Dad Draws Evelyn, Evelyn Draws Dad

While my daughter Evelyn was out playing, I sat up against a wall, drew a quick sketch of her and then filled in the background. She stopped me as I worked and wanted to contribute, so she has a few drawings appear in the screen capture. No music for this one; I made a little tune that I liked but it was too long, so I'll save it for another project.

Drawn on an iPad with Procreate!

The Bat-Man

Drew a Batman for a neighbor kid. Colored it in a hurry this morning, and I'm still in a hurry, so that is all for now.

Drawn in Manga Studio, printed, lightbox inking on paper,
scanned back into Manga Studio, tidied up, colored in Photoshop!

The End.

Experimental Piece

Goofing around with Procreate on the iPad, Garage Band and iMovie. Maybe not so great, but I had a good time!

The End

Star Wars Again

A while back – around the time of the latest Star Wars movie release – the newspaper ran a contest for “most dedicated Star Wars fan." My job was to do a drawing of the winner as their favorite Star Wars character for a section front illustration.

So, here it is! It was another case of a very quick turnaround. I was scheduled for a vacation when it was due, and I believe I started it on my last day of work, finishing it up on my 2nd or 3rd day of vacation. I worked on it in between playing with my daughter and cleaning out the garage.

Created in Clip Studio Pro and Photoshop

The End.

Head Sketchbook Project Staggers Along

I'm determined to finish my heads sketchbook project, and this is the second post since it's latest revival,* but it's clear that the blog can fill up with an annoying run of head sketches in a hurry if I continue to update in this fashion. I'm not sure how I'll handle it from here on. Possibly I'll wait until I get 16 or 20 drawings before posting them.

I'll worry about it later. Here's the latest batch. Random heads off the Internet! Drawn with an assortment of pens.

Gauri: I did a little pencil shading with an old 6B. I found an old set of watercolor pencils and took a chance, coloring in the square around her head. I applied a little water but the pencil refused to melt into watercolor like it should. The pencil set is probably 20+ years old so maybe they have a shelf date.

Ezra & Ezra: Started each of them left handed, switched back to right after total frustration set in.

The End.

See two posts back for that story.

Ugh! Politicians.

Speaking as someone who may be called upon to occasionally caricature or cartoon the President, I’m all for Trump or Cruz. Great hair on one, great faces on both. Absolutely fun to work on -- again, speaking as someone who might have to draw them.

Kasich is a bit more conventional in appearance so – while I’m (uncertainly) certain he is a fine fellow – I’m for the other guys. Bernie and Hillary are also awesome; for my own selfish interest I’d vote for them, too

Open in a new window for a MUCH larger image.

This illustration ran on May 1 in the San Jose Mercury News and East Bay Times newspapers! The fine story by Matt Artz can be read online here. Mr. Artz always does good work!

How it appeared in print.

Drawn in Photoshop on a tight deadline. Actually, I had plenty of time, but I had planned to use photographs of their heads on the bodies; I thought I was done! About three hours before deadline I was told the editors were expecting the heads to be drawn. So, I took about 30 seconds to huff and cuss and sputter angrily before reopening the illustration and drawing like the wind. 

To expedite the process I did an extremely spare tracing of Kasich and Cruz's heads, with minimal strokes indicating mouth, nose and eyes; I don't often do that. I prefer to draw freely and start over if I miss on someone's likeness. I believe my caricatures can be hampered by tightly referenced drawing; and they can end as dull portraits rather than playful or creative likenesses.*

But Kasich's face worried me. As I implied above, he's looks like a generic middle-aged white guy – no offense to me intended. To be honest, before this assignment, I couldn't have picked him out of a line-up.** With so little time to work and such a dull face, I couldn't count on making a good sketch on the first or second try. And still I'm not sure it really looks like him!

Cruz was easy and his came out best, I think. Trump? I could have used the time to take another swing at him. Not totally happy. As the clock was winding down I overlaid the photo I used for reference and tried to correct things, which unsurprisingly didn't help much. Oh well.

That's all for now!

The End.

*Although they look more like dull portraits than creative likenesses anyway.

**I'm not following the Presidential race at all this time. I don't know why, but I'm just not interested. I know I should be, but every time I try to rouse the interest, I lose interest. Wake me when it's over and I can just make funny cartoons about Hillary.

Let Us Finish This Damned Thing!

In early 2008 I bought a small sketchbook intending to fill it with head studies. I misplaced it after several months and two or three dozen drawings. A year passed. In late 2009 I rediscovered the book, promptly drew one head (very poorly) and placed it on a high shelf in the closet. The world whisked around the sun a time or two.

In 2011 the book came out from hiding and – again – I drew a single head. It was better than 2009's solitary effort but not by much. I must have been discouraged. The book settled back in the closet, out of plain sight and easy reach. Like Van Winkle's eyelids, the cover shut and did not open for a very long time.

In 2015, February marked yet another rediscovery. The tiny sketchbook had completely fallen from memory and was such a surprise that it prompted a blog-post where I spouted off about how this time I would see it through to the end; but a measly four drawings were all that I generated, two of which appear here. March contributed one half-assed effort – that would be Jon. Jon wouldn't be joined by Arlene until June but she was followed quickly by three Contessas.

Today, ten months later, the book is back in play. Wilhelmina was drawn this morning. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book.

Enough! I'm not putting it back in the closet. I'll never learn to draw at this pace.

Let us finish this damned thing.

Dumping E-Waste

This is an illo for a San Jose Mercury News story about recycling electronics devices and such. It was written by long-time colleague George Avalos and you can read the story at this link.

Drawn in Manga Studio and Photoshop!

When I received this assignment the topic was clear but the story hadn't been written yet – not an uncommon situation. The general concept for the illustration was agreed on and it was suggested I not spend a lot of time on it; there were too many other assignments to sort through, so maybe just grab some bits & pieces of older illustrations and put them together with a couple new sketches. Sounded good!

But that never works out. I should know better. I spent too much time looking through old work and trying to make clip art out of it when it would have been more efficient to simply make a new drawing.

A few objects there at the bottom of the stack are cut and paste jobs, and there were a few others, but they didn't fit nicely and I wasted more time warping them, redrawing them, trying to get them to match with the general style. I finally came to my senses, put my shoulder to the old grindstone and drew the stupid thing.

Page design by the great Daymond Gascon

The End

A Tragic Love Story

Long-time colleague Matthias Gafni tells a powerful story of age, disease, the right to die and the compounding cruelty of the law; awful, awful circumstances. Matthias always does a great job and this is one of the most moving stories I've illustrated. You can read it at this link.

Open in a new window for a larger image. Drawn in Photoshop.

I plowed through this illustration as quickly as I could. The topic really bothered me and once I had the concept I did my best to keep my thoughts from dwelling on the tale. I much prefer illustrating fun, light stories and always find the darker and sadder assignments draining.

There is truth in that most news is bad news, but some news is worse than that. One must work on what he or she has to work on and hope that tomorrow's task is less depressing.

Below is the lovely Sunday page designed by Chris Gotsill.

Jack Kirby Study

In the bloom of youth, when I was “the kid who loved to draw,” one of my favorite things to do was to imitate panels or entire pages from my favorite comics. People, cars, buildings, animals, spaceships – you could learn how to draw everything by looking at comics. Redrawing pages and panels was a major part of my early self-education. I spent my formative years studying the great comics masters without once realizing that was what I was doing.

I still get to draw for my job occasionally – so I have not given up on drawing entirely – but I’ve drifted from the habit of drawing for pleasure and fallen far from the practice of drawing on paper.

HB and 4B pencils on Strathmore 300 bristol paper!

It has been more than a decade since I’ve created art regularly in any other medium aside from digital. I would like to return to the days of curiosity-driven study and joyful sketching. I’ve spoken often about getting back to the basic pleasures of drawing in the real world but haven’t made much progress.

Well, here is a nugget of progress. It’s a study of Fantastic Four, issue #91, page two. I wasn’t trying to create an exact replica, just looking at and following Jack Kirby’s design and layout. I think I may have followed too closely in spots – resulting in a piece that looks like Kirby on a bad day – but it was fun to do and the fun was what I was hoping for.

There will be more drawing on paper to come, and maybe more comics drawn on paper since this was such a good time!

The end.