"Seasons"

I'm really pleased with this one. Not a Nuggets, but it'll definitely get printed up full-sized and framed like 2024's epic "Rush Hour" panel and go on the wall for the annual fall faculty exhibition.  It took a while, not so much to actually, physically draw, though that was also tedious, but more it sat around incubating (fermenting?) in sketch form for forever. The layout/composition was the most fun in the process. I oscillated a lot after it was finished, tweaking the three vertical floater panels with different ranges of value, but it always came across as too overworked, too Photshoppy, so I deliberately left them flat (update: yep sure enough, even after uploading, I still went back one more time and tweaked them yet again with a super-subtle gradation + a handful more digital flakes set off against the hand-drawn ones) and also using no color. The middle "smoke" panel was the only area not converted with the usual threshold setting after the scan - the 18x24" original being so big it had to be scanned (I now again have an Epson tabloid in my office) in two separate sections then digitally recombined, so as to retain the softer, grimy aesthetic.

The script was an emergency backup for a collaborative page exercise in one class, but wasn't used. Then it evolved into somewhat of a demo piece done in the background of several Pen & Ink sessions, hence the range of different textures: scumbling with a ballpoint pen; crow-quill dip-pen on the leaves (a real pain as it was on an 18x24" sheet of watercolor paper so the surface texture was constantly snagging the nibs); the regular Hunt 105 dip-pen on the background + dog; a stick dipped in India ink for the iconic black spruce; brush on the droplets (again, as with the dip-pens, a bit too chunky on account of the substrate but cleaned up digitally), and lastly the Microns (8, 10 and 12) for the text + panel borders. It was originally intended to double as a demo in using watercolors (hence the stock) and also how to incorporate masking fluid into the long-term development of a piece, but by the time I finished the linework, I was too impatient to monkey around with it any more. 

After a search through the archives, I dug up this image from the compost heap: from a post back in 2020 about an encounter with a neighboring stray, and an accompanying Bukowski poem I was turned on to back during my tenure at SCAD for graduate studies. I had always intended that to be a study for a much larger piece, but had completely forgotten about the project, as happens with many an artistic intention (again with the mental mulch-pile metaphor). 

So I was pretty moved emotionally to rediscover it and see it come full circle. I mean, how weird to semi-remember that the three-legged dog in that exact same pose had already been sketched out: it stirred a visual memory, and I made a mental note to ferret out and follow the breadcrumbs down a rabbit hole. And it only resurfaced on account of a random post on social media about either the same dog, or perhaps one of the many similar stray sled dogs that limp around maybe after getting mutilated by a trap.

The chosen lyrics were done at the last minute, on the fly, right before working on the final inks. In retrospect an obvious instinctual choice, from one of my favorite male vocalists of all time. A beautiful man with such a Hutchence vibe (suicide notwithstanding). And that particular song is so transcendent, so evocative and bleakly, perversely empowering, especially after out record-setting winter amidst so much existential stress and brutal horrors unfolding daily.

Finally, another note scribbled on the doodle is "*use Kakimori." This is in reference to a new (well, new as in new to me and the only reboot of the same technology since metal nibs were first invented) nib design from Kakimori, via Dick Blick. Before my professorship there is absolutely no way I would have been able to afford such a luxury toy, as it's fifty bucks, and another fifty for the holder - though the heft of the aluminum one is an interesting difference from the wooden ones I prefer, so it'll doubtless I will return to playing with it again sooner than later. My intention was to use it exclusively on this piece, but right away the rough surface texture of the watercolor paper really hampered any smooth flow, which was frustrating. This could also be partially attributed to the unbroken-in new metal in conjunction with a perhaps incompatible brand of ink, as I am currently using the standard Dr. Ph. Martin's Black Star, Winsor & Newton and Sennelier. Not to mention I am personally acclimated to using what to most folks who draw is one of the most maddening implements ever made for inking.

"Fixity In Our Joys" Comic Poem: AC/DC + Frost Mashup

Here's one that's exclusive of Ink & Snow. First & foremost, this post + piece are both to wish The Significant Otter a most happy-est aMAZingest birthday ever. Given that she isn’t a regular reader of Ink & Snow, I can safely slip this one under the radar, and similarly assume that uploading it onto one of my many social media platforms will go unnoticed – at least until it’s pointed out (on other social media platforms). Albeit this blog is the one place and space I can somewhat safely expound upon the process and include more in-depth metacommentary.

Moving through time + space... our Alaskan life, her history in the hills of Iowa, oue merged cabin with a wall of DVD' & comics and our respective mediums (though see excels equally in painting, photography and digital design); these three floater panels are superimposed upon a backdrop view through a window to her raised bed, all anchored by cAtticus and MoochieBear.

So it was originally a demo piece for the fall semester's Cartoon & Comic Arts course: One of the many tweaks and recalibrations to the class after it's initial offering (first time during a regular semester), was to add in another critique - assigning an 18x24" sized Comic Poem.  

A couple problems occurred over the course of making this. One, I rushed the inking stage - never mind showing off to students with a "show ya how it's done" demonstration, I was just trying to keep up with the assigned workload. So it was a shame to try and bang out the inking (done with a dip-pen, India ink, borders with a stick, and lettering with Microns) in one sitting, especially after investing so much comparative time and energy plotting and penciling. So the playful cavorting chickadees mutated into misshapen blobs of raven-ish shapes. Another unfortunate issue occurred after choosing the wrong kind of stock: I provided the majority of the students with 18x24" smooth Bristol, and a few watercolorists, including me, used watercolor paper. Just, as it turns out, not really the best, as this warped and buckled. That's also why there are some highlights off the gloss varnish btw.

I gave myself bonus gold stars when knowing her favorite poet was Robert Frost, but still I didn't know specifically which one was her favorite, that being "The Sound of Trees." I also was surprised to hear "Hell's Bells" reached number one in the favorite song category (great choice, even I'm more partial to a cover track from the Bon Scott era), and the mashup proved to be almost as much of a puzzle as piecing together the piece. Hence the staggered staircasing of panel boxes to ease the path of the viewer through the page. 

Meanwhile the original now nesting in a really spiffy frame including a pre-cut mat... some newsprint making for functional wrapping paper while it awaits her upstairs. I think of all the artwork of mine she's collected over the years I will be am most proud of this one. Even though I did manage to get a good high-res scan of the line art stage, and can make a bunch of edits before digitally coloring it in... nah, it was made purely for the process + this purpose. In other words nobody's gonna see it anywhere else but here, and the original itself.

1-pagers + Comic Poems: "Whereas" (aka "Proclamation"), "Wish You Were Here," "Cognitive Cryogenics" & "Robot Beavers"

Here, on the darkest day of the year, is some illumination by way of letting in a little light + levity. The buffer zone helps keep me sane, if not alive (speaking of darkest days). 

First up is a side-piece done not as a demo per say but an insurance policy on the collaborative page exercise in the Cartoon & Comic Arts course this semester. So as to ensure an unbroken chain of participants during each successive stage (script > pencil > ink > color), I will usually have an emergency backup prepped up in case anyone misses a class for whatever reason. I had an advanced student knock out a simple script on the day it was due, and then penciled in the page, and when nobody missed a session for any other stage along the path of production, went ahead and inked and (digitally) colored it as well. Note there was a lot of artistic liberty taken with my interpretation of the script.

I wanna take this opportunity to mention some meta about doing this assignment: aside from experimenting in the possibilities with collaborative aspect of comics (not many other mediums allow for such a process resulting in an amalgamation of imagery), a simpler point is made. That is how much you might get out of just doing random, weird exercise - at the least you'll have drawn something you never thought of before, and may very well wind up with a really unusual and creative creative synthesis.  

"Cognitive Cryogenics" was a collaborative exhibition up at UAF between Professor Sasha Bitzer and Ayona-Reily Dixon, a current art major student in the department. I couldn't take my Beginning drawing class on their semesterly field trip to the Bear Gallery (bonus 64th Parallel show was up, a dependable cornucopia of creativity + inspiration), but there was an outstanding show in our own gallery. When I was visually sampling & remixing some interesting textures on display, the individual titles for the pieces were not up yet, and so literally drew more from inference as far as the verbage. Sometimes it is a gateway into abstraction, like an artistic moulin.

Similar if not the same essential concept is at play with the comics poetry unit - now done as an exercise in all Beginning classes, not just in the Cartoon & Comic Arts course. These days when teaching in the studio, "See what happens" is my usual MO... try something new. This particular in-class exercise is so much fun to see spontaneous stories unspool - you never really know what will come out of the collaboration.

Like this last one, another impromptu page done during demos (reminiscent of "Costco," a recent Lamb of God mashup, and "Empty Spaces" too), for the semesterly landscape gesture exercise. I often go off on my own, whether in the woods or classroom, and wander about, doodling.

"Costco" (aka "Gudetama & Lamb of God")

This summer has been oscillating between the two extremes of seemingly diametrically opposing forces, best summed up by the fucked-up yin-yang of Lamb of God (specifically "Memento Mori" from their 2020 album) and Gutetama (inspired by " In Spring, One Sleeps a Sleep that Knows No Dawn" and excerpted from the Official Theme Song.). I only became aware of the egg character after carrying around a mini-man purse (temporary replacement of the one currently enshrined in an exhibit at the UAF museum) which a student pointed out the character, which I had no idea of whatsoever. I guess just the image of a depressed egg was enough for me.

“Now, I’m fully awake… It’s time to start my next hibernation”

I juxtaposed the heavily edited and remixed passages from both songs against sketches done on site during a shopping excursion. The influence of Romero's 1978 classic zombie movie "Dawn of the Dead" is never far from thought while shambling around the shrink-wrapped palettes of hyper-consumerism dystopia. Now get the hell away from that last rotisserie chicken. 

 “Don’t waste this day… wake up wake up wake up”

As for the tunage, after many years of sporadic attempts at trying to listen to contemporary critical favorites, anything with death growls puts me off enough to not play it again. But for some reason Randy Blythe isn't off-putting, and the music fits hand-in-glove. When it comes to thrash metal I usually personally peak at two particular releases from Megadeth: 92's "Countdown to Extinction" & 94's "Youthanasia," both of which are a right and then a left to the ears with a sonically unmatched, technically flawless production quality welded to their definitive lineup (no thanks to Mustaine's massive ego) including Marty Friedman + David Ellefson. So with those as benchmarks it was a long time before finding a matching sound, but as of late Lamb of God mixes are on heavy rotation in the studio and office. In the middle of a ten-hour day I can pump out some art with this playing really loud in the classroom. And it fits my mood most days, these days.

"There is a vast amount of indisputably real and depressingly negative occurrences happening across the globe," vocalist Randy Blythe explained of the song. "…in this hyper-connected age with its 24/7 never-ending news cycle of atrocity, outrage and lurid click-bait headlines (not to mention ill-informed lunatics running amok and spreading misinformation and panic on social media), it is all too easy to lose sight of the fact that life is still carrying on, and good things do in fact still happen."

"… I wrote 'Memento Mori' as a reminder to myself to not be consumed by the omnipresent electronic harbingers of doom that surround us — cellphones, computers and television screens. While these devices can be useful tools, and it is important to stay informed, it is equally important to remain engaged with the real, physical world we live in, not just digitally filtered representations of reality." - from Song Meanings

"Wonder"

A comics poem class demo page that evolved a bit farther than the usual pieces. I took a "day off" and played with some alternative comics since I was caught up on cartoons. Not caught up, mind you, on anything else, so this also functioned as an escape route to avoid the crushing demands of reality. Naps work similarly. And that is what the sleepy-bear represents here. A dream of a dragon is contrasted with the harsh monochromatic, straight-edge world. Some imagery culled from a gallery field-trip with several Beginning Drawing classes, and so warped far beyond any recognizable sources. Like the small, felted penguin head (on a platter if I recall correctly) that caught my eye, which eventually transformed into a puffin. A couple new elements were using a variety of light pastels to tinge the caption/text boxes. This as opposed to the normal white or single color, like bone, snow or old lace. This also doubled in function as a visual connection to link the text boxes in correct order, particularly the bottom left as "violet" and "twilight" were positioned so far apart they potentially could be easily misread out of order and linked instead with "one" in the next panel. This is on account of a Western reader's proclivity to scan top-to-bottom + left-to-right, and a poorly designed layout often confuses people even if the art is cool to look at. Thus basic color theory to the rescue, and an example of how color can be a handy tool when used as a literal narrative device. There's also a couplefew more obviously Photoshoppy-coated effects employed but not enough to overwhelm the aesthetic of organic line. "Wonder" indeed... I wonder what it's all about sometimes, and art helps make better sense of an uncertain and confusing world.   

Demo Pages: One-Pagers + Comics Poems

"The Editorial Board will review your submission"

Another installment - see previous posts here and here - in the continuing series of experimental sequential art - though an important caveat/note of distinction in that it might not necessarily be "sequential." This first one here though is just a straight-up one-pager/multipanel, with kitties.

It's a funny/not funny commentary on the current state of the internet, and also why I'm growing to hate social media more and more these day, and also why I will always love cats.

It's becoming increasingly obvious how platforms like Meta, Twitter et al are spreading the rot at the roots of the tree of liberty. Not to mention the psychological toll repeated exposure to toxicity has on our mental health. And, perversely/conversely it's no exaggeration that I would have lost my shit and/or bailed on Facebook many years ago were it not for the groups like Orange Cats Rule, Tabby Cats Forever and so on. The paradox of my feed being a calming cavalcade of kitties amidst such a cesspool of ugliness is rather symbolic of the situation. So while staying informed I keep chumming the waters in hopes of maybe adding a few seconds of levity and amusement in a horrible place aka the vast, online litterbox.

So now on to even more cheerful topics, like the wholesale destruction of the planet and everything on it. I doodled this out over a couple days of field trips to a local resource for my students to gather reference sketches for a pen + ink assignment. In-between excursions I happened across this bleak article that surreptitiously fit into the final panel in the middle of the page. Sometimes that's a part of how art happens: things just fall naturally into place, often as they fall apart. I especially like how it's a one/two sucker punch that leads the view in with cute critters & funny noises, then delivers the knockout blow.

Lastly here's a demo done on-site while visually sampling + remixing the latest 64th Parallel exhibition at the epicenter of creativity, the Fairbanks Arts Association. Special hat-tip to the juror who's statement contained some provocative and inspirational verbage.

Filbert and Round (Natural Bristle)

New Comics Poetry Demo Pages

 

The new spring semester in Beginning Drawing resulted in a couple new demo pages done largely on-site for the Comics Poetry unit we experiment with before heading into the Sequential Art critique piece project. They were largely done with basic ballpoint pen + Sharpies, and a touch of wash too.

These were created by culling samples from the annual Up With Art exhibit (and I also uploaded a couple from the previous semester's visit to the annual 64th Parallel show too), and I typically rent a van to transport my students down to the epicenter of arts in the Interior, the Fairbanks Arts Association's Bear Gallery. We hold the entire class there, and cram a couple activities into the couple hours. After a critique of the show with both a written component + discussion afterwards comparing & contrasting everybody's favorite and their least favorite works on display (and most importantly, why). 

On a side-note I was also incidentally tasked with being this year's juror for the JR High age group for 2-D works, which was another couple hours of intense analysis and interpretation in-between teaching - it had been over a decade since I last had the honor.

Comics Poetry

I touched on this topic a couple years ago after finding about it online - it's been a recurring exercise in my regular Beginning Drawing studio art courses for a long time (without knowing it even had a name or associated movement) as a sort of sideways approach to the upcoming traditional sequential art unit. My two classes really scored on the semesterly field trip to the Fairbanks Arts Association's Bear Gallery with my favorite show of the year on display… Up With Art. Over spring break (not really a descriptive term seeing as how in the Interior ol' Mother Nature had her seasonal mood swing from 40°F above zero down to -35°F) I had students also do a little bit of research to experiment with “comics poetry” in advance of our in-class exercise. After critiquing the exhibit, we sampled + remixed various visual elements for ideas in our sketchbooks in preparation of an upcoming assignment on making comics.

My two demos were done in about half and hour (10min. pencil + 10min. Sharpie/ballpoint for texture + 10min. splash of wash back in the classroom). Captions were from random showpiece titles juxtaposed against the images. The creative process is more akin to jazz or slam, and is a really unique hybrid artform that starts to push students into a more spontaneous, expressive direction than the more realistic observation-based techniques covered so far. In other words, these don't necessarily have to "make sense."

Seal of Approval

This exercise was preceded as usual by an excursion to the UAF Museum of the North to gather reference material for their pen + ink spot illustration pieces, and after doing demonstrations in as many different student's sketchbooks as possible, I had enough time to sneak in a quick study of Otto again. Bonus awkward moment of the year when getting interrupted by tourists while drawing the urinal ("Hi! How's it going - where you folks visiting from?").

Recap: Summer Sessions - Cartoon & Comic Art 2018

Confluence of Comics: Drawing a demo comic for the drawing class, who are all drawing their own comics, while in the background I'm playing a documentary about drawing comics, next to a huge table piled high with comics. Not to put to fine a point on it, this is one of the few days a year that I absolutely live for. When all the elements are aligned a sort of mystical + magical moment occurs that's truly on a Stonehegian scale of cosmic transcendence. And then it's back to reality for the other 261 days of the year.

Following closely on the heels of a return to the 2018 Visual Art Academy after last year's hiatus, I rebooted the Cartoon & Comic Arts course for UAF Summer Sessions for the twelfth year. Again and again, without fail, every single class is my absolute favorite one of the year, filled with my favorite students doing their best artwork ever. Of course there are always a couple who become quickly disabused of the naive notion that it's all fun & games, like a slacker student's dream opportunity to have fun and get some easy credits... this really is a boot-camp of creativity, an everybody puts out an impressive amount of energy and artwork.
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Couldn't include the titles in the second photograph with the first because they were being used