD?

A Huge Change... You Won't Be Able to Tell the Difference

this weekend i had a birthday. my two best friends flew in from out of town to celebrate. i also threw a going away party because i'm MOVING TO LA!! here's the City Paper cover story that tells you all about it. and here's me excited about all those things...



so in light of all that, my birthday/going away present to myself is that i took off from painting for the weekend. sorry i just disappeared without telling you. but this will also be helpful for when i move to LA because i'll have some extra paintings to post while i'm in the relocation process. this is me making excuses :) anyway, i'll post today's now even though my friends are still here! and yes, the Free Paintings project will still persist after this big change. it will just happen on the other side of the country. the arting must continue!!

Pretending Like This Is Esoteric

this is an otter chasing an oyster on a beach while a crowd of bears in top hats and deer in tuxedos watch. is this a metaphor? conceptual art is confusing.

This Is the 18th Turtle I've Painted. I Can't Believe It's Take Me That Long to Write This Pun

this is one shell of a painting.

Still Looks Wrong

orioles is so freaking hard for me to spell. i have to type each painting's name a bunch of times. when i name the file. when i add the title to my list of paintings. when i email the requester that the painting is finished. when i post the image on my Free Paintings site. when i label that image on my Free Paintings site. when i title that image on my Free Paintings site. when i post the image on this site. the beginning of this paragraph. the end of this paragraph. orioles.

that's a lot of times. every single time, trying to type the word has scrambled my brain. what is it about spelling the word oriels?! oroeils. oreils. oreiels. oreails. oreals. oreales. oriols. ORIOLES.

Who Needs Preparation?

i am seriously terrible at researching my art before creating it. the guy that requested this painting just asked for the image below with no context. i painted him. only now did i do any investigation as to what the heck i was painting. it turns out he's a character from a couple of strategy video games by Sid Meier. this kind of reminds me of when i go to photo shoots for magazines and the photographers say, "i haven't read the article. what are you?" then by the end of the session we're buds and they know all about me.

Hedgehog Number Three-ish

this is titled as the third hedgehog i've painted but that's not really true. there were the first two but then there was sonic and there was super sonic. oh! there was also a girl with a hedgehog and weirdly two elephants with penguins and hedgehogs in purses. still waiting for someone to request a hog in a hedge so i can sort of add it to this list.

Childhood Troubles

the requester for this asked for something Germany themed. so this is inspired by the German flag. i remember trying to draw the American flag when i was a kid and finding it impossible. i could never make the square in the corner look like it was the right size. and how do you fit all those stars in it? plus i'd start adding in horizontal lines for stripes and get to the bottom before i reached 13. my American flags ended up being taller than they were wide. it must be easy growing up as an artistic kid in Germany. just three horizontal bands.

Film Fwends

one of these is used to make the other.

Plus I'm Always Going to Have Candy in My Hand

this is Sam, a character from the movie, Trick 'r' Treat. he wears pajamas and a burlap sack on his head. what an awesome outfit. i'm going to wear that out from now on. comfort and no bad hair days.

Now I'm Wondering If I'm a Cartoon TV Star

i didn't realize until now that this is Lisa Simpson's instrument. she specifically plays the baritone saxophone not the more common, alto or tenor saxophone. i'm guessing she chose it because she knew she was a cartoon TV star and that it looks cooler as a drawing than the other types.

I NEED TO QUIT THIS PROJECT RIGHT NOW I WILL NEVER PUN BETTER THAN THIS

to gnome is to love me. and you gnome well.

Come On, Science!

dinosaurs went extinct around 66 million years ago. the earliest fossils of rabbits are from about 56 million years ago. so this painting is my best argument for genetically recreating dinosaurs. or inventing time travel.

This Should Happen Mid-Air

this is a crow fighting a pigeon over a beer. is it considered punching when it's done with wings?

Maybe If He Wasn't a Silent Comedian He Would Have Said Something About It

this is harpo marx. he wore a curly red wig. but it turned out blonde in black and white film so nobody knew! including me when i painted this, as you can see. then some wikipedia research showed me my error. sorry, harpo, for perpetuating falsities.

Head Weapon

i should have given the squid a horn to even the fight.

Yellow Crab Tastes Better

this is a blue crab. i like to imagine he's like a mood ring and blue because he's feeling sad. when his day gets better, he'll be yellow.

Manspider Wears a Suit and Tie

do animals have superheros with human qualities? like, manbat is a bat that sees without sonar? or womancat is a cat with opposable thumbs?

The Dragon Is for the Painting's Subject to View While She Has It Done

this is going to be hung in an acupuncturist's office. i've created art people will view while being punctured.

Two Animals in the Color that Absorbs All Light

oh man i've been bad at weekends lately. here are two!



i guess i'm ok with these two being in the same post since they're both lovely black animals. sure, one is feathers and one is fur. but they're still the same hue. er... technically black isn't a hue. whatever, i mean they go together nicely.




though not to scale. that would be one darn big crow.

Down Under Tradition

half kangaroo, half alligator. i'm pretty sure this is what australians are having as leftovers this day after thanksgiving.

Four (or 25) Years in the Making

over four years ago, i had this odd mystery. done reading that? ok well she just recently emailed me saying

Hi, I just saw your post. If you wrote to me , I didn't receive it. I wrote to thank you for the painting - apparently you didn't receive that either. I am the person in the picture, and the one who requested the painting.

whoa! so i wrote back

I'm sorry our emails got crossed! I ended up giving your painting to someone else. But I can totally paint you another one! How about that?? Or did you want a different subject. Either is good with me, just let me know :)

so this is the second version of that painting, mailed to the original requester who confirmed she is, in fact, the subject of the photo! and that it was taken in 1989, 25 years ago. crazy stuff happens when you keep a project going for over 7 years.

This Project Is So Educational for Me

this is dinosaur Uncle Sam fighting princess John Bull. i didn't know who John Bull was until this request. and i didn't know until i just googled right now that "national personification" is a thing. why they're a dinosaur and a princes, i'm not sure. i'm just glad this person only requested two of the countries as opposed to a brawl containing all of them.

Democratic or Republican Art

i can't tell if this request was from someone for or against marijuana. is this a cute little character getting high? or is this representation of what killed the dinosaurs?

The Most Paintings You've Seen at Once in Quite a While

yeah. i missed two days in a row. a whole weekend! i can't remember the last time i did that! i painted, just totally forgot to show them to you. sorry! soooo, here are three of them all at once.



anyone else upset by the fact that spiderman doesn't have nearly enough legs?




the person that requested this asked for a character from Final Fantasy XIV and sent me a picture of her. it wasn't a very good reference so i asked him the characters name, intending to image search for something better. i didn't realize the game is a MMORPG. there weren't any other images of her because she's his personal creation. so here's my creation is based on his creation.




i'm pretty sure i'm the only person on the planet that hates sandwiches. i'm totally not picky when it comes to food. i love almost everything. ALMOST everything. i can't handle sandwiches. yeah, i know it's weird. i've been told. i just had to many bagged lunches in school. soggy bread surrounding lunchmeat is just absolutely disgusting to me. i'm honestly even grossed out by my own painting. yikes.

Too Much Exposition

my wait list to get a Free Painting has gotten so long that i'm now painting for people that first emailed me three years and four months ago. i used to just open the old emails, paint whatever they asked for and then the first time they ever heard back from me was an email with photographic proof that their painting was done. as the gap of time between first emailing me and an actual completed painting increased, the number of times people didn't respond after their painting was done very much increased. it was getting to the point where about 50% of my paintings didn't have a home. so now i email the requester before i paint to find out if

1. they still use the original email address
2. they still want the original painting subject they requested
3. they aren't dead

anyway, the point of that was to set up the fact that originally this request was for "a dapper guy from the roaring '20s". when i emailed to confirm all three of the above requirements, he changed his request to "a dapper guy from the roaring '20s in space". i guess since we're now in the future - compared to three years ago - he needed to be in space.

Mythical Creature Painting

last time i painted a narwhal i pointed out how they're a hoax. this guy said it better than i could. like, way better. i kind of love him.

Stupidity Is the Mother of Invention

who the heck was the first person to skate? like, he had to say, "i'm gonna stand on two skinny blades on frozen water". what the crap?! and it's not like he was good at it the first time. he had to believe he would get good at it. how many activities are out there in the world that seem impossible but would become easy over time? what are we missing by not being as idiotic as the person who invented skating?

Paint Mode Engaged. Painting. Paint Complete.

when some people request paintings, they send me really long emails about how great they think the project is and/or how excited they are to get their painting and/or how much they love all the works in my gallery and/or how wonderful i am for doing this every day. this requester emailed the following:

bear in gladiator armor fighting Godzilla

followed by his address. it made me feel like i'm just some paintbot that takes input and then outputs art... AWESOME!

Old-School Nerds Love My Art

this character is "Simon Belmont" from the Nintendo game called "Castlevania". by total coincidence, this is the second Nintendo game character i've painted in a row. having a project on the internet gets you a certain type of clientele.

Demons Don't Like Being Cute

this character is "Firebrand" from the Nintendo game called "Demon's Crest". i feel like he'd be mad that i represented him so adorably.

The Last Two Charlie Browns

ok i forgot to post. which means the last two of these series are showing up together.



my mom was at my apartment and saw these before i posted them. so i learned that this pattern is called "chevron". thanks, mom!




quiz: i'm testing you on your reading comprehension. please comment below with what pattern this painting represents.

Grayscale During the Week

i made the yellow one the first in the series because i was concerned people wouldn't understand what it was if it was a different color from Charlie Brown's usual. or maybe this zig zag is iconic enough no matter what. i mean, he was only yellow on sundays.

In-Person Request

this is the first in a series of four paintings for a friend of mine i do improv comedy with. he wanted charlie brown's shirt in a bunch of different color backgrounds. he even drew what he was looking for on a bar napkin while we were out after a show. i haven't showed the paintings to him yet but i'm hoping i translated his beer-stained sketches in a way that pleases him.

Mother Nature Gave Them Boots, Too

i love that rottweilers have natural, hilarious dog eyebrows.