Trump Takes a Stand Against Foreign Interference Picking up where strip no. 12 left off, Trump reacts to the news that he may have been acting as part of a bigger plan, and he does not like that one bit. This man is nobody’s pawn; no hand but his own guides his actions in this…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #13
One God, One Vote Wardrobe change! Putting on a different outfit can really get you in the right mood, so Trump has sent his suits to the cleaners and now dresses to channel his inner Jimmy Buffet. When he closes his eyes he sees sea gulls, smells salt water surf and hears steel drums. I…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #12
Trump Wields the Mighty Executive Order Pen My main objective with today’s strip is to make my own version of Charlie Brown writing a letter to the little red-haired girl. Charles Schultz’s work is the landmark that so many cartoonists aspire to. His drawing, writing and characterization are so rich and simple at the same…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #11
Trump Wants to Get the Lame Duck Period Over With We’ve been wrong before about who is likely to win and to lose an American presidential election. Nevertheless, the Trump After Trump comic strip is a thought experiment in imagining how Trump might react to losing the November 2020 election. I do think that for…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #10
Trump’s Executive Order Pen Has Beautiful Plumage Part of the romance of American history is the idea of the power of the pen. We revere our founding documents and the imagery of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence being peneed by an ink-dipped feather quill. Trump is not immune to this fascination with quill and…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #9
If Trump Has to Go, He’s Going Loudly In this universe, Trump wants out of office just as much as the electorate who voted against him in November 2020. Of course, I’m making today’s strip in the summer of 2020, so the election has not happened yet. We’re just imagining here, which I find cathartic.…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #8
Trump Walks the White House Halls Like a Realtor The real Trump’s communication style evokes the sleazy salesman. In this first full-color “Sundy” strip, Trump takes us on a showing of the White House, which is just the kind of luxurious property than he can sell with his real estate schtick. It is true that…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #7 (Sunday)
Trump Is Too Good at Being President to Waste Time Reading One of the real Trump’s most distressing behaviors is his anti-science attitude, seen in his espousal of anti-vaccination ideas and his related promotion of conspiracy theories. Even if you want to be charitable and suggest he does not personally believe these ideologies of mistrust,…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #6
When Trump Calls to Concede an Election, Guess Who He Talks About Now that Biden has returned Trump’s phone call to concede the 2020 election, Trump has stopped feeling insulted and can now luxuriate in talking about himself. You know the people who steer conversation so readily back to themselves and their exploits? It’s fun…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #5
Biden Finally Returns Trump’s Congratulatory Phone Call I think a lot of voters hoped that Pence would be the voice of faith in this White House, and that may be the case. I also imagine him as a voice of reason, one of many people who can try to advise Trump away from his erratic…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #4
Trump’s Twitter Voice Is Tremendous When you’re frustrated by someone not answering or returning your calls, you can always turn to Twitter. “He may not be answering, but SOMEONE is going to hear me!” When reading people’s posts on social media, you can usually hear the tone of voice that goes with it. I often…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #3
Trump Wants to Send in the Troops At the time I made this comic strip, Trump had been warning U.S. governors that if they could not quell unrest in response to the latest wave of killings of black Americans, then Trump would send troops to those states and handle it himself. My hope for Trump…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #2
Biden Wins 2020 – Trump Tries to Congratulate Him “What if Trump loses on election night and does not concede?” This was a worry – which turned out to be unwarranted, but not for the reasons many of us expected – back in 2016, and it is a worry I have now, in 2020. This…
Continue reading Trump After Trump #1
I am announcing the launch of my comic strip Trump After Trump, which I plan to post regularly, though not daily since I only have time for one full-time job. I will be publishing the strips here on the blog, on YouTube and on Instagram. Read Trump After Trump Even though I don’t intend to…
Continue reading Trump After Trump: the Comic Strip
Yesterday evening I attended “Draw a Comic with Amy Kurzweil and The Believer,” hosted by Believer Magazine, via Zoom. It was an hour well spent! Amy had us warm up with a 60-second self-portrait, then she gave us a crash course in 4-panel comics, showing us a strip each from Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts and…
Continue reading Squirrel Gone Fishing
Webcomic Kindle I’m very happy to announce that my new book Kid, Grandpa, Donut is finished and ready to read! Here is the official description: One pink donut with sprinkles. Two people who want to eat it. If Kiddo can finish his chores before Grandpa does, he gets the whole thing! With the help of…
Continue reading Kid, Grandpa, Donut, by James Hough
Below are a few digital sketches that represent a snapshot of what has been going on in my painting studio lately. Working digitally like this has the huge benefit of offering infinite flexibility when working with colors. I also love to dig for intuitive geometric compositions in my paintings, and Adobe Illustrator is well suited…
Continue reading A Few Digital Sketches, Soon to Be Finished Paintings
Sean Slattery—one of my favorite friends and artists—has created an online portfolio/retail store, and I am so happy to be a featured artist on the website! It is called The Failure Store, and it has lots of Sean’s artwork along with his collaborations, including a tiny sample of works for sale by Ripper Jordan, which…
Continue reading Prints Available at thefailurestore.com
This is my personal favorite of the Fujikawa-esque fan arts I’ve made. It brings together M.I.A.’s loudness and Gyo’s softness, and I just kind of like how all the pieces came together. Now I need to take some time to finish coloring a piece with the working title, “Bad Blood.”
My daughter is devoted to Dan and Phil. It wasn’t practical to fly them out last December for a Christmas surprise, so I made a Gyo Fujikawa-inspired fan art as a gift. I owe her friend Ashley a debt of gratitude for consulting with me to ensure that I didn’t mess up any details! It turns out…
Continue reading Dan and Phil, Jumping on the Ultimate Bed, illustration by James Hough, 2015
Sometimes when you love a thing you have to do something about it. I love Lorde’s music, and too many times I’ve expressed my feelings by listening to her too much. So, to keep me from overdoing it on the tunes, I made some fan art! I also love Gyo Fujikawa, so I did what I could…
Continue reading Lorde, Riding the Bus with the Knees Pulled In, illustration by James Hough, 2015
“Humblingly” just became a word, because that is how good Seconds is. I recommend this graphic novel to anyone, particularly to aspiring graphic novelists. After I finished the book last night, I picked it up and arbitrarily opened one page, then another, and more, to see if I could imagine coming up with a spread…
Continue reading Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley is a humblingly great graphic novel
My brother turned 30 just before Christmas. He is an artist, jeweler, and gemstone enthusiast, so with a little inspiration I arrived at a novel way to send him his birthday cash: those decade birthdays call for extra recognition, right? So here is the 30-sided polyhedron—constructed from 1-dollar bills—that I sent him as a late…
Continue reading 3-D Cash Sculptures Passing Each Other in the Mail
I made this illustration during the run-up to the 2014 World Cup. I was never thrilled with the final product: it needed some attention. So, I worked with the color palette and value, and now I am happier with the artwork. Watching little kids play soccer is a unique, crazy joy, and here I give…
Continue reading Runaway Soccer Ball, new and improved!
Welcome to this final cul-de-sac of one side road of the great wandering tour of blogs by artists – writers, musicians, painters, photographers, and more! I was invited by Nancy Heard, a fellow North Texas illustrator, who in turn was invited by Bobbie Dacus, her good friend and another fellow artist. You may make your…
Continue reading A Not-So-Accidental Blog Tourist Hop Stops Here
One of the last projects I got to do for the marketing director at Faith Family Academy was to design the new billboards. Under her direction and with some great photography, these are the results.
My latest James Hough: artist • illustrator • designer postcards are in and will today begin going out to art directors everywhere!
For my MFA thesis show at UNLV, I created a lifestyle brand called Beachfront. It was all about optimism and toothpaste packaging design. There were 5 sub-brands: Beachfront Fire, Bold, Classic, Sensitive, and Gold. I created this plan for the gallery layout of the exhibition. I am including a photo of the installation of these…
Continue reading Beachfront Exhibition Layout and Photos, 2004, by James Hough
A selection of logos I created during a period of painting that was awash in graphic design and branding influences. TAF is inspired by the UPS shield logo redesign; Koby Teith is an homage to the country singer; Beachfront is a lifestyle brand modeled after toothpaste packaging design; Omoo comes from the Melville novel of…
Continue reading Logos from the Aughties by James Hough
Koby Teith was a brand I created during the time that my friends and I were writing country songs as Ripper Jordan. We liked Toby Keith’s bravado and intelligence as a songwriter, so I paid homage to him by creating a logo that I think looks like it would be dandy on a steak sauce…
Continue reading From a Selection of Paintings, 2006, by James Hough
It is crazy to look back on complete bodies of work that you made years back. I hadn’t thought about these paintings from 2007 for a while, then I stumbled upon them recently, deep in my hard drive. I made this group of paintings while I lived in Las Vegas. They embody the romance of…
Continue reading From a Selection of Paintings, 2007, by James Hough
I am working on my current postcard that I mail out to art directors, and it occurs to me that I have not shared my design from April. See? If you need drawings of gardens, furry monsters, or hovering robot artists, I’m your man!
While I worked at Faith Family Charters last year—with an amazing team of electives teachers and many beloved students—the Fine Arts director gave me the opportunity to redesign the school mascot. I’m proud of the results: here they are…
orange acrylic study, June 2014, by James Hough, acrylic on plexiglass, 14″h x 10″w
green acrylic study, June 2014, by James Hough, acrylic on plexiglass, 14″h x 10″w
black acrylic study, June 2014, by James Hough, acrylic on plexiglass, 14″h x 10″w
pink acrylic study, June 2014, by James Hough, acrylic on plexiglass, 14″h x 10″w
Here are some new acrylic studies on plexiglass. They are explorations of techniques and color palettes for new work. I worked on the set simultaneously, so they make a nice set.
Are you fed up with being stepped on? Kicked around? Left in the mud without so much as a “sorry”? You’re not alone.
Tumbley, 2014, by James Hough, acrylic on canvas, 13.5″h x 63.5″w It has been likened to a picture of blood vessels or tumbleweeds, but I call it Tumbley. This painting is approximately 12 paintings made on top of each other then collapsed into one very noisy, smooth surface.
Last year I designed the postcards for our annual SCBWI North Texas Chapter Conference, including an illustration of three Texas-shaped kites.
Here are some graphic design pieces I produced for one of the leading benefit auctioneers in Texas, Andrew Bost. I had redesigned his logo a little while before we did these advertisements.
My wife’s ancestors were pioneer farmers, and we are carrying on one of their traditions. Quilt-making! We began this one—our first—about 5 years ago then put it on hold for a while until we got some big quilting frames last Christmas. And now we have completed it. The design comes from a photo of our…
Continue reading Our first quilt
Here is a new piece for my illustration portfolio. This soccer ball in the grass began as a drawing on paper, then I painted it digitally.
I give out tickets to students as a reward for good work and good citizenship in my classes. They write their names on the tickets and put them in a bag, from which I occasionally pull one name from each class. The winner gets his or her portrait drawn by me. Here are the portraits…
Continue reading 3 New Portraits in Pencil
Woman With a White Sweater, 2014, by James Hough, digital painting, 16200 x 12900pixels (height x width)
Hank’s White Roses, 2013, by James Hough, digital painting, 10200 x 9067 pixels (height x width)
Reader, 2013, by James Hough, digital painting, 12600 x 19200 pixels (height x width)
Woman With a White Sweater (detail), 2014, by James Hough, digital painting, 16200 x 12900pixels (height x width)
Hank’s White Roses (detail), 2013, by James Hough, digital painting, 10200 x 9067 pixels (height x width)
