"Shedding Season"

Looking back at the process has always been a meta-insight to me for how these cartoons come about. That's been one of the primary objective benefits on posting these pictures, because otherwise it would just be the constant churning out work without any opportunity to reflect on the why and the how. And since I've ceased the annual exhibition at Ursa Major, and am a bit put off of bothering anymore with any submissions of work to the National Cartoonist Society, there's no other venue left by which to gauge any relative progress in seeing the past year's production in a everything in a review for personal, retrospective assessment. I recently gave a guest lecture to a group of art majors in a seminar on the topic of critiquing, and all the various perspectives one can get from peers, strangers, professionals, students and teachers. That interaction can be tremendously informative, pop some bubbles, and point up areas for improvement that get around the blinders one wears while lost in a solipsistic activity like making art. But after years of critiquing thousands of works and all the time & energy invested in public displays it's time to focus on the simple making of marks.
 

Speaking of marks, yet another aspect oftentimes lost in the shuffle is deciphering the cryptic glyphs jotted down in lieu of an actual sketch - these doodles (seen above) being the attempt at saving an idea on the spot, so as to hopefully remember the concept enough to transcribe later into the sketchbook (seen below)

And I was very pleased to see the above-average size of the print version in the newspaper which covered enough visual real estate to really showcase the subtle layering effect that was done digitally, without looking too digital (a Gelly Roll pen does quite well, but I was working off the scan of the inked panel without access to the original). And after all that commentary on objective perspective in the opening paragraph of this post, the irony wasn't lost on me when upon opening the pages of the paper and seeing it in print, after marveling at its size I immediately saw how wonky the logs were as far as the horizontal tilt. Oh well. Minor mistakes like such are to be soughed off so much as shed fluff. And for those of our viewers keeping score at home, yesh, that's both Souchie and Bird-Dog making a special guest appearance...