Project Description

INKTOBER 2023 Day #23: CELESTIAL.

“I wasn’t sure what to make of this idea at first, or how it was going to go. I wanted to do something different, but the ONLY thing my Brain would say in response to the prompt was ‘Celestial Seasonings’. Obviously, I relented, and I’m kind of loving what I came up with. I’ve done a few PMD food-related box art spoofs over the years, and they’re always a lot of fun (though tedious). There’s lots of room to inject my brand of wackiness.
I have consumed Celestial Seasonings teas (in the iced form. I can’t drink hot liquids. I just can’t) for many years. I drink the ‘Sleepy Time Extra’ almost every night to help wind down for sleep (my Brain puts up too much of a fight usually), and I have probably had untold gallons of ‘Wild Berry Zinger’ and ‘Black Cherry Berry’. Needless to say, I’m a fan of the drinks.
However, I realized I had another connection to the product. Many years ago, when I was finally starting to get back into my studio after nearly a decade away (while raising our young sons), my wife gave me a Wacom tablet and set me up with a trial version of Photoshop. The comic, and illustration in general, industry had moved fully in the digital direction. I had a lot of catching up and learning to do. Around the same time, we took a family trip to the next town over for a town fair. We stumbled upon one booth with an illustrator who was giving talks about working digitally with Photoshop. He was very nice, very generous with his time, and It was an enlightening experience that really helped me in that early phase of my digital journey. That illustrator was Jerry Lofaro (who lived in that town), who is famous for a lot of highly realistic animal shirts, dinosaur illustrations, art work for ‘Thomas the Train’, as well as just about every piece of art appearing on every flavor of Celestial Seasonings teas. Anyway, I hope my little spoof is as amusing to others as it is to me. I mean, come on. How awesome would ‘Wild Monkey Zinger’ tea be? And with bacon chunks? Guaranteed winner.”

Are you enjoying these monkey-filled pen and ink illustrations? Would you like to see even more of them, and be able to hold them in your very own hands? Then grab yourself a copy of my Inktober art book INKLINGS: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1733734716?ref_=ast_author_dp