So process notes…I had already done 5 or 6 drawings of the model in costume before I go to this one.

I liked the energy of the drawing, but wanted to push is a bit more for comics. I didn’t think there was enough expression in the face.

So i redrew the initial design. Naturally I smudge it and accidentally backed out making the change permanent. Time to add yet another layer! Also this time with more feeling! And graphic cheats!

Although this was done in procreate it still retains a lot of the feel of my comics pages done with fountain pens. I am traveling a lot now so I don’t always have the space for paper and inks. But anyways, line art complete!

I tend to do this a lot but for mid tones I added another layer! then used 50-60 grey.

Yet another layer! This time with 30-40% grey so now I have a total of 5 tones. Black, white and three grey/midtones.

Color! I think if this was a comic I would keep it black and white. I might also add some half tone for a little extra texture.

Keep making art kids!

Trying to get ahead of the weather I left the island early. It was pretty windy and shaky taking off. And the sky looked blood red as the sun came up over the horizon around 9am yesterday. I had to run and get my lighter boots, as thought my big Baffin’s would look strange to folks as I came through to Chicago. I usually wear sandals when traveling, easier to talk off for security. The 1st picture here is from the road to the school when it is not so dark and windy.

I got a room in Nome for the night. Milano’s in Nome is run by a nice Korean family and many people were saying “Kamsamnida” instead of thanks for the meal. They said it was green tea, but the flavor was definitely Barley. The burger was excellent as per usual. I also tagged on a spicy tuna roll. Yum!

Some views from Nome, AK.

After making some doodles and notes I retired for the evening.

In the morning I went to the Polar Cafe. Had a decent western omelette and kicked around at the heritage center/museum for a while before I got on the plane.

Half of the museum was closed until after Jan 1st, but the permanent collection was still open.

This is a woodcut by Melvin Olanna of Shishmaref, AK.

I walked around the exhibits 3 times. One time taking a picture.

The second time drawing notes on my iPad in procreate.

And the third time with my sketch book and pens. The sketchbook felt so light compared to the iPad. And working with a pen is also still far more intuitive than an apple pen or stylus. Both are enjoyable though. (this is the limit on pictures for blogging.)

I ended up chatting with the clerk for a bit, hearing stories about moving to Alaska from Seattle and how the job opportunities were better back in the day, they seemed like they had a good ride/they were enjoying their journey.. I also heard stories from the cab driver about dredging for gold, diving and fishing for herring and halibut. They were from Anchorage so they grew up before the marine mammal ban for non-natives. So they also hunted seal growing up.

Before my flight I also chatted with another teacher. Mostly about teaching. But some about politics. We did not agree on a whole lot. Especially about the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and the apartheid between Israel and Palestine. I think it is still good to have those difficult conversations. They did not understand that a population of Christians live in Palestine…that was once 10% of the population, now down to 2%. Although they did agree that Palestine was essentially a ghetto, like what happened in Poland. They did not believe the death toll as reported by many independent journalists and international organizations, And at some point I understood nothing I said was going to sway them from thinking that Israel is within its rights to do what it has done over the last year. It’s strange to me…Ronald Regan threaded to stop arms shipments to stop Israel. So did George Bush Jr.

Cornell West and Norman Finklestein seems to have the best analysis about Gaza if anyone is interested to google them.

Keep Making Art Kids!

These are from Akira Kurosawa’s Ran/Seven Samurai and Tony Scott’s Domino. Kurosawa is maybe the best visual live action director or all time, I think Orson Welles is #2. Maybe that makes David Lean #3… And Tony Scott #4. Man on Fire I think is Tony Scott’s best visual film. Crimsion Tide I think is Scott’s best film. But Domino is very good. He used an old style hand crank camera and ektachrome 35mm film. Super lush color and high contrast. I wanted to keep a controlled color palette and push the shapes/expression. I think I was most successful drawing from the opening scene in Ran. (The one with the bow and arrow)

KEEP MAKING ART KIDS!!!

I’ve seen wax paintings before and wanted to try it, but only recently have made a couple pictures like this. In class I will show examples of Egyptian funeral paintings, where they would use encaustic to make a somewhat realistic portrait of the deceased. Where we live in upstate NY I have seen more abstract works that figurative. I had a lot of fun carving into the wax, then rejecting different areas and carving again before laying in all the little details. Keep making art kids!

“Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society”

I currently teach k-12 art in Savoonga, AK. We are doing Xmas door decoration for our classrooms, But last night our community got a whale. It’s a big deal because it will feed the whole community. I was even given a bag of muktuk/mangtaq. So I did a picture of a bowhead whale to celebrate instead of the traditional Christmas pictures.

These are from a session from last year. I’m currently cataloging my IG so I if take it down I will end up reposting here down the line. When I was doing my Masters for teaching I did a tally in 2013. At that time I had figured I had make something like 30,000 drawings in my life to that point. I’m not saying they were all good, but it is all good putting the time in to study…building on experience. I still make art everyday. And one of my things is whatever your day job is, making art to stay in touch with your senses…a reminder that we are alive and have experiences through our senses….this is something we can relate to as human beings being human. Keep making art kids!

https://boomtown.press/the-making-of-solarpunk-ranger/

A radical news site in Rochester, NY got me on the mic to to talk about comics, anarchy and life. I also was asked a question in e-mail about how Anarchism influences my art process and I accidentally wrote an article.

https://boomtown.press/an-anarchists-sketchbook/

I hope you enjoy my pre-midlife crisis musings and some keys into my world view.

I keep saying I’m going to do a deeper dive on character design at some point. This isn’t that. Coming to newgrounds from instagram represents 1st and foremost me not wanting to engage with AI in art spaces. I think this has been good. I also appreciate the feedback I have gotten since moving over here. I think I’m going to be here for a while.

I think I am cautious about critique on the internet for art. I had a comment about anatomy/proportion recently. So this sent me into a tailspin about wether or not to directly respond to it. I realized I haven’t been in a forum like space for a long time. IG functions like a marketplace more than a forum. It took me an hour to step back and not immediately respond…its an ADHD thing.

On the one hand I’m approaching middle age and I have many years of making art behind me. Lots of experience. On the other hand I don’t think operating from a place of “I’m an expert and I’m always right” is healthy at all.

So I did not respond directly. But since the art I posted is from 2017 and was only posted on IG. it was interesting to see the reaction. Then for me to go back and check my work.

So I did for this older piece something I have done with some of my undergrad classes. I changed the opacity and did a draw over to check the structure/design.

Just on first glance I was remembering what it felt like to make the piece…

I can see where the skeleton is. He is also in movement so there is some distortion, but much less than I thought there was. I did not do an underdrawing. My practice at the time was to use the lasso tool in Photoshop to block out areas. Then render with the pencil or brush tool. I really preferred the pencil tool for the rough edges, I was also using a paint bucket tool at a lower opacity.

There really isn’t a background, like a city or environment etc. It’s a big triangle inside of a square.

I then tried to stand the same figure up in a more neutral position. He is standing at 6 1/2 heads tall. Which is not heroic or cartoony proportions but more inline with an average person. Only folks that are Tyson Fury’s size or some basketball players come in at 7.5 heads tall. I also put some meat on the figure in movement where I places the gesture/balljoints. I have studied figures and characters for 20+ years so again I was painting and more concerned with expression and the feeling of shooting a bow and arrow, specifically the moment when you let go of the arrow before the arrow is in flight/archer’s paradox etc.

Looking one more time I’m noticing all of the custom brushes I was using. I took photos of circuit boards and fabrics and marbled paper and watercolors/inks lots of stuff to get the texture. I stopped working in photoshop because of adobe’s policy of ^%$# the artist. I still have that brush set and I often give it away to students.

So while I think critiques are useful. I would caution about just taking in anything anyone says. “In the matters of boots I refer to the shoemaker.” Also my gratitude to the person who gave me that critique. It was good to review over some basics about design. And also reflect on where I have grown over the past 8 or 9 years.

I love all of the little errors and noise and markmaking that speak to the my state of miind at the time… I was just having fun making art. I wasn’t trying to make a print or a design to sell. That’s still where the juice is for me. KEEP MAKING ART KIDS!

First I want to take a look at a character I was using years ago. The Dog With No Name. This is how he appeared in the 4 issues of the book Animal City ended up. Now I got to a point where I didn’t think it was working how I wanted it to so I stopped. I may try to rework the project or finish it at some point. Anyways here is the Dog.

I think of design as having 4 points on a compass. This in no small part comes from Scott McCloud’s pyramid. He had photography/realism at one extreme. At another the picture plane/abstraction. And finally symbol/cartooning/language at the other. Eddie Campbell had a rebuttal of McClouds thoughts. It’s comics, just make comics! I take this as his putting personal expression at the forefront. So let’s play with this idea. First let’s move the Dog more towards abstraction a bit.

Moving more towards shapes. Let’s go a bit farther.

Cool, now he’s starting to look like a block print. Even farther toward the picture plane?

Yep. Triangles and trapezoids etc. OK Let’s get back to the center.

Here is another that looks more how I typically was drawing the dog. And I punched that up with a mid tone.From here let’s get more realistic.

The way I normally draw the dog he really doesn’t look like a dog. I’m not saying I prefer this, but just to illustrate the point, let’s try a photo bash to go all the way to photography.

And lastly let’s go the other way and head towards cartooning even more than I normally go.

It’s a bit more streamlined. So I’m not doing this to say one way is better. I lean more towards abstracting and cartooning, Now I like this, but maybe it’s not expressive enough for me. I wanna feel it when I draw. So taking what I’ve tried out I’ll do one more and try to integrate the ideas while refining. And refocusing on expression.

Hopefully I refined the design, but at the same time not gotten bogged down with being slick. KEEP MAKING ART KIDS!!!