J.M. Hunter is an artist who’s originally from Oceanside, California and he’s currently residing in Washington, Illinois with his wife and three children. He has an art studio in The Sunbeam Building, which is located on Sheridan Road, just off of Main Street. J.M. creates art on many levels and different mediums including, pastels, ink, cartooning, painting, designing, writing and editing, to name a few. He’s got a workshop coming up on January 21st in the Sunbeam Building and the subject matter of this workshop is creating cartoon characters and themes. When I read about this event on facecrack, I wondered if J.M. could create a cartoon character based on the MBIP blog. Because in my world, everything revolves around this little space I inhabit on the interwebs. J.M. told me to stop by his art studio and he’d see what he could come up with. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do, right here and right now!
Here we are at the front door to the Sunbeam Building. We’ll make our way to the first hallway back here and I think this is the studio...whoops, J.M. is just putting his name on the door! Okay, there we go and there’s J.M. standing tall surrounded by his art in this studio...but wait a second...what’s that noise behind us?
It’s Kagan Masters, the Coffee Artist! I met Kagan last summer when I went to the ACE artist and comics expo! It turns out she shares this studio space with J.M. and it’s wonderful to see her and her art that’s made with coffee! Kagan told me she’s currently working on putting together a date night workshop that might include drawing with wine and beer as well as coffee! Those are my kind of art materials! I love her coffee art and you can see more of Kagan’s work here and here. Okay, she’s going back to work and so we now turn our attention to...
J.M. Hunter: The Cartoon Hunter!
Here’s J.M. working on that cartoon character based on the MBIP blog already! As you can see, he’s got the line drawing done and he’s been using some references of yours fooly from my facecrack page! As I mentioned in the introduction, J.M. works in all different mediums and forms of art besides cartooning, so let’s take a look at some of his paintings on display in his half of the studio.
I asked J.M. if he could describe his artwork and views on art to me and here’s what he had to say: "I work in multiple mediums, but from the main point of view that my art is an exploration of color, technique, therapy, meaning how I feel at that moment and how I feel after it's done, which is usually calm and collected. It's how I process the world around me as well as a sometimes not so quiet conversation with myself. When I work on cartoons however, that's a part of the process where it's time to lighten up and have some fun. It's still a puzzle, but also a chance to play with some color and who doesn't like coloring and puzzles?” Very nice, great answer, J.M!
J.M. has original artwork for sale and you can commission works and logos from him, but if you’re looking for an inexpensive piece of art for your walls or a gift, he has prints of his work in here for sale at just ten bucks apiece. And if you buy three, the fourth one’s on the house. As J.M. told me: “If you buy three, may the fourth be with you.” Ha!
I noticed some copies of the Community Word near the prints and J.M. is featured in the December edition with an illustration he did featuring a Martin Luther King quote. It’s color-coded and you can read more about that right here: Community Word.
We now interrupt this blog for a dueling photos picture with Kevin! Okay, we now return to our blog, already in progress...
This is a comic that J.M. contributed to and the comic is called, “Indy Gazelle.” He published it with Guy D. Copes III and Erick Cruz and they each have a selection that they’ve written, drawn and produced for the comic. J.M.’s is called, “Pirate Santa Claus,—Agent of Constantinople.” Very impressive work! And while we’re on the subject of comic books...
Let’s get back to the drawing board and see what kind of cartoon character he can come up with based on the MBIP Blog!
And here he goes into action! He started out with ink and then moved into a little coloring. The hair is blonde on the character so he must be using a reference from this post!
As he adds more color with the pastels, he’s blending them now. There’s a lot of techniques going on here and if you want to learn how to draw a cartoon character this quickly, check out the details on his upcoming cartooning workshop. It’s available for all ages and would be fun for kids and parents alike!
Here he is finishing up the MBIP cartoon character! He’s got my glasses and the superhero suit has an MBIP logo on the front of it. And of course he’s armed with a point and click camera, just like me! Very cool!
He completed this in under ten minutes, really amazing! Check out J.M.’s facecrack page for more information and artwork! Thanks to J.M. and to Kagan for letting me hang out in their art studios, it was a really fun afternoon! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Intro To Cartooning With The Cartoon Hunter!
Saturday, January 21 at 1 PM - 3 PM
Sunbeam Building
929 N. Sheridan Road
Peoria
Related Posts: Lit. On Fire: Re-Inspired Party and MBIP Visits ACE—The Artist & Comic Expo.