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| Painted in Photoshop, about 15 minutes. Open in new window for a HUGE! image. |
Haven't painted in a long time. Maybe the picture isn't so hot, but it sure feels good to do it.
The End
Impression of Evelyn
While she naps, I paint a quick impression of the daughter. Unintentionally kind of spooky. Oh, well.
Haven't painted in a long time. Maybe the picture isn't so hot, but it sure feels good to do it.
Haven't painted in a long time. Maybe the picture isn't so hot, but it sure feels good to do it.
Predicting Silicon Valley's Future
On a Wednesday evening, in haste -- for the end of shift was near -- I doodled this thumbnail after a brief brainstorming session with the art director and page designer. I submitted it to the editors for approval and went home.
Whooosh! That was pretty quick. I spent another 40 minutes tweaking it for two online presentations, changing it from a vertical to a horizontal design, which necessitated a little more drawing, but I'm not counting that!
Here is what it looked like in the paper after Daymond Gascon put the page together. He made it look nice, didn't he?
And here is the link to Mike Cassidy's excellent story.
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| I stole the hand from the illustration in my previous post and scribbled the rest in about 10 minutes. |
The next day, in the early afternoon, the idea was approved. At 12:58 p.m., this sketch was all I had. By 6:45 I was done:
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| Open in a new window to see a MUCH larger image! |
Whooosh! That was pretty quick. I spent another 40 minutes tweaking it for two online presentations, changing it from a vertical to a horizontal design, which necessitated a little more drawing, but I'm not counting that!
And here is the link to Mike Cassidy's excellent story.
The End.
Rolling Stones Tickets Are Hella Expensive
Here's my effort at an illustration for Jim Harrington's fine story about concert ticket prices. If you read the story I must warn you that the next time you exit the subway and pass by that old guy sitting on a bucket playing an erhu, you might feel compelled to drop at least a 20 in the cup. After all, you're getting front-row, v.i.p. access to live music performed by someone over 70.
Below are four screenshots of the illustration in progress.
Top left: My rough idea sent to the editors for approval. A hopefully amusing play on the audience-raising-lighters-at-a-concert shtick, with one guy in the foreground burning money representative of the amount of a ticket. The editors liked it, but wanted more people burning money. Dang. That means drawing more hands doing different things.
Top right: Mick and Keith line drawings -- at this point I wasn't crazy about Mick's likeness, but I hoped to fix it during the coloring process.
Bottom left: I started filling in the flat colors behind the linework after the long slow grind of drawing hands. I had also drawn hands holding money, but they were on hidden layers; I kind of preferred the visual joke of having just the one pair of hands lighting the money, and kept this as an option in case it was later decided to go that direction.
I did re-use a hand or two, but redrew a few fingers on each so it wasn't so obvious.
Bottom right: Here the rendering began. Mick's face started to look better after this, although I'm still not happy with how the final looked, but deadlines will be deadlines. At the last minute I decided I didn't care for the big, bare fore-arms right up front, so I put some sleeves on them, probably with a bit too much haste. The coloring helps, but they look more like tubes than sleeves.
Also, at the very last minute I put frets on Keith's guitar. No time for strings, tho!
And here is what it looked like in the paper, on a page designed by Scott Swyres:
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| Open image in a new window for a GIANT! version. It's much easier to see the sloppy handiwork. |
Below are four screenshots of the illustration in progress.
Top left: My rough idea sent to the editors for approval. A hopefully amusing play on the audience-raising-lighters-at-a-concert shtick, with one guy in the foreground burning money representative of the amount of a ticket. The editors liked it, but wanted more people burning money. Dang. That means drawing more hands doing different things.
Top right: Mick and Keith line drawings -- at this point I wasn't crazy about Mick's likeness, but I hoped to fix it during the coloring process.
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| Open in new window for a bigger picture, if you're that interested. |
Bottom left: I started filling in the flat colors behind the linework after the long slow grind of drawing hands. I had also drawn hands holding money, but they were on hidden layers; I kind of preferred the visual joke of having just the one pair of hands lighting the money, and kept this as an option in case it was later decided to go that direction.
I did re-use a hand or two, but redrew a few fingers on each so it wasn't so obvious.
Bottom right: Here the rendering began. Mick's face started to look better after this, although I'm still not happy with how the final looked, but deadlines will be deadlines. At the last minute I decided I didn't care for the big, bare fore-arms right up front, so I put some sleeves on them, probably with a bit too much haste. The coloring helps, but they look more like tubes than sleeves.
Also, at the very last minute I put frets on Keith's guitar. No time for strings, tho!
And here is what it looked like in the paper, on a page designed by Scott Swyres:
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| Don't bother clicking, it doesn't get any bigger. |
The end
The Artist Resurfaces...
"Over thar! Off the port bow! He's posted an artworks, laddies. How can he have stayed down so long? Is he breaching? Is he going to thrash the ship with his mighty tail? Or has he expired? Mayhap he is merely bobbing to the surface to show his belly to the sun and feed the gulls."
I am still in the cold, cold grip of a monumental art-slump. I haven't scribbled anything of merit since my last post several weeks ago, and I won't insist on the "merit" bit if you feel differently. Still, I have hopes. I will be off of work for a few days and I have aspirations and I have a pencil. That is all an artist needs, right?
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| Don't bother clicking, it doesn't get any bigger. |
In the interest of keeping the blog floating -- be it belly-up or not -- here is a small scan of a mid-90s acrylic painting I did on the cover of a small 3x5 sketchbook. That should be enough for at least one gull.
The End.
Cartoon Portrait!
Me & E. We got up early and couldn't go back to sleep. Today will be a long slog, to be sure.
The end.
Trying To Get It Going
Total frustration has set in when it comes to getting any traction in creating my own personal artwork. I HAVE to start pushing and get some done. I'm going to try to post something every day or two. It won't always be good, but maybe bad art hanging on the internet wall will help drive me.
These are screen snaps from a couple of panels on a comics page I started last week. I worked on the giant guy in armor a little bit this morning. And now... damn. Off to work. Grumble.
These are screen snaps from a couple of panels on a comics page I started last week. I worked on the giant guy in armor a little bit this morning. And now... damn. Off to work. Grumble.
The End
TV Binge? I Confess. I've Done This.
I may have mentioned this 200 times before, but I hate television. "Hate," some say, is a hard word and rarely should it be used, and I agree; but even that word, applied with premeditation and with the respect for the true feelings of disgust it should convey, is far too tame for the angry loathing I feel for television. Earlier in life I unplugged my TV with a snarl and unplugged it remained for nearly a decade.
A friend gave me Battlestar Galactica season 1 on DVD. Thank you, I said, and put it on my shelf. There it stayed for more than two years. But one night, after a very long and frustrating day at work, I came home mad and hungry. I made a quick dinner and put the first DVD into the computer, just to trick myself into thinking about something else. It worked. The show was great.
I was up all night. No. Really. All night and into the late morning of the next day. No sleep. I staggered back to work, tired and twitchy. If you watch a TV show in a dark room for twelve or thirteen hours and then go sleepless back into your working life, every moment has an out-of-body quality that makes talking, walking and thinking seem wearily bothersome. Your eyelids have the impression that they're just not supposed to shut anymore, so blinking on purpose becomes the most important thing you have to remember to do.
I made it through the day, drove home safely, and, yes, watched several more episodes. I didn't finish the whole first season without sleeping, but I powered through in three days without missing a shift at work. I must have been prompted to such irresponsible irrationality by something close to love. Maybe it was love; that was the first television show I was fully committed to since Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks was canceled in 1991? 92? True love, for me, is rare but it bites deep.
So, getting back to the purpose of the blog, Hey! I drew this picture! Chuck Barney wrote this story about how some people avoid broadcast television shows so they can watch an entire season or an entire run in a very short amount of time. I completely grok.
No, this isn't a caricature of me watching Downton Abbey with a lap cat and a pile of supplies, but it will be once season 3 hits streaming on Netflix! The first two seasons were fab. Don't tell me who dies! Don't tell me who dies in season 3 of Walking Dead, either. Those are the next TV binges on my list.
I've relaxed my stance slightly. The television gets plugged in for the occasional football game and the World Series, but my temper is tested by the wretched tide of repeated commercials; particularly those pleading for me to watch a sitcom or singing contest. Please. I will never! watch your show. Unless.
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Drawn in Photoshop. Putting the cans of soda on the toaster oven is probably a bad idea. Please switch the slice of pizza and the six pack in your imagination and save me the trouble of redrawing it. Thnx!
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A friend gave me Battlestar Galactica season 1 on DVD. Thank you, I said, and put it on my shelf. There it stayed for more than two years. But one night, after a very long and frustrating day at work, I came home mad and hungry. I made a quick dinner and put the first DVD into the computer, just to trick myself into thinking about something else. It worked. The show was great.
I was up all night. No. Really. All night and into the late morning of the next day. No sleep. I staggered back to work, tired and twitchy. If you watch a TV show in a dark room for twelve or thirteen hours and then go sleepless back into your working life, every moment has an out-of-body quality that makes talking, walking and thinking seem wearily bothersome. Your eyelids have the impression that they're just not supposed to shut anymore, so blinking on purpose becomes the most important thing you have to remember to do.
I made it through the day, drove home safely, and, yes, watched several more episodes. I didn't finish the whole first season without sleeping, but I powered through in three days without missing a shift at work. I must have been prompted to such irresponsible irrationality by something close to love. Maybe it was love; that was the first television show I was fully committed to since Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks was canceled in 1991? 92? True love, for me, is rare but it bites deep.
So, getting back to the purpose of the blog, Hey! I drew this picture! Chuck Barney wrote this story about how some people avoid broadcast television shows so they can watch an entire season or an entire run in a very short amount of time. I completely grok.
 |
Rough sketch (left), refined drawing with flat color (center), and, on the right, the illustration in-progress when I was still trying to figure out how I was going to paint this.
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No, this isn't a caricature of me watching Downton Abbey with a lap cat and a pile of supplies, but it will be once season 3 hits streaming on Netflix! The first two seasons were fab. Don't tell me who dies! Don't tell me who dies in season 3 of Walking Dead, either. Those are the next TV binges on my list.
The End
p.s. Moments ago, as I type, I watched the last episode of Caprica. It's taken me a few weeks to get through it, as I have learned to be patient and pace myself.
New College Try
Here is an illustration that ran on the February 24th Sunday front of the Oakland Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, the Daily Review, the Argus, and um, the ... well, all those Bay Area News Group papers. (Nobody's really sure how many there are.)
Here is how it looked in the paper:
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| A digital drawing accompaniment to a fine story about online education by Katy Murphy. |
Here is how it looked in the paper:
The End
Seven Years of Blogging
Today, the 19th of February, marks the end of this blog's 7th year. I hesitate to say that today also marks the beginning of the 8th year because I haven't been a very good blogger of late and Year 8 might be a very weak character.
I'm not planning on stopping entirely, but I may take a long break, or perhaps I'll open up a new blog somewhere else. I think I need a change of scenery, or a new start; that might be reinvigorating! Or maybe I'll upload a new banner and get back to posting regularly tomorrow. I have no idea.
I'm not planning on stopping entirely, but I may take a long break, or perhaps I'll open up a new blog somewhere else. I think I need a change of scenery, or a new start; that might be reinvigorating! Or maybe I'll upload a new banner and get back to posting regularly tomorrow. I have no idea.
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| I made these biscuits back in November. They are little stale, but they still look kind of fresh! |
I'm in a horrible art-slump. I haven't made the time or found the energy for my own projects, and I haven't been digging the work I've done on the job at all.
I'm pretty certain I have a touch of that mid-life crisis thing going on. Am I doing what I want to do? Do I know what I want to do? Should I quit my lousy job and work at the local bookstore only to find out that is an even lousier job?
Wait. The bookstores are all gone. I guess I have to keep doing what I'm doing. Or do I?
Wait. The bookstores are all gone. I guess I have to keep doing what I'm doing. Or do I?
Don't mind me. I haven't had a proper whining session or an on-internet meltdown in a long time.
Happy 7th, Blog!
The End?
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