Goin' Sketchin'

I want to appologize for the word verification thing on the comments. I know it's a hassle but I received a flurry of ad postings that absolutely ruined my day. It hadn't been too bad before that-- one here, one there-- but enough's enough. There should be some way of correcting the problem (involving pain) for those who do the sending. That's all on that.

No, I'm not going out sketching today. I haven't done a self-portrait in a while, and I drew me the way that my "Jeff: Art-guy" action figure would probably look straight out of the box. That's a wide-brimmed hat hanging off the back of my neck. In the pouch would be a small pad of paper, a pen, a pencil, a pair of sunglasses that fit over the top of my regular glasses and about fifteen bucks for a burger and a couple of beers-- the best part of going out sketching.

My arms are not that long and I'm usually smiling. Other than that it's absolutely life-like.

The End.

Heads!

I have this box of crumpled folders and paper next to my desk at work and I've been contributing to this "archive" for a few years. Thumbnails for work projects, notes, phone numbers, bad sketches, good sketches and a lot more bad sketches.

I've gone through it and I can use some of it as a blog crutch-- drawings to scan and color and post for those times when I haven't the time/energy for making new stuff. Like today. Yeah, I can probably take the rest of the year off.

So, these heads are quick pencil and ink things I did at work. Idle moments, talking on the phone, waiting for stuff to print-- I've been pretty good about doing something for myself when I have down-time, and a big part of that is just keeping a pencil and piece of paper within reach. Colored in photoshop!

King of the Jungle

Have you ever read Edgar Rice Burroughs's "Tarzan of the Apes?" I am not as well-read in the area of early 20th century american pulp-fiction as I would like to be, but it's one of my favorite adventure stories.

Uh oh, I feel a long essay coming on and I don't have the time. So, forget it. Here's a cartoon of Tarzan and a monkey.

Ta daa!

The End.

The Lonely Ranger

Pencil drawing, scanned and stained with digital crayons.

The End

(p.s.: "Excerpt" is how that should be spelled there in the picture. No spell check when you're using a danged pencil!)

Cindy and the Hummingbird of Mystery!

I've been pretty busy of late and done very little after-work art. This is a little something I whipped up the other day. It's one of those "unfinished and probably never will be" pieces.


Most likely I'll work on it some more (because I have this idea for a different background!) but it is just a doodle, after all, and that was what I started this whole blog thing for in the first place. Doodle public storage. I'll update it later. Probably.

Quick(ish) Painting

Started this last night after I got home from work and I woke up this morning with the notion of finishing it. After about a half hour of fiddling I decided that it was done, because I was starting to fix things. No fixing, says I. Paint; finish; go on to the next!

That's my outlook today, at any rate.

Just embrace that weird perspective and go on with your life. It's really bugging me. I may delete this if I just can't take it!

The End.

One of the James Gang

I may have mentioned this before but I was never a "western" kind of guy. I don't think I'd even seen a western movie until "Silverado" came out, and I didn't see any after that until "Unforgiven." But a couple years ago I started listening to the "Gunsmoke" radio shows (broadcast in the 50's-- before the T.V. show came on) and I picked up a couple of Moebius' translated-to-english "Blueberry" comics. "Gunsmoke" is now just about my all time favorite radio show, and Moebius' "Ballad for a Coffin" is one of my favorite comics EVER!

Since then I've been on a western spree. Louis L'Amour, Spaghetti westerns, other radio shows... can't get enough.

And, of course, I'd like to make some western doodles that look like I know what I'm doing. I've been studying books about the old west, gunfighters and trains in an attempt to reach a certain level of visual knowledge with the hope that I can create a few decent images of my own.

So far the stuff I come up with on my own looks pretty crummy. Every time I draw a bad western picture out of my head, I force myself to do 10 push ups and then draw something from reference. This way, someday, I will be a truly mighty western artist. Or, more likely, my arms will be too tired for me to draw anything.

This is my tired-arms western drawing for today. I will not show the really bad one I did before this.

The End

A Page of Stuff

Okay. It's hot. I've soaked a t-shirt under the faucet and put it on. I've turned on the fan and as I scribble I fight the wind for control of the piece of paper. I'm flipping through a book about the old American west and drawing a couple of figures from the old photos. The wind pushes those pages around, too. I give up and draw from my head.

I carry the wind-bent and water-wrinkly paper down to the scanner. I scan. I start to color. Maggie, the most dignified of cats, walks around making a horrid gagging sound before producing the most amazing of hair balls. A true masterpiece. I pause from coloring and perform the hair ball ritual. I finish coloring. About 35 minutes to color and hair ball.

The End.

I missed posting a couple of times. . .

So I settled down under this tree, you see. There was a gentle breeze and I was a little sleepy. I thought, "why not take a little nap?" Certainly no one would miss me if I were to take the afternoon off...


I awoke with a start and my beard was down to here! But, I thought, I just shaved! I ran across the field, back to my house to find a skyscraper! My neighborhood had been destroyed, said a passerby, by the Canadians when they attacked and took over the U.S. (so they could be closer to all the hockey teams that moved here.)

Oh, gosh, I thought. My blog! I haven't put up a new sketch or anything since I took that nap! I hope they still remember me!

The Batman: Grubby little sketch off to the side as I worked through the day. Colored in p-shoppe.

Emily Sargent: Found a Sargent pic, blocked in the basic shapes, threw away my reference and then over-worked it to the point of blah-ness. P-shop.

The End.

Thursday

There is no story for this, you can make your own. Done entirely in photoshop.

The end!