The Negation of Terry Gilliam

I've been busy, and afraid I'm reaching back into the sketchbook for tonight's entry. Drawing heads and things lately, but they don't feel spectacular. This is from while I was watching the great documentary, Lost in La Mancha, about the collapse of Terry Gilliam's film project. Here his assistant director (Gilliam is on the right) is telling him the film is "Chinga," which he defines as "the negation of pussy." I'm glad he defined it, because I can't find the word in my Spanish-English dictionary.

La Mancha isn't the only failed film project I've heard about. A person I was working with went to Europe to work on a movie about Greenpeace's ship the Rainbow Warrior, and how it was sabotaged by the French government. I wonder whether that government had anything to do with torpedoing the movie, which never got made, despite the building of four full-size animatronic whales, which must be a in a warehouse somewhere.

Maybe there are failed films everywhere, littering the countryside with unused props and sets – "I am Ozymandias, King of Kings! Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!" That's trying to be a quote from Shelley, about grand constructions and dreams that come to nothing.

Well, I'm writing the second episode of this TV documentary series I've been working on. The first was accepted, it seems, so I'm on my way. Certainly pays better than illustration. Speaking of which, the drawing of a frog in an ice cube was a study for another McGill University newspaper story, about, I guess, the durability of frogs.

Bob Dylan

Hmmmm. Work is going ridiculously well. I'm booked for almost a solid year with entertaining and rewarding stuff, and I'll never had made as much money in my life. It means I have to revise my self-image, at least the public one.

Can't say it's made me happy, though, except for flashes where I dance Tom-Cruise-like around my apartment. I'm still the nervous worrier I've always been, finding some new thing to obsess over. Won't share that with you today.

What I will share is my portrait of Bob Dylan, transposed to a Montreal street. Watched Martin Scorcese's bio-doc No Direction Home about him, and while I wish there was more to it, it sheds some new life on his character. (this week, with a break in the work, but lousy weather, I've been inside doing nothing except watching DVDs. Sometimes drawing faces inspired by them, of which this is one).

I'm a fan of Dylan's music, and an admirer of his artistic integrity, while not liking him as a personality. The documentary covers all of that. It shows his priggish, opaque, and self-obsessed side, which was given in a film I haven't seen, the Pennebaker concert film (Don't Look Back is the title), but also gives some good reasons for this behavior. People, it seems, were trying to control him, make him into what they wanted, and he was resisting. "Poor little famous boy" you can think, but it is a faustian bargain. The press really does want him to perform like a monkey, and his fans really want him to stay in place forever. This where, as he says so well, "If you're not busy being born, you're busy dyin'."

What I love about Bob Dylan is that he's honest in his music, and he's always learning and changing. Not really caring so much about what other people think.

What drives me nuts about him are traits you see more in his imitators, like my former roommate here in this apartment. It's this artificial waif-like quality, "the don't touch me, I'm a sensitive poet," thing, with all the free-association writing on walls, and Peter Pan inability to deal with life, commit, or stand by friends. Of course, many women fall for this, and they mother these guys. I'm jealous, in part, because I can't pull it off. When I try that, I come off more as creepy or crazy. Haven't learned to tone down the insecurity vibrations, and turn up the cool, which will work for you if you are Peter Pan, or a bad boy.

Of course, a big part of my problem, if you can call it that, is that I'm not all that interested in other people much of the time. So I won't remember names, and I think that's a big part of the reason I'm not so good at drawing portraits.

But enough about me, as they say. Bob Dylan gets a pass because he is a great artist, and a kind of Shaman. There is that fakery there, but lots of famous people have put on what Ezra Pound (a famous practitioner of the notion) called "personae." These are the masks the artist wears. People are always interested in looking for the "True Face," behind those images, but they have no right in the end. That's if we have any right at all to control over ourselves as individuals, or the chance to do it. Even professing total honesty, and abjuring masks, the way I do, is a type of performance.

Enjoy the show! We're trying to make it an interesting one.

Satyricon

This is a full-dress watercolour I did, stretching the paper, and everything. Then I put this photoshop "edge enhancement" on it, which made it look like an old-fashioned book illustration or plaster fresco. It's inspired by Fellini's film, which is full of interesting and disgusting things to see. Since it's not drawn from the screen, but my memory of it, it's a little "nicer" than the real thing. That's just my personality. Tired! goodnight!

Mr. Sober

The estimable Mr. Sober, and his imaginary Boston Terrier pal. Note the tabby markings, which are different from those of the famous "Death's Head Cat," or indeed, the festive "Tiki Cat."

The dog is attempting by a force of will to keep its eyes from popping out, a common failing in this breed.

Peke Lady

More women with dogs. I really like the rough quality of the ink. It was smoother before, but I came in and messed it up, added more variations.

Goth Girl with Dog

A cat is preventing me typing much here. Things are going well, though I'm tired. I had a different dog in mind, but that was with a younger girl. Lots of black and white, these days.

Night Drawings

I like drawing in bed, before I go to sleep. Here are a couple of things from this weekend.

Above is "Ticoune ze Whiz Tornado," a Quebec comic book character who's an amalgam of a couple of other characters you might recognize. He doesn't fight crime very much, but enjoys skulking around rooftops. I guess that's a fun thing about being a superhero, at least if you're not particularly super powered. I take walks at night, or go out on my bike. Something of the same thrill, but less risky.



This is "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," with some vampire, I guess. With these I don't do pencil underneath (just a black roller pen), so there's always the chance to screw up. But at night I'm more relaxed, and so more in tune with that inner artist who has the picture inside you, and I'm just following.

Scooter

Feel like I haven't been posting much. Haven't been drawing much, busy with a job. But here's a person who scooted by while I was sitting on the porch. It's getting cold now, and less possible to draw on the porch. Hope there will be a few more days. Otherwise, I'm sitting here, and drawing out of my strange imagination, or from the TV. Well, that's a cold climate!

I guess I added in the dogs. A little obsessed with Boston terriers and pug dogs lately. Funny little squish-faced dogs rule! Of course, don't tell the cats that.

Worms

I work creatively as a freelance, which I'm very happy to do, rather than moping in an office, but I don't like talking about my work here. Had a big project lately, which is consuming a lot of my time (will take about a year, all told!). But, the less I go on about it, and the more I do it, the easier it becomes. TV writers are a stressed bunch, and I'm no different, it seems. I just tell myself that they didn't hire me because they wanted a spectacular failure; it's because I can do the job, so I should stay assured with that.

In the meantime, I'm doing illustrations for the McGill Reporter, the faculty newspaper at McGill University here in Montreal. I find it relaxing to do, because it's not like the writing work. I'm stumped on something (like trying to find a way to link up the last scene in my documentary script to the new scene with a simple, funny phrase), and then the newspaper editor calls up, and asks for a picture of composting worms -- it feels like a break. And I'm making money doing it.

The illustration came out in black and white. So here it is in colour! There was some debate over whether the worms should have eyes or not. I thought, of course not.

I've gotten tons of "comment spam," darn them. Automated responses plugging some website or another. So I've had to turn on the Blogger "comment verification" feature. Hope that doesn't deter you real commenters out there, wherever you are. I certainly like comments! But won't beg for them. No. I'm above that.