I Practice All The Time

Many of my studio-mates are natural cartoonists in the sense that cartooning was the first drawing language that they fell in love with and subsequently made concerted efforts to master. I was always more interested in 'realistic' or observed drawing for the same bravado-laced reasons that many aspiring young (typically male) artists often have. I assumed that because cartooning involved fewer lines and a distortion of visual norms that it was easy; I have learned just how difficult it actually is to capture the heart of a gesture, expression or setting with the perfect line. I have, after being inspired by the brilliant work of my many cartooning fluent studio-mates and comic art heroes, set about the task of revisiting the fundamentals of both construction and cartooning.


One way that I practice is to focus on an area I have trouble with like hands, mouths, placement of features on a face, torsos, feet etc. I go through issues of comics drawn by artists I like and copy their solution as closely as possible. In this case I took an issue of avengers and mimicked as many Stuart Immonen mouths as I could for about 2 hours. I learned a ton. I don't use that sort of thing when I'm making my own drawings because that would be plagiarism; it is totally fine to do it as a practice exercise in the same sense as learning a great Eric Clapton solo when you're trying to master blues guitar. It is worth trying to step into the shoes of your hero and get things from their perspective.


Michael Hampton's book on structural drawing has become a favorite of mine and I'm going through it bit by bit and trying out all the systems that he has developed. I highly recommend it to any of you that are experiencing a similar internal or external prompting to reexamine your stylistic leanings and tendencies. I plan to fill this sketch book with practice drawings and get as good as those artists I admire so much while simultaneously avoiding clear imitation in my final work. I'm only a little way into the process and it has already been a huge boon to me.

Sketchbook Adventures

Here are a few items from my sketch books. Keeping it short and sweet with lots of pictures. Lindsey says people like pictures.



I played a rare solo show and opened for these fine fellows. Then I did a drawing of them.



The one on the left was done while we waited for pancakes to come to our table. The painted study on the left was done with gouache but I did it over acrylic gesso so it's a bit streaky. I just got some 'watercolor ground' to try out. We shall see eh?



More Lindsey. I started by sketching with the gray brush and added the ink after. It was fun. This preceded pancakes as well. I eat pancakes every weekend if I can. It is my favorite treat.



These are my amazing friends Matt and Cathy Hastie. They just got back from Peru where they were living for 7 months. Matt was helping local people to improve their water quality. Cathy was working with kids at a Peruvian school. You can see their fantastic adventures on their website. I did these drawings while they were giving a forum on their experience at the Mc Menamin's Kennedy school in the public room.



I found this sketch I had done for a fella at a comic book signing event. No sketch post is complete without a little Star Wars.
And there you go...

Hear Ye Hear Ye: More Sketches!

These are some recent pages from my observational drawing sketchbook; it is mostly drawings of Lindsey! I also keep a sketchbook that is for working out more complex images in a rough, nuts and bolts way. My next post will be some of those more clunky sketches and the (eventually) more streamlined results that follow from them.


This is Lindsey on the day I proposed (August 19th) and getting her hair cut in proximity to a girl who had raccoon/tiger stripes in her hair.

These are the food carts right across from where I work. The one on the left is everyone else's favorite but I go to the one on the right because they are 98 percent as good and 60 percent faster.
I have been working very steadily on a host of commercial projects lately. Most of them unfortunately, come with an NDA that prevents me from sharing that work here but I have been sketching in my little observational journal when time allows. I thought I might post a few of my doodles until I can get some of the flashier work approved for public consumption.

Wednesday Sketchplosion!

I love doing observational drawings of people who aren't holding still. It is almost always difficult but conversely enjoyable when you get things right. I thought I might share a few them with you:

My dear friend Scott Barkan was in town for a few days on tour with Alaskan songsmith Marian Call and I was able to capture them over the course of two delightful sets.
Lindsey's family had a get together this last weekend. Part of her family lives in Idaho and it is a rare treat to see them. I tried to capture as much as I could. For the most part this is pieced together from several configurations as people traded chairs and went in and out to get food and mind adorable babies.
I was asked by friend Chris to draw his band 'The Wishermen' at Jimmy Mak's last night. From left to right: Adam Schwietert on Alto, Special Guest Elysia Strauss on Tenor, Cyrus Nabipoor on Trumpet, Grant Sayler on Guitar, Chris Friesen on Bass and Barra Brown on Drums.
I also started a new tumblr that you can check out for yourself here:

tragedyseries.tumblr.com
It covers all manor of absurd silliness and I post once a day. Tell your friends and family if they are the sort of people who enjoy vaguely Victorian schadenfreude.

Thursday Sketch Party!

My sketchbook still has a couple hundred pages left in it and I'm trying to close that gulf so I can start my next sketchbook with the really nice paper in it. I bought my current Moleskine (my first) without realizing that there were different varieties of paper and formats to be had. The good news is that because the paper is gentle I approach the sketchbbok with a preciousness that I don't ordinarily embrace when 'sketching.'

I love drawing from life because it hones that mechanism for preserving and recalling information that is so necessary as a comic book artist.
In some cases I will coat the pages with Gesso so that one drawing doesn't bleed through to the preceding or following pages. I did that on this set of pages but I'm looking for alternatives because the surface gets too 'slick.'
I bought Lindsey a sketchbook yesterday so that she can have fun too. I think everyone should try it. Sketching teaches you to look at the world with a discerning eye and pick those parts that stand out as important in a virtual sea of possible information. It's a nice thing to 'edit' the world with your eye.

Facts and Figures (Nudes Ahead!)

Periscope hosted a figure drawing session last night and these are my drawing from that set of hours. It had been several years since I had done dedicated figure drawings but it was as if I had never stopped. I used a pentel pocket brush for the wash and my pentel brush pens for the black.

My lighting preference is a double light source but I know my fellow studio-mates would rather a single high contrast source; this time is was a sort of compromise born of available materials.
As figure drawing sessions go it was really nice. Our model was great at holding interesting poses even in our long suffering, ancient studio nap-chair. I'm looking forward to the next one and I'll be sure to post those too!

Dewey's Tuesday Grab-Bag!

I have a few 'targeted' blog posts coming up but for now I have some drawings and points of interest that I'd like to share before I forget! The first of these somewhat unconnected offerings is a little painting I did of my cat in anticipation of a project that I'm developing with writer Paul Tobin. More on that front as it becomes appropriate to divulge details.

I'm really enjoying the qualities of Gouache. I might even make a painted comic, of modest length, as an upcoming project.
I played a show with my friend Josh Malm at the Aladdin Theatre on the 11th of this month and I was able to do a little drawing of one of the opening bands. All I had was a sharpie and a 0.05 micron. It's like having a broadsword or a scalpel when you want to spread jam on your toast.

These guys knew how to work a crowd but they were a little crass backstage; I suppose that is rock n' roll for the most part.
Here is another drawing of Lindsey that I did while we were eating at a restaurant. We went to Genie's to try their breakfast fare. I liked Lindsey's French toast but I was not a fan of my own pancakes. I think it was probably a fluke because the rest of breakfast was great. I think Lindsey is very pretty and I like to draw her.

My current sketch book has really thin paper so I didn't add a wash behind her; I still like this image as it is with the tints of white pen on the off white paper.
I've got plenty of drawings in process and lots of projects in the cue. Come back and visit. Feel free to tell me what you think and what sorts of things you might like to see on the blog. I'm open to including suggestions and stealing your ideas! Happy Tuesday. Thanks all!