A spur-of-the-moment show just opened up (bonus: extended hours over the same weekend as Festival held right next door) that'll plug a temporary 2-week hole in the UAF art department's gallery calendar. Ostensibly through some sample faculty work juxtaposed with a resultant network of student pieces, both majors + alumni, it exhibits the interconnected threads running throughout our creative community. My quartet of fresh Nuggets panels, sans header, are flanking the digital display alongside a couple of simply gorgeous mixed media from Brianna Reagan (website here). This immediately doubles my roster of public gigs, not that a whopping two shows will put a dent against the new no-show edict. Didn't have any trouble culling from the current crop of cartoons, which included "Alaskan Barbarians," and several as-yet unpublished (here or yet in print) panels "Moose-Subie," "Costcoho," and "Silent P." Stay 'tooned...
Speaking of introspective/retrospective perspective, it was time for another annual effort, the submission of last year's best-of to the National Cartoonist's Society's Division Awards for Newspaper Panel (link to previous posts about last year, 2024 and again back in 2011). As always, a humbling task which always leaves me personally with a deep gratitude for the network - similar to the theme of the ad-hoc faculty show - of other individuals and groups that all appear on the same page, whether it's reviews of other artist's shows and work, concerts, performances, readings etc.
I selected a set of single panels: the aforementioned "Alaskan Barbarians," and another unpublished piece "The Otter Family," last year's xmas panel "They're Baying Our Song," "S'not," "Phishing," "Old Timer," and "Melatonin." A last one, "Polar Bowler," unfortunately was discovered to have been drawn the year before, though technically published last year, and so therefore is still eligible. I mean, on the offhand chance I happen to get shortlisted. One side-issue is how I never seem to have enough two-panels to submit an entry into that division, or I should say ones that I think are good enough. Maybe over a couplefew years I could come up with a winning package, but it'll all have to get rolled over into the next book.
On a closing note, I was pleased to pare down my essentials and take a snapshot of what I typically use when drawing a cartoon: everything was there except the Bristol board (usually Strathmore series 400). Technically I forgot a cork-backed ruler, though I sometimes use the cardboard back of the Bristol pad to fill in, esp. when rendering the initial boundaries of the initial panel border/frame. Included is a plastic eraser (easier to rub off pencil without rubbing off the ink); Dr. Ph. Martin's Black Star India ink (matte, which dries super fast, flat and black - useful for demos, as opposed to the richer but comparatively slower drying Winsor & Newton and Sennelier brands I frequently use at home); a dip-pen with a Hunt #512 nib (a note that of the two listed at the link the #513EF is actually much more flexible than the #512 which I use for 80% of my inking) in a wooden holder; two thicknesses or line weights of Microns (still slightly more opaque than Copics IMHO) - one used for inking in the panel borders + lettering, the other, thinner one for the cartoon balloons + details; and, last but not least, my preferred pencil: a basswood Harvest 320 #1 from Musgrave Pencil Company (makers of the yummy Tennessee Red reviewed here) - previous to this company I hadn't seen an actual #1's in the wild, just the ubiquitous #2's, which are a wee bit more greasy and soft, prone to smearing and thus not as suitable for sketchbook doodling.
 |
| Keys to The Universe |
No comments:
Post a Comment