In Progress

One of my assignments this past week has been to paint the cover for the Contra Costa Times' upcoming election special. Good fun. Kinda.

I don't have a lot of confidence in my caricature and/or portraiture abilities. It's not an aspect of picture-making that I've practiced enough to allow me to smile and say, "Oh yeah! Phil Angelides and the Governator! Let me at 'em!" It's always a real struggle for me, but having these two guys as the subjects for the painting is a help.

Arnold is such a well-known character that all you really have to do is come close to getting it to look like him and the audience will fill in the blanks. Angelides is a very distinctive looking man with his large ears, prominent nose, and I've noticed in the pictures I've found that his hair never seems to change. He has a great face and a great overall look that editorial cartoonists would love to get ahold of.

The first picture is the original rough. As I progressed I flipped their positions, having them stand back to back and in this case I think it makes for a better composition.

The second picture is a screen capture of how they look as I near the finish. I'm almost happy with the Angelides portrait, and Arnold is "close enough." At the beginning I thought that it might stray further into caricature, but I'm glad I stayed a bit straighter than I thought I could.

I'll post the final after it runs.

The End.

50!

Post # 50, that is. My goal was to reach 100 this year, but that's looking like it might be a little out of range. Still, who'd'a thunk I'd make it to 50? Not I.

I've started a new job. I now work in the News Graphics department of the Contra Costa Times, and I'm still slightly dazzled by all the new routines I have to learn. Although it's technically the same type of job I had before, it requires a broader knowledge of more programs and operating systems, and the server set-up is more complicated than I'm used to. I know it's simply a matter of time until it becomes routine but I'm in "new-guy" mode, so my brain is slightly panicky.

The old job worked me extra hard right up until the end and the new one is really occupying my days and my thoughts here at the beginning, so I haven't had much time for personal work. And the commute! I'm losing one-and-a-half to two-hours to travel time, so far. That pretty much crushes what used to be my personal drawing time. I'll find a way to get it back eventually-- drawing on breaks, getting up an hour or so earlier, whatever.

Onward and upward, right? Onward, at least!

Today's post: Some quick doodles done late at night before I started the new job-- the only drawing I've done outside of work this past month. Pencil and pen on plain old paper. Colored in P-shop.

The End.

Couple of Quick Studies

A long time ago I bought that Dover book of Dore's illustrations for Don Quixote-- great book. I've given a rest for a couple of years but I picked it up again this week and went through it, page by page, not skipping a thing. And then I made a cup of tea and went through it again.

One morning, just before work, I did these figure studies from a couple of Dore's drawings. Pitt brush pen on paper, vandalized in photoshop to make them look fancier than they really are.

The End.

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