Return to Form (III of III)

After all the recent sessions with models - mostly doing demos - I managed to sneak in a few quick studies (maybe ten minutes on each) for myself that proved the "happy accident" maxim of drawing: when you least expect it and/or aren't really paying attention or thinking about what you're doing, sometimes surprising things appear from the other end of the pen. Call it serendipitous doodling.

April snow showers bring May flurries...

Nerves scraped somewhat thin: a shared sentiment from Saturday regarding the extra inches added on this exceptionally late spring. Nice being back home in Alaska, since I never ever really got a chance to complain about the weather whether in Maine or Georgia...
And talk about freeze-up: courtesy of The Significant Otter, we have what equates to winter writer’s block for a cartoonist: my sketchpen was found where I dropped it in the driveway, solidly encased in a sheath of ice. Truly a sublime example of ridiculous + funny.

Cartoon & Comic Art: Summer 2013

The Cartoon & Comic Art course is being offered again - for the seventh year - at UAF's Summer Sessions - for the second six-week session (registration info here). Art F195 Cartooning & Comic Art I (CRN 53489) and Art F395 Cartooning & Comic Art II (CRN 53490) will be from July 8 – August 16, 2013 at 6 - 9pm MTWR. It's offered in the evening so as to broaden the reach into the off-campus community/non-traditional/non-degree-seeking students (along with art majors looking to pick up an upper-level elective). And it's during the short summer session because there's simply nothing better than working an eight-hour day during the only two months of nice weather and then drawing cartoons for the rest of the night.

Been accruing an esteemed list of alum and local luminaries plus their respective testimonials (after the jump):

MECAF 2013

Miss you guys! The 2013 Maine Comics Arts Festival (sponsored by Casablanca Comics) is slated for tomorrow (Sunday, May 19th, 10 am-5pm) at the Ocean Gateway in Portland, Maine. Featured guests this year Jeff Smith, Brian Wood, Sean Murphy, Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman and many more: over 100 comic creators!

Return to Form (II of III)

Just recently uploaded an archive of figure work into the Picasa web-album for Drawings & Prints (possibly NSF): some 1-minute gestures + quick studies. Nothing much over 20-minute-long poses, some done in graphite, charcoal, some ballpoints, Sharpies, pen & ink, a little wash here & there. Most are from 2006-09 when I ran a monthly figure sketchgroup meeting out of a now defunct gallery, some from open studio studies, and a few done for class session models in gratitude for their work.

Hauled out the portfolio for a classroom show & tell + doing demos (see previous postings in this series), and was in part motivated to do this quick & dirty photo shoot of them on account of seeing a recent show of a locally esteemed artist who's life drawings have been getting some rave reviews - despite not being any good at all IMHO. But as I often tell students, humility means you're never as good as you think you are, and conversely you're never as bad as you think you are either. It just is what it is, the work speaks for itself, and you always move on, and keep doing more regardless. They all dovetail quite nicely with a return to figurative drawing.

Return to Form (I of III)

The first of a three-part series of postings on dabbling back in figurative studies. Very gratifying in an artistic way to get back on the proverbial bicycle after a couple-year-long hiatus from working with a model. The usual MO is to warm-up with a batch one-minute gestures with graphite on newsprint. Not of any value in an archival sense, but still fun to play with the leavings left scattered about the floor afterwards (back to the art = verb, ie an action, a process, as opposed to a noun).

Also there are a host of other factors which contribute to the physical and mental processes that kick into gear when shifting into a different mode of drawing. Even the act of standing up at an easel, the motions of drawing from the shoulder instead of from the wrist while hunched over a tabletop - not to mention going mouseless and no monitor either. The perceptual awareness of a dynamic, instinctual, reflexive approach is a subtle change that is a tremendous help in shaking off old habits of looking at and thinking about one's art. Specifically in the case of figurative work it's more often than not a simple matter of not thinking, just doing it.

Twenty-minute seated pose was penciled out on 18 x 24" Bristol, then the contour line is simplified with dip pen + India ink, and a final pass for value with charcoal and some wash. I usually make a habit of giving some originals to the model for the session and so snap a few shots of the piece to finish it digitally with a light tweak in Photoshop back at the studio.

Resurrection: Digital Filtering

Nothing funny this weekend: all very serious stuff with Fine Art in the next upcoming series of posts. Recently did a handful of demos working with a model, including these gestures made using graphite on newsprint. Using the awful iPhone camera under horrible lighting conditions actually made for some interesting results, in keeping with the previous post re: digital tweaking/resurrection.

Experimenting with a few "Distort" Photoshop filters: "plastic wrap" and "glass," and a couple Textures: "craquelure" and "lighting effect" + "blur." Never ceases to amaze me the range of potential effects that can enhance an illustration even with the barest ghost of an image.

Opening: Comic Show: AK Center for Natural Medicine

Quick recap of his past weekend's event - with another big ol' thanks to Fiona and everybody at the Alaska Center for Natural Medicine for putting on a great show. The pieces themselves will all be up for the next few months (until the end of July), but for the benefit of those who couldn't attend the opening and/or reside elsewhere here's a bit of a virtual tour of the digs.
As seen from the balcony above, visiting cartoon celebrity Chad Carpenter set right inside the front door with a table loaded with books and calendars in front of a dozen framed originals. People circulated around both floors, weaving through the clusters while looking at work on the walls until an opening would occur, when they could then meet with a particular creator, and maybe purchase some art. Sales were surprisingly fair - at least good enough to buy a bunch of stuff from other exhibitors after the tide of people went out.

Layla, Lucas and Brianna manning their stations

Digital Tweak

Quick resample of a student piece which, while not fulfilling the exact criteria for the assignment in question (18x24" graphite on drawing paper instead of 9x12" wash on Bristol), was nevertheless an excellent example of salvaging a very nice image anyways. One of the missing links in many a piece done for a drawing class is to emphasize the verb aspect of creating art: it's a process, whereby the core result can be continually recycled or re-purposed via digital means into a complimentary set of potential illustrations.

To arrive at the finished spot posted above, I ran through the following steps using Photoshop (total time about twenty minutes):
1) raw iPhone image
2) Photoshop: auto tone + contrast, adjust> shadow/highlight
3) Filter: watercolor, brush over background for contrast
4) Sepia filter + boost + blur edges, crop5) add font, dropshadow, signature

"Sure Signs of Spring"

   Let your mind off the leash and you never know where it'll wander. In this case I was brainstorming over greenup, which was kicking it out all over this neck of the woods. Not entirely sure how I got from burgeoning buds to this panel, but okay... whatever...
   Been thinking a lot about the fundamentals of teaching beginning drawing again, and so the basics come into play with this panel: fore/middle/background + foreshortening and overlapping of elements to imply some depth. To the pictorial plane, that is.
   After submitting it to the paper, it was in the back of my mind to call 'em up and have it trashed, as it was a just a little bit too weird for the regular readers, but forgot all about it until opening up the paper over breakfast. Turns out based on feedback from random folks afterwards it was a hit anyways. I love my friends.