Marco Serido

Bloody Marys and Rad Musicians

Marco — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:00:11 +0000

A serendipitous encounter with a musician friend of mine at an open mic event at the Raccoon Lodge while drinking the most ridiculous bloody mary I’ve ever had. It pays to carry a sketchbook with you at all times I guess. These are done in a little pocket size jammer I won spinning the prize wheel at Blick. I have to admit to doing some of the coloring off site. Shane is an awesome musician, and it was a pleasure sketching him whilst he played his sweet sounds. I hope to do it again sometime.
Gouache, watercolor, and ink in pocket sized Canson mixed media sketchbook.

Gluten Free Sweet Treats

Marco — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:30:34 +0000

Back in Portland and up to the old tricks. Planting my ass in various locales and sketching Commonus Portlandius Urbanatia, or the common Portlander. They are a breed of human often observed abstaining from one or several common food items for unknown reasons. Dairy-free, fat-free, sugar-free, full soy, no meat, gluten absent, lemon zested, breakfasts sound delicious… don’t they? Apparently, the new thing everyone can’t have is gluten. Five years ago I don’t think I had ever heard the word gluten more than once a year, now everyone thinks they can’t have gluten. No gluten, but cigarettes, weed, and potato vodka will keep you healthy, or so the Commonus Portlandius Urbanatia believes… as long as you follow up your weekend with a cayenne pepper and citrus filled hydro cleanse. I ask for extra gluten now. I mean, someone’s got to do it.

Dragonfly coffee shop awaiting a meeting with some dude. A girl wants her gluten free sweet treat (minus the sweet) and a large man reclines peacefully enjoying the sunshine coming through the window as he reads something on his kindle. Portlanders like big glasses, scruffy beards, and wind swept hairdos. I like sketching with a bamboo dip pen and trying to come up with new skin toned color paint mixtures.

Garbage? Trash? Anything else? We don’t have blankets.

Marco — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:54 +0000

Gone are the hey-days of pleasant and classy air travel. No more beautiful TWA attendants actually attending to you, no more in flight meals, and certainly no blankets. Well, I can’t speak for those in business or first class getting their complimentary cocktails and two to a row seating, but if there’s no blankets on the plane, I think they are even lacking. Flying is essentially becoming airborne bus travel. Cram your ass in the seat, get stink eyed by flight attendants (hey, I need at least 3-4 mini vodka bottles to make it cross country!), and deal with the smell of the family surrounding you eating… uhhhh…. are they eating tamales? A trip back to Jersey recently had me scrambling from train stations to taxis, to planes, to other planes, and back into cars, more trains, taxis, and public transit. 26 hours of travel time there and back between Portland and Hillsborough, New Jersey… nutso. Anyway, it was worth it. I had a great time with my family. I relaxed, and I got in some sketching during my travels. What else are you going to do?
The red headed flight attendant on this particular AirTran flight was less than pleasant let me tell you, but I got lucky and had no one sitting next to me on a fairly full flight which you have to love. A few mini bottles of scotch later, and I was oblivious to her stink eye. Cowboy hats don’t seem like comfortable plane attire.

The tree that Katie and I planted during our wedding ceremony is doing well, and my dad still hates being drawn. “I don’t even fucking look in the mirror in the morning! What makes you think I want to look at a drawing of myself? I really don’t like that shit man.” Yep. Tough. Quit sitting so still and maybe you wouldn’t get drawn. My yard has a lot of Robins. Unlike my dad, my mom does like being painted, but she doesn’t sit still for very long, I’m not saying my dad isn’t an animated fellow, but if you catch him at the right time, he’s just zoned out, my mother is always excited about something. Little niece Lizzy pictured here is about 5 years younger than this sketch lets on. Useful I suppose if she ever goes missing for five years and we have to do an age projected milk carton missing persons image. My brother and I got wastey the the last night I was in Jersey, but he can’t hang and he assed out mid conversation. One kamikaze too many I suppose. Patiently waiting for my train on the last leg of my journey home to Portland. The guy in the hat was eying me. I think he spotted me giving him the sketcher’s glance. That quick furtive looks up and down, pretending like you’re drawing something nearby the person you’re actually sketching in a futile attempt to not get noticed.

Looming Deadlines…

Marco — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:58:17 +0000

… Amongst other things have kept me from posting much as of late. Life just seems really full lately. A trip to see the family in Jersey, continual work on the new book, marathon training, and hours and hours slanging drinks have kept me off the blog radar, but with a recent ankle injury a slot has unfortunately opened up in my schedule. As I sit here waiting for a layer of paint to dry on the newest page of Gabby and the Tooth Fairy I figured it’s a good a time as any to put up a post. Although I haven’t been posting, I’ve been sketching just as much if not more than usual. In Jersey, on planes, airports, trains, coffeeshops, and even a little at work. It’s keeping me sane with all the other obligations I have lately. I picked up a larger size Moleskine watercolor book recently and am loving it. It’s something I typically wouldn’t buy especially since I’m not particularly fond of the horizontal format, but for 40% off, how could I not. It holds up nice to ink, various pens, and vigorous watercoloring plus the large size is something I usually don’t muck about with and it’s kind of nice to go big. Sooooo… now that I’ve got all my sketches from the past month scanned I think I’ll just post some stuff from a while ago, and go from there.
Let’s start with Easter Sunday…

A nice warm sunny spring day had Katie and I lounging out back all day. She read, I sketched our neighbors stuff. I always have the urge to go in and put strong outlines on watercolor sketches. I resisted here.

This little squirrel was a very brave little guy, coming right up to us to see what we were doing. He was later seen running around with a chocolate Easter egg. One of my favorite artists, Tommy Kane, draws a pretty good squirrel, but then again he refers to himself as being squirrel like and participating in squirrel activities. What that means I'm not sure of. All this guy wanted to do was eat whatever I was eating.

Sketching The Night Away

Marco — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 05:12:44 +0000

Playing with gouache and watercolor with a little rotring art pen thrown in. I don’t use gouache very often and I don’t know why, its kind of fun.

Sketching On My Day Off

Marco — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:44:47 +0000

Sketches from my day off. Hanging at tea chai te and a couple of views from my side of the couch. Twas a relaxing evening.

Playing with my colors

Marco — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 06:19:40 +0000

I’ve been holed up for Weeks in my basement studio. Sketching characters and scenes, any chance I get, for the new book that’s scheduled to be released in the fall. Every so often I’ll take a short break and throw down colors scribbles anything to just clear my head and not think about fairies, teeth, and cute. This is one such sketch. Playing with the colors that will be used in the night scenes. Indigo, purples, blues, maybe even some greens. Good colors for night. Here they’re just splashed on the page, and this creepo is staring back at me.

Test from phone

Marco — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:35:19 +0000

I Drew this last night at hipbone studios. Posting pictures from my phone is new to me. Very cool.

Another Model Marathon at Hipbone Studios

Marco — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:25:34 +0000

This past Sunday the 12th was another one of Hipbone Studio’s model marathons. It was a good successful day full of drawing and sketching, a bit of painting, and a lot of experimenting. I learn something new every time I go and really enjoy the opportunity to sit and draw from life all day. I tend to jump around in technique a lot though. One of these days I’m going to head over there with a simple plan and simple set up. One type of paper (maybe two) and just one or two kinds of media. This past Sunday I used watercolor, pen, pencil, charcoal, conté, ink and brush, Pitt Pens, and china marker; perhaps something more that I’m forgetting. There was a good variety of models and some good poses as usual. Always pleasant to spend a day in the studio making pictures.

A New Book, Urban Sketching, and more of the usual

Marco — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 23:32:29 +0000

I was recently awarded another contract with Dragonfly publishing to begin work illustrating another Children’s book. This one is about the tooth fairy and will be out this fall. Look for it on Amazon, just in time for the holidays. It’s exciting news and the story allows me a lot of artistic liberties, so I’m really looking forward to getting to work on the preliminary sketches, character development, etc… Look for updates periodically and be sure to check out my last book, “What Kind of Turtle Am I?”, available now.

As usual, I’ve been spending my free time sketching around town, revisiting old sketches, and lounging on the couch while Katie sleeps nearby. I went back in and added some color to a few sketches that I thought could use it, and am happy with the results. I’ve been taking the bus a lot lately, so the bus people have been subject to my sketching whims and as usual Katie sleeping next to me is the favorite subject for my late night activities.