Sketchbook: "Arctic Kangaroos" + "a-KRILL-ic"

A couple recent panels that were publish under the Nuggets banner but instead of the usual meticulous craftsmanship and painstaking attention to detailed process readers have come to expect, they were just simply scanned straight from the pages of the omnipresent sketchbook. It's an occasional series that is relatively rare, and illustrates a much more spontaneous, organic and raw variation on the normal series. Okay maybe my repository of material was running dry and I needed to fluff out the monthly packet of submissions so as to get a little breathing room. 

Nuggets Sketchbook: "Currants," "Mosquitoes" & "Narwhale/Snowman" and other "Cartooning Problems" (Updated w/64th!)

Ganging together on this post a few recent examples from the "Nuggets Sketchbook" series that occasionally punctuates the regular panels. For some unknown reason there was an unusual number of them this year: these three which were published in the paper this past July, September and October, plus previously ones in March and August (both of which were uploaded here earlier in another set of sketchbook samples). "Currant Mood" is sorta special to me as it's about something that most newspaper readers probably aren't familiar with, so they'll never get it, and those that would probably get it never read the newspaper, so they'll never see it. But fortunately it went on to occupy a third dimension...

Update: This particular panel was the only one out of four submissions of mine to get accepted for the 2024 "64th Parallel" annual juried exhibition of the Fairbanks Arts Association (the others were "The Lodge," "Rush Hour" and "No Lives Matter"). This was the first show my work's been selected since 2017, o fourteen years - maybe half of which work was entered... the meta-lesson here being just never give up, don't ever stop chumming the water. Incidentally the fifth of six (possibly seven) shows this year alone, and that's why for 2025 I'm gonna swing to the opposite extreme and not do any, take a few years off from the endless marketing.

Regular readers know that these "Sketchbooks" are little offshoots are a special insight into creating the cartoons where I feel it provides a nice little break from the more commercial (some think contrived) vibe or visual feel of the regular feature. Put another way the aesthetics are a bit more spontaneously or raw, as opposed to the comparatively more controlled and polished look of the formal pencil > ink > digitally colored process for the "normal" panels. 

The origins actually arose from when I was essentially homeless, couchsurfing at a girlfriend's cabin, and without access to my accustomed computed + scanner setup. So I temporarily resorted to just submitting images shot directly from the pages of my sketchbook. One meta-lesson that gave me insight into my work was how essentially incidental the whole professional standards of production were: nobody particularly gave/gives a shit that I use specialized equipment and rarefied, arcane tools (ex: and insistence on archival materials etc.), aside from other geeks. The only factor that really matters is the content ie how funny it is. This is reflected in the industry mantra "a good joke will sell a bad drawing, which goes a long way towards explaining the style of many a successful cartoon. Nevertheless I have always continued in my quest towards self-improvement - 2019's reboot of "Spring Breakup" illustrates this perfectly, as some measure of pride in craftsmanship is inherent in any artistic pursuit. 

Of all of these latest ones in the series, this particular panel to me is a touch more special than the rest, in that not only was the printed version a reworking of the original doodle (from the initial one done on a scrap of paper > then translated into the sketchbook variation), but the charming simplicity of the piece really stands out. The only aspect of it altered was the digital spot-coloring of the heart, all else is marker + water-soluble wash. Incidentally the pen is a Micron (08), which I after many, many years of using ballpoint pens for the sketchbook doodles, I have adopted full-time this year, mostly because erasing the underlying pencil without waiting for it to dry so as to avoid smearing the ink is a pain in the ass - this is much quicker and also more opaque. It's still a "dead" line, meaning no line weight variation which is the hallmark of dip-pens.

Bonus: this is also one of the relatively rare non-verbal panels, which is another factor in its primitive clarity... reflective of my current relationship situation. It's quietly exceptional enough that I selected it as one of the three pieces showcased in the annual faculty exhibition in the UAF art department - subverting expectations with a thumb in the eye of artsy-fartsy elite.

Nuggets Sketchbook: "Mooooose" + "Wheeeeasel" + "Tickle Ivories" + "AK Samonella"

A few from the "Nuggets Sketchbook" series - one of which I forgot to put the designating caption on, but it's stylistically - and obviously - different enough from 98% of all the other panels done in pen & ink, since they're rendered with ballpoint pen. Like the one posted up top here, "AK Salmonella," these were all just taken straight off the pages of the omnipresent sketchbook, with minimal tweaking for the print version.
Join me below the jump for more...

"Training Wheels"

The fish wheel is a ubiquitous and iconic sight across Alaska, and as it turns out, a sincere pain in the ass to draw with any degree of reasonable accuracy. Which begs the question why would a cartoonist be overly concerned with rendering anything with realism, which is something I mentally flog myself with while in the throes of yet another extended session trying to draw a complex panel. And after all the extended effort, when I previewed the panel to unsuspecting friends, most of them didn't get it. But I have faith that somebody out there will connect the dots and get a laugh, which is the mantra of every artist.

I even thoroughly botched the original pen + ink piece in front of students, but managed to salvage it digitally. Yet in retrospect I realized, even after investing the time in researching via reference photos and sketching out the structure beforehand for practice, I completely forgot a couple critical design aspects - namely the omission of a receptacle for the fish to get dumped into, not to mention the logistical impossibility of the scoops actually fitting into the openings on the platform. And let's not even try to think about the directional flow of the water, okay?

"Thinking Made Visible" @ UAF Museum of the North

 
A brief recap of the opening + overview of the group show up at the UAF Museum of the North. They closed back on the last Friday of April (4/26/24) for a private event: the opening reception for the new exhibition "Thinking Made Visible," which is gonna run until January. I teased a little bit about this gig when they started promoting the show with some instructional shorts (link here), but it is such an overwhelmingly awesome show it bears repeated visits, so as to catch the many amazing details easily overlooked in a crowd.
...more below the fold...

image Diane R. Hunt

Figure Demos

In line with recent supplemental posts as of late (pen & ink here and comics poetry here) I never have any of the originals as they are all rolled up and given to whoever is modeling, since they don't make nearly enough to do such a hard job. In a couple of these posted pics (the triptychs) there is a progression from quickest to most developed, value-wise. There's still significant residues of underlying pencil marks to show the initial attempts at dialing in the gesture. That expressive line-weight variation is the finesse I see lacking in the majority of digital drawings - with some notable exceptions (Peter Dunlap-Shohl and Fiona Staples), and it's been a growing concern and regular occurrence with students who want to work digitally in drawing classes. I had an epiphany recently to just limit all drawing students to analog in meatspace. There's something about the spatial experience and tactile aspect plus depth on the pictorial plane. The oft-repeated excuses "it's easier/faster/cheaper" is a profoundly ignorant thing to say to an art teacher by the way. That laziness is quite often reflected in the quality of their work. Similar lessons in focus is behind a peer in the department's exercise in limiting the number of exposures a student can take as opposed to the infinite number of digital snapshots available.

After cresting the 50-hour per week threshold it becomes a logistical impossibility to do my job as good as I should ie get everything done I have to do esp. paperwork, emails etc.), especially if you insist on adhering to the no-fly zone around the two days of the weekend reserved strictly for Significant Otter or my own work (including blogging/social media). Nevertheless the cliche that I am inspired by my student's work is at it's most evident when my tired ass still insists on getting up early as usual - more the cat's fault than my own personal morning habits - and making my own art. The most humbling of all is seeing folks so much more better than me, and/or accomplish more than I wish I could get to if I weren't so damn busy teaching. Also there's the humbling experience of seeing firsthand truly amazing art being made by someone who will in all likelihood never draw again after the class is over. Folks like athletes and science majors who the Beginning Drawing class is a three-credit requirement for the degree or as an elective. Paradoxically they are comparatively far less needy than an art major, and hockey players and volleyballers the like know the value and crucial importance of discipline & practice.

Some teachers don't do demos in front of everyone, maybe worried they'll undermine their authority by making some mistakes. Fortunately I have no shame, and think it's invaluable for them to see someone screw up. I often deliberately try to switch things up and experiment outside of my comfort zone ie using the normal tools of the trade. Even tricks like holding the pencil during doing 1-minute gestures in a different grip so as to effectively short-circuit the tendency to draw from the wrist + gripped tightly with fingers. It also enhances the extension of vision of pose to paper, working from the arms and shoulder, while standing on one's feet at an easel. Plus then grabbing a chunka charcoal and "see what happens" - the mantra I use more & more. Not caring anymore can be creatively liberating.

Dead Hairy Animals: Texture Demos

Join me below the fold for more snapshots of classroom demos during the intro to pen + ink portion of my Beginning Drawing classes. Lions and tigers and bears - oh my!

As always, I utilize a disruptive technique in situating classes in real-world scenarios with real time exercises (Practical Applications of Textures 101).

This means leading the little posse of potential artisans around to different venues, specifically in this case to the UAF Museum of the North, and also for early morning classes, down the road to Fish & Game.  

Typically I'll have time to bang out a four or five demos done in a students sketchbook while working elbow-to-elbow in front of the respective subjects. I try and use their tools and materials and thus for them to have something to take home and refer to as an example (besides handouts with examples). Some folks respond better to that instructional method - "watch me."

And there's usually a few more folks standing around directly behind me as I talk the process out. I get in trouble for any busking in front of tourists, so now I mostly troll for Instagram followers with a handy QR code to 907nuggets.

This "training" is in-between the ultimate purity of drawing from life (tricky with bears) and copying from reference photos. At this point I'm so trained that it's almost reflexive when out & about to whip out a pad + pencil and start sketching. It also fosters a deeper connection with the time & place, as in here & now.

The most meta of all is the point to have fun, and not take all this artsy-fartsy stuff so serious. Which is a sneaky way to get someone to spend hours and hours making lots and lots of little dots (ie stippling), or obsessive hatching, cross-hatching and scumbling techniques. And the time spent making marks = the better the pieces will look. 

"Call of the Wild"

Regular readers are already familiar with the "Nuggets Sketchbook" series that intermittently appear in lieu of the regular full-color feature. These are typically scanned direct from the pages of the omnipresent sketchbook, when the rare doodle can stand on its own without the usual stages of production (penciling + inking out on Bristol, then colored in Photoshop on the my studio desktop). Also just for the record I haven't yet (nor probably never will) see the Indians Jones version or even any of the classic ones either - just nostalgia and memories of the original book.

Articles and interviews with cartoonists from the classic days of yore are filled with tales documenting the obsessive lengths old-school draftsman would employ using a veritable grab-bag of trickery (for example blue-lines or lighboxes) to try and retain the original freshness, gestural spontaneity and vitality of line present in so many a preparatory sketch. Re-creating the concept sketch onto a new piece of paper and integrating with other compositional elements can be a challenge, or in my opinion, an impediment (just redraw it and move on). But there are the rare instances when I open up the sketchbook and look at the initial doodle and say, nope, that's good enough. Another way to say it is that sometimes it's all about the simple sublime surprise at what serendipitously spills out the other end of the pen when I'm not even really paying attention to it, just letting the process happen. And without even trying it turns into what in all likelihood will be one of my favorite pieces of the entire year.

Birding Notes

The past week has culminated in some major milestones for my birdwatching experiences: last Xmas the Significant Otter gave me a set of nice modern binoculars, and they have been inspiring me to literally refocus an old passion of mine (not to mention get out of the house and go on more walks). Another interesting side-effect is the heightened sense of awareness of ambient noise. This became more apparent during the coronavirus shutdown: the entire neighborhood became bathed in a luxurious blanket of silence. And the inexorable creeping return of background white noise that has heralded an unfortunate return to normalcy. Still, the half-hour porch session every morning has been therapeutic and meditative, jut sitting and listening and looking for movement. This coincided with the onset of spring and resurgence of leaves, which now effectively camouflage the critters, and I have to shift my observation to bare trees and the edges of glades and other openings in the forest for activity.

So back to the epic week in birdwatching: Several key species were added to my life-list, one of which has momentous meaning in line with Peterson's pivotal experience - a pair of Northern Flickers engaged in aerial acrobatics for a good fifteen minutes of observation. As an added bonus I engaged them with a YouTube recording of their distinctive call which triggered some enthusiastic communication.
Next was the solving of a riddle that consumed me for some time: after weeks of wondering what we saw while out on another stroll - finally figured out it was a Varied Thrush. The color was off but still identical markings meant it was a rare morph... and identifying the unique call filled in another mysterious noise often heard around our neck of the woods by the cabin.
Lastly, after many years of only hearing their call, we had a first-ever sighting of the furtive Boreal Owl right off our porch nestled amidst some black spruce. That would account for the sudden disappearance of our family of voles and reduction in the usual army of squirrels.

We've been making a point to check out the Peat Ponds out in the Goldstream Valley: The Interior Land Trust folks have really done an admirable job with this little jewel of a community resource. Our last visit yielded many different species of waterfowl and songbirds, plus some beaver and a bonus muskrat.

One of my personal favorites to watch is the Red-necked Grebe - such vibrant, graphic details when one can see them up close.

Drax: I've mastered the ability of standing so incredibly still that I become invisible to the eye

I've also been steadily practicing basic birdwatching skills such as the hand-to-eye coordination (instinctual and familiar to gesture drawing) necessary for locating and tracking. It's very useful with Warblers flitting about the underbrush or waterfowl across the sky. I'm not quit wearing camo and using blinds yet, but even little things like being careful with my movements is part of the heightened awareness and sensitivity.

pre-poop POV

Also, is it just me or does anybody else ever notice how much birds poop? I mean, it seems whenever I observe any for any length of time any bird I'm rewarded with some great crap shots.

"Netflix"

Okay, I confess to never ever having used this service (I've also only once ever used Amazon many years ago), but add it to the list of ubiquitous phrases that float around contemporary conversations, just waiting for an eavesdropping trawler for inspiration to pick up on.

Seeing as how it was scanned as-is direct from the pages of the omnipresent sketchbook this is all there is, or ever will be, especially since it's so stupid I'll never waste any more time on it ever again. Sorry/not sorry.

Return to the Tors

"Being an Annotated Account of a Weekend Excursion to the Granite Tors"

at the Chena River State Recreation Area, October 5 & 6, 2018. 

"Eraserhead Buffalo" + Iowa Sketches

Once upon a time there was a beautiful duckling who enjoyed a very sheltered & privileged life until it eventually grew older and gradually changed into an uglyass swan. There’s no moral to this fable, that’s just life. The image is from a quick (under 5-minutes) demo done in a student's sketchbook showing how to render forms using first using pencil, then bolding the contour lines with marker, and a touch of wash for value.

Another one of my demos during the same field-sketching expedition to the Museum of the North with my drawing class this summer. Somewhere during the pen + inking application the buffalo took a decidely Lynchian turn.

In retrospect it reminds me of one of the most impactful experiences from my youth with attending a midnight showing of David Lynch's 1977 black & white film "Eraserhead." The film department at Syracuse University used to put on alternative, classic and cult movies at a small cinema, and one of my highschool friends was involved with the group, and so invited me along to what became a habit for many years. This particular showing was eye-opening in that I'd never before seen the peculiar energy a passionate crowd can generate (these days what we would call geeky fanboys at a convention): the first movie ran a few minutes over and I was sandwiched up against the double doors by the crowd who were all chanting "E-head... E-head..." When the doors finally opened the ticket-taking ushers were bowled over by the mob that flooded into the theater - the one in front of me screaming "mongoloid pig-fuckers" before getting overrun. Many of my personal all-time favorite films were first seen at these midnight showings: Wizards, Quadrophenia, Excalibur, 2001, Mad Max, Night of the Living Dead, Breaking Away, Harold & Maude etc.

After returning from a vacation to Iowa, and during the normal reference sketching session in the campus greenhouse with my posse of students, I marveled at both the miracle of having successfully avoided drawing any corn (or barns, or cows) during the entire trip to the Lower 48, and then of all the different species available to draw from back in Alaska, what did I choose?

As part of our one-year anniversary + renewal of vows, the Significant Otter and I, over the course of eight amazing days, blitzed through twelve different hikes in these beautiful public lands:

Whitewater Canyon State Wildlife Area (pictured)
Pikes Peak State Park
Yellow River State Forest
Wyalusing State Park
Central Park
Pictured Rocks
Bellevue State Park
Mines of Spain
Backbone State Park
Volga River State Recreation Area
Swiss Valley Nature Preserve
Effigy Mounds National Monument

Of particular note was a couple of trips to the Mines of Spain, which, among many other sweet little trails, hosts the EB Lyons Interpretive Center with it's excellent selection of mounts.

Note: Can't draw goats worth a dang, but, like everything else, who cares when you're having fun

Slough Coup

As part of our early season regimen training runs we explored some of Piledriver Slough: a nice quiet backwater stream that meanders alongside the Richardson Highway next to Eielson Air Force Base. Apart from a few curves that came closer to the road it was absolutely peacefully quiet, and especially given it was a holiday, nobody else was there (except for one small family with kids who noted on how we were “going the wrong way”). I was inspired by a friend who posted pictures of her family's excursion and it looked to be an easy enough warm-up for our continuing adventures boating about. Reaching online only revealed a couple entries on various forums, mostly fishing-related, but studying the Google satellite imagery gave us enough to go on. Afterwards I bought a topo map and have been able to plot more sorties for the summer.

The stream itself was quite deep + wide in areas, unfortunately thickly carpeted by the invasive aquatic weed Elodea which is currently wreaking havoc in many Interior waterways. Encouragingly enough there were a LOT of fingerlings and many instances of jumping fish, presumably trout and grayling. We were rewarded with a raucous Bald eagle (appropriate enough for Independence Day) and a surprise visit from a Belted kingfisher, along with many flotillas of ducklings too.

We only covered maybe a quarter of the slough: Word was that it would take a good twelve hours to float it in its entirety, but we opted instead to paddle upstream from our put-in and simply retrace the route after a few hours. The current was strong enough in a few spots over shallow stretches that it suspended us place and took some serious flailing about with the paddles to maintain forward momentum (and I only managed to capsize once). And there were several times after grounding to a halt on the stream-bed that we had to resign ourselves to wade for a few hundred feet dragging the canoes along to reach deeper water. There was also a spectacular and organic fireworks show courtesy of an afternoon thunderstorm that threatened us with some intense lightening but never came close enough to merit bailing out. Wound up sunburned, sore and smiling instead!

Afterwards I sketched a scene from memory, as I no longer have a point-and-shoot camera (and wasn't about to bring along an iPad or iPhone), and the image was pretty fresh in my mind after staring at it for half a day. And just like the actual experience, looking at the sketch brings me a momentary pause of peaceful reflection. Boating about recalls my experiences on the Ogeechee River during grad school, and our pair of one-person canoes is a prefect metaphor for us. Last year we left off our adventuring with an awesome all-day excursion around the Clearwater Lakes down by Delta Junction. Soon as we get back up and running (or in this case, floating) I'll post some more pics and panels inspired by this new angle on outdoor recreation.