An Indian and Col. Sibley

While waiting for the watercolor to dry on one of my Head Sketchbook Project doodles, I started these little caricatures on plain old typing paper. Then, I pulled out the old watercolor pencils and just filled in the back ground with whatever color I picked up. Totally mindless.
...The typing paper isn't any worse than the "watercolor paper" in the sketchbook. I didn't try to paint the figures because I drew them with a water soluble pen.
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Sketchbook Head Posts Combined...

Posted these heads individually before, but it made for a tedious series of readings/lookings. So I bundled them up into one post.

Superman and Tarzan

Superman and Elmo Lincoln, the first guy to play Tarzan

Tor and Coleman Hawkins

I recently bought the six issues of TOR that were published by DC Comics in the mid-'70s-- they consist mainly of reprints of Joe Kubert's TOR stories from the '50s, but the first issue had a new (for '75) story. How can you go wrong with cavemen and dinosaurs? You can't. And now, after reading the books again, here at my desk, listening to the Coleman Hawkins CD, making these two head drawings-- I think every time I look at TOR, every time I think about cavemen and dinosaurs, I will hear jazzy big band swing music in my head.
... That's cool.

Boris and a Mandan Indian

Referenced from a Boris Vallejo painting and a book about American Indians.
...In my youth I yearned for a copy of "The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo," published in 1978. Though I saw it many times, I never had the right amount of money at the right time. 10 bucks was a heap of cash! I found a copy in a used book store this year-- 5 bucks! Patience paid off.

A Woman and A Face in the CrowdA couple of more faces from the Time-Life Old West books.

Hiram Revels and a Woman

Made a real effort to throw down some watercolor on these drawings. Total disaster. The paper rebelled and my lack of skills made it worse. I started to try to fix it in photoshop but I decided it wasn't worth the effort. Ugly.
...I tried out a Bienfang watercolor brush pen for the drawing of Mr. Revels; I wasn't really happy with how it worked out. It was not the pen's fault, but I considered the drawing a loss and thought I might as well put more watercolor on there-- it couldn't possibly be worse! Well, wrong again.

The End
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Wading Through the City

I found an old rough doodle and messed with it ever so slightly-- I didn't want it to become another project but I wanted to polish it up and make it presentable. Is it? Eh.

The End

I-Sci-Fi #4

I started this faux cover on Sunday the 2nd with the self-imposed deadline of Friday the 7th, which I didn't think I'd be able to meet. I did okay! What you see here is what I was able to do.
...I worked about 3 hours on Sunday and squeezed in an hour or two Monday through Thursday. On Friday I played with the type and tweaked the painting ever so slightly to make it easier to read the text.

I have a slight notion of "finishing" this piece, but my deadline is to be respected. I'm role-playing a little bit-- pretending that this is a real project and that I've only so much time. I might jump back into it and make it better if I just can't stands it no more.

Geez, I didn't finish the rocket interior and the hammer is asking for a touch more work. What a hack!

As I worked, a story for this painting developed and I had the idea of writing it up and presenting it alongside this painting-- like my previous I-Sci-Fi post-- but it took a long time to write that story and I felt it was necessary to make more artwork to prop it all up. It was fun, but creatively I was trapped in a hole with that little project for a month and a half trying to get both words and pictures to a place where I wasn't completely embarrassed by the presentation.

And, of course, it appears that nobody who got around to reading it was motivated to comment on it. I guess that'll encourage me to stick to pictures for the time being!

The End

I-Sci-Fi #4 in progress

The original post was very long and has been placed in storage until I can spend time making it more useful.

How the cover came about, short version:

The End.

A & E Cover

Another Contra Costa Times Arts and Entertainment section cover. This goes with the feature written by CCT columnist Tony Hicks (his blog here) about our culture's celebration of stupid behavior.
...This was a quick turnaround. One of the editors asked for a little help on the cover design and I volunteered to do an illustration. I had about a day and a half advance on it, but there were a few other chores that kept me from getting a comfortable stretch of time on it; I'm sure I didn't get more than about six hours to do this, a couple of those hours came at home.
...That's not a complaint.
...I'm sure you've heard about the desperate situation that the newspaper industry is in, and newsroom is days away from what could be a massive round of layoffs; I'm terribly uncertain if the on-the-fringes-of-journalism talents that I bring to the table are going to be considered worth keeping. I am seeing each opportunity to contribute as a possible last opportunity.
...Although, for many years, it's been a regular part of my job to make graphics and artwork for entire section covers, for the front page, for the various sections, I feel that maybe I've taken the coolness of it all for granted. When you're looking at a project as your last project it kind of brings your critical eye directly to the front.
...I hope I get another cover in, this one's okay, but I think I can do better!

The ENd.
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