"AK Body Positivity" + Bonus Demos

This cartoon panel was done as an inking demo for the cartooning class, while we were working on out second critique pieces: four gags + two editorial panels. I think I penciled & inked it in under twenty minutes, which must be a new land-speed record, though coloring (both digital + watercolor versions) took another hour. I admit that I pushed myself to knock out the print version within a day of doing the demo. After all, when leading by example one has gotta continually prove that you can walk the talk when it comes to meeting deadlines. "It's called artWORK!"

And yep, this is yet another example of the reoccurring walrus motif that will take some time to get out of my system after Demo Day 2024. I was also advised I might want to give the portly pinniped a distinctive goatee.
In other words, I am the walrus.

Bonus Meta: While sketching this demo (posted below) during a drawing class field trip up at the the UAF Museum of the North, some tourists were up in the "Thinking Made Visible" exhibition where a looped video of me drawing the same bear froze, and when they went to complain at the desk, they just pointed them down the hall to where I was doing it live. Same bear. Same hat. Just to mess with the guy I froze in the middle of my demo.

But seriously, right after that amusing incident, the nicest thing to happen to me all year occurred after meeting one last time with the students at the end of the day's session for a quick sketchbook review. I was still sitting at my table in the lobby working up these sketches, an elderly woman from New Orleans came over and told me that she couldn't help but notice how kind and attentive I am to my students. Since I routinely worry about how I could have done so much better when first starting out teaching, which in turn lingers into the occasional imposter syndrome, that was so incredibly validating and humbling to hear from a total stranger. It made my day. Whole semester in fact.

Another sweet spot about this particular panel is how it appeared in the middle of a series of other pieces, making for a memorable day of making art. It started out in the morning Beginning class with 20-minute  demo drawing a "subtractive selfie" in-class exercise with charcoal from an enlarged portrait (current variation of this assignment). Since I was rather sick of drawing myself, I instead used an absent student's image as an example. Then in-between classes I did the Nuggets panel (20-minutes pencil > ink + another hour for coloring). Then for the afternoon field-trip with a class of Intermediate + Advanced folks, I cranked out a few demo sketches (approx. 10-minuutes each + another hour of texturing/color) for their pen & ink assignment. What a day, and I'm gratefully aware of how lucky and rare it is to get such an opportunity.

"Road Safety Nuggets"

Back in 2021 Professor Nathan Belz of UAF’s College of Engineering & Mines commissioned me to illustrate a project of his with the Center for Safety Equity in Transportation. He picked me based on a panel that had been printed in the paper (“I Swear I Just Saw One”), thinking “…to generate cartoons that could be used for outreach, perhaps developed into a series or a graphic novel, on transportation safety; tying in findings from research projects completed by our center and highlighting them and safety culture (rather lack thereof) in a satirical way using your colorful characters.” A task force was assembled with some Alaska Department of Transportation representatives for editorial help in the review + refinement process.

There were twelve final panels – maybe a dozen extra were sketched up, a half-dozen drawn up but didn’t make the cut. A few classics I got to reboot and digitally color, but most were custom-made to order. The topics and supporting research: traffic jams, plug-ins, road rage, signage, school travel, roundabouts, frost heaves and ice roads is just a sampling of the issues across our state’s road system. were wide-ranging They debuted two years later as the tentpole pieces for my annual 2023 retrospective “What The Duck,” at Ursa Major. It has made for a major boost in classroom cred as well - walking the talk, and demonstrating the educational applications and value of STEAM.

Incidentally this project was sorta-kinda the final nail in the creative coffin for my freelance career, as I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t successfully managing my time insofar as maintaining a saner mental-healthy balance between the work//personal life (yeah sure okay so ask me how well THAT’S worked). If anything I’m even MORE overloaded, but still managing to meet deadlines + teaching + Nuggets + extracurricular activities. Busy enough to never notice that I never uploaded anything about this gig anywhere on social media – searched this blog all over never found any mentioned in any previous post… so here ya go.

Mostly want to mention two main things: one; it is so surreal to see one’s cartoons categorized as scholarly work (perks of professorship I guess), and two; there’s a link on this page that’ll get ya a free PDF to download. The whole post was inspired by how totally fired up I got to hold an actual hardcover copy - so much awesome hard work from Nathan… thanks!

Spruce Moose

This year's Visual Art Academy students got a surprise show & tell

Happy Solstice! Special to regular readers I’m sneaking in a bonus midnight post about a recent project before it hits any other social media platforms. While I’m not gonna upload everything about the entire process here, as that would probably break a blogsite record on length, I do have some particular highlights I want to share along with some insights gained over the course of what was definitely the longest commission I’d ever had.
Join me below the fold for more...

"Creative Currents" write-up

Continuing on with this recent spate of self-promotional postings and gigs around town (with watercolorists, beaver ecology and museum exhibitions) the folks over at The Alaska Current were kind enough to do a little feature on me in their continuing "Creative Currents" series spotlighting some of Alaska's amazing talent. Special thanks to Sam, and bookmark their website for other statewide news + follow 'em on Facebook too. Also I was alerted to how remiss I've been at properly crediting for the Significant Otter who actually snapped the picture of me after chasing me around the trails in Denali long enough to capture the moment. Oh, and promise I'll get right on that "painting & printmaking."

 

(Updated) Upcoming Gigs: "Colony" show + "Nuggets of Whimsy"/Discover Alaska lecture recap + "Books Range IV"

A couplefew recaps from the last upcoming event post: first, the show at Flossie & May's, the new cafe in Ester, will be titled "Colony" and will feature the tentpole piece "The Lodge." I'll have a separate process post about this 18x24" poster, but in brief it took about fifty hours to do 250 beavers. There's an interactive component with viewer contribution element too that I'll cover later. Big hat-tip/tail-slap of thanks to owners Jill & Scott and their amazing crew too.

Consequently the show' theme and content are now tied in accordingly, and there will be about forty other Castor Canadensis-related cartoon panels up as well. I hope to have the wall basically look like a big open Sunday funny section.

Secondly, my second lecture for UAF Summer Sessions' Discover Alaska series "Nuggets of Whimsy: Adventures in Northern Cartooning" went off fantastic. No small thanks to the amazing folks who made it possible, especially the media team who streamed the event + put up a video on their YouTube channel.

Check out the rest of the roster: the lecture series has been really inspiring so far, learning all sorts of new & different kinds of things about art… and learning new things about long-time acquaintances as well. For example check out the Far North Quilt Trail Project!

An unexpected bonus was the really wonderful article in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner written by reporter Jack Barnwell, who attended my show & tell, made for a great way to cap off the anniversary: like I say in the speech thank you to everyone, you included. Turnout was also a pleasant surprise - a full house that were engaged and responsive. No small feat when avalanched by a tsunami of funnies. In fact I had whittled the number of slides down thinking the day before of the event that "150 in 45-minutes is a bit too much." So I forced myself to cut a whopping ten. 

Lastly is a sneak peek at the peaks on the front cover of the upcoming compilation of essays by our own legendary librarian, Greg Hill. Been six years since doing his last volume, and this one was pure delight when all colored in. Proofs to come!

"Pileup"

Last year in 2022 I posted essentially a landing page ("Forgot the Shovel") with backlinks to the previous eight years of calendars made from my work. So this then makes a solid decade with this particular client: Parks Highway Service & Towing. What a genuine pleasure to have developed out own little tradition - only another year to tie my previous record of longevity with Opera Fairbanks.

Another homage for this three-panel strip was a similarly designed (though the direction is reversed) spread called "Breakup" back in 2011. Both probably owe a little inspiration to the Game of Thrones HBO series epic episode of the "Battle of the Bastards" scene with the armies of Jon Snow and Ramsey Bolton fighting outside of Winterfell.

The inspiration for this was whelped in a drive-through line at a local coffee hut, which at 6am is typically only one or two other commuters. It has been observed that there are folks who can develop road rage simply sitting in one's car while not even moving. Maybe. that's. the. issue: not. moving. Anyways, what with all the concern over texting + driving that's still nowhere near as dangerous as doodling + drawing (please leave it to professionals).

It's also a rare piece in that the production was actually timed, as opposed to averaged out estimates of - depending on degree of complexity - two to three hours total tops. I had noted this triptych took: penciling in 2 hours, inking was an hour, another hour to scan + edit, one last hour to color digitally = five hours total.

Xmas Covers: Double Issues + Baked Alaska 2023 Calendar

My awesome editor scored me a couple covers for the December issues of both the Alaska Cannabist magazine and the Alaska Pulse magazine (thought both are published by the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, the latter was a new publication for me).
The regular Baked Alaska cartoon - ie the normal horizontal panel version - that this cover was essentially a remixed composition of, will be uploaded here along, with the bracketing bunch, for the usual scheduled batch post that comes out here three times a year in retrospect. In the meantime here's a few teaser process pics of the initial concept sketches submitted before knocking out the art. Special care had to be taken in designing the composition so as to ensure enough real estate to plug in the accompanying text + titles.

One interesting aside in that there was somewhat of an accompanying increase in appreciation of how folks actually interpret my artwork, specifically in the case of my rendering of characters with closed eyes. It hadn't occurred to me in quite a long time (wasn't the first instance this occurred by any means) that sometimes it might come across as my just having forgotten to ink in the eyeballs. Serves as a real humbling reminder that regardless of how long you might be drawing and no matter how well you think you can draw - there's always gonna be plenty of opportunity for it fall artistically short of the mark.

PS: Here's a special sneak peek at the artwork used for the front cover of this year's Baked Alaska calendar for 2023 - as with the magazine cover the actual print version of this particular panel will get showcased here at Ink & Snow sometime over the course of regularly scheduled posts. But this is a good opportunity to plug a reminder about the free shipping deal over here at this ordering link - and as always you can ask for it by name at any local discriminating dispensary.

Comic Shop Banner (Bonus Anniversary Edition)

Recapping the process behind my favorite commission ever, and one heckofa project to kick off the year with. Most assuredly, there’ll be many more to follow, but this one will occupy a pretty special place in my heart – and portfolio. Not only as a capstone creation for this establishment's 50-year birthday, but also a fitting commemoration to Ink & Snow's anniversary: thirteen years and 2,243 posts!

Along with being the most awesome store in the entire state of Alaska, and also hosting 24 Hour Comics events over the years, The Comic Shop is a big supporter of local creators as well. So when the guy who runs the place caught sight of my spiffy banner (printed up locally by Date Line Digital Printing), he wanted one too, for use in the store and also for their tables at events like conventions.

Back in 2019 the last class comic book was published for my Cartoon & Comic Arts course that ran for a dozen years through UAF Summer Sessions (starting in 2005). On the back cover of that final issue was a hastily drawn, black & white, full-page ad for The Comic Shop, where I traditionally did the big book release party at the end of the class (the crucial meta-lesson being it was a fitting context in which to view their own work as being worthy of appearing in print on those very shelves).

Funny how things always look great until seen again later in retrospect, as this latest incarnation puts the old version to shame. With hindsight I’ll probably have the same opinion about this one in turn, maybe in a couple decades, but for now it’s absolutely the best thing I’ve personally ever drawn, and a hell of a capstone to 2021. It’s as much fun to look at as it was to draw. I also became increasingly aware of the fact that this was going to be appearing along with works by some of the greatest cartoonists in print, so I felt some peripheral pressure to perform. Like hanging a piece up in a museum where a pantheon of heroes is in the background… you want to have it at least match the metaphorical drapes.

This time around I got to really make sure the composition was tight, and with the inclusion of full-color, that it would really pop. This would be another example of putting to the test how well rebooting myself plays out – so no matter how much I cringe at old stuff, it’s counterbalanced by the satisfaction at seeing such self-improvement. This perspective affords me a lot of patience + sagacity in the classroom.

Along the way I was reminded of just how impossible it is to impart to another person exactly what it is that you are seeing mentally when it comes to convincing them how the end product will look. Specifically in this instance was knowing that any first impression of the line art would lead one to think that the words will get lost in all the background detail. Also I needed to see a physical copy of the bookmarkers to be assured the design would still work scaled from seven feet down to a couple inches.

But just add magic! All of the last year’s experience with digitally coloring in all of the weekly Nuggets panels has effectively primed the pump when it comes to utilizing Photoshop. Also this design marked a return to converting my artwork to a vectored format: usually thresholding works fine, but here I ran into an issue with the (comparatively) oversized 7x16” original drawing in that the pen + ink on that particular paper stock turned out to have a slight feathering bleed (as opposed to the usual Bristol) on account of containing too high of a cotton content (like my outhouse, basically issues with too much fiber). So I ran it through Illustrator and outlined it to smooth out all the little jaggies, which opened up a veritable Pandora’s box of nostalgia, as I hadn’t traced anything since back in the early 2000’s with Streamline. So I stayed blissfully lost inside a virtual canopy of lushness: about half of the gigabyte-sized image was comprised of a dozen different greens, which provided some art therapy with a much-needed infusion of color amidst another -40°F cold snap and, even for the Interior, some exceptionally grueling conditions this season in particular.

So far it’s been a banner year… Thanks Kevin and all the folks down at the Comic Shop of Fairbanks!

2021: That’s a Wrap/Gig Recap

Pausing to put the pencil down and glance back over the pile of doodles, trashed attempts and wadded-up rejects, edits, plus high + low points of last year. By far and away my most favorite image from any event – probably of all time - was captured by reporter Maisie Thomas of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner who was interviewing me for a story she was writing for Pulse magazine that centered on my day of doing demos down at the newspaper.

“This is an opportunity for me as a cartoonist to give back to the field of journalism,” Smith explained. “I just thought it would be really nice to promote the News-Miner.” According to Smith, there has historically been a “very symbiotic relationship between cartoons and the newspapers.” There is also a lasting relationship between Smith and the News-Miner; his work has appeared in the paper for over three decades, since 1988.

AK Press Club + Peddling Wares

Another vanity post here: sharing some recent good news about scoring 2nd + 3rd place in the "Best Illustration or Graphic" category for the 2020 Alaska Press Club awards. The winning panels were "Hibernate With a Good Book" and "Yukon Traffic Jam," both destined to be enduring classics, at least from my navel-gazing point of view. But seriously, big humble thanks for the recognition, it's a very cool honor.

Unfortunately cartoons have completely disappeared from the categories now, even erstwhile Editorial Cartoons, as there simply aren't any practitioners of the trade left, aside from occasional and notable exceptions by notable retirees and professional amateurs. I look at the inexorable, overall decline of the field as a canary in the proverbial coalmine situation - as goes the cartoons, so will the rest of the newspaper industry, which has traditionally been symbiotically and indelibly linked with the funny pages. Speaking of which: here's a new link for subscribing to my home newspaper, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. It's an opportunity to support one of the pillars of democracy, local journalism... and support the peripheral talent, natch. Thank you - really, it means a lot.

 "Was it anything more noteworthy than bringing laughter (and adventure) to other human beings, while keeping the show on the road? What any civilization mostly needs is not the world-altering legacy of a few but the numberless people of talent who play a role … sustaining their contemporaries in the brief moment we have together.” - Cullen Murphy “Cartoon County”

Magnificent riverside view of two things missing from my life: money and god

And as part of the continuing adventures of Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce Artist of the Year (again) I partook in the legendary annual Midnight Sun Festival.Turnout for the event was insane with thousands upon thousands of revelers packing downtown - within the first hour I met more people than I'd had face-to-face contact with than the previous year combined, and as the hours went by hundreds of folks, fans and friends dropped by the table. Still ahead on the docket are appearances at both the state fair and Golden Days, and a Chamber-sponsored art exhibit: details to follow.

One more late-breaking item: my first-ever feature article was published in the new issue of the Alaska Cannabist magazine. It's basically a print-version of a process post of behind-the-scenes in creating a Baked Alaska cartoon with some bonus material + sneak peeks at upcoming pieces with some variations on previously-appearing panels. Also appearing in this issue is an article by local freelance author (who recently wrote a great profile on yers truly) David A. James on how "Cannabis and comics have a long underground history that is now going mainstream." Hard copies are available at finer dispensaries everywhere... and stay 'tooned for some truly awesome news about an upcoming full-color hardcover book!

"Pioneer Motorhomes"

This was such a fun one to do. Plus I love it when one of what I think is my better ones of the year also happens to dovetail with the needs of a favorite client.

With an eye on the potential commercial application I went ahead an colored the panel right from the outset (as opposed to colorization - if not complete reboot - of some previous years), which in turn necessitated a bit more tweaking than usual to accommodate the customization. 

As you can see from the snapshot of the pencil sketch, there was some digital tweaking to accommodate the composition. I also like the vitality and energy - aesthetic elements shouldered by the use of color in the print version - of the original doodle. And as often is the case, working on this piece inspired even more ideas that were hastily scribbled in the sketchbook to slumber in the mental mulch-pile until needed.

Update: And here's this year's calendar, which looks real nice, and is enshrined in that most holiest of display spaces (second only in exposure to the outhouse) the refrigerator. Extra credit if you can cite the cereal that the magnets were box prizes for - here's a hint on the characters: Grumble (in red), Boss Moss (green) and Goody-Goodly (pink).

KTVF Channel 11 Interview

Got interviewed by reporter + anchor Alex Bengel from local station KTVF Channel 11, and the piece was just broadcast/uploaded this week. It was conducted on-site at the 6th annual retrospective exhibition down at the distillery, and I was already primed to give tons of soundbites after lots of practice giving the Private Tours. What a great job condensing maybe half an hour of material down to a tight, concise, focused segment - I'm always impressed at the work these folks do at a job that is so technical and challenging in breadth + depth. Once again proving what a crucial part journalism plays in bringing so many different facets of our community, from important news to interesting features, to the public's attention, whether on a regional, national or worldwide in scope.

Just as a point of clarification, because I still get confused about this finer point of detail, the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce awards the Artist of the Year for the upcoming/ongoing year-in-progress (as opposed to honoring the recipients in other categories for their respective efforts from the previous year) as a way to showcase + promote their work throughout the season. And on account of 2020 being such a bust what with the pandemic's impact, they graciously extended a generous opportunity to just roll the award over, thus making me 2020's and 2021's AOY. Let's hear it for the reboot, and looking forward to other upcoming venues and gigs.