Scratchy Scratchy

This is just me, scribbling away again as I watch the box. Should try to get into some real projects. I'm still doing some real work, but I've also got to fix some things up around home, plus some other responsibilities I've been shirking. It's no picnic being a shy, sensitive type! Maybe try to get people to laugh at something, or go "Awww." This is sort of the version of me filling up a page with whatever.

Schoolgirls

Actually, this isn't a very uniform-y kind of neighbourhood, but I saw lots of schoolgirls in Quebec City, and certainly, they're all over the west side of this city. In Asia, too. But this pair are purely out of my head.

But, though R. Crumb is an influence of mine, I was trying to avoid making them into fantasy figures, or objects of any kind of fetishisation. I know, how P.C. of me, especially since I'm a cartoonist. But I think it's actually harder for a guy to be that way than it is to go the other extreme, which certainly will come up if you do an image search for "schoolgirl."

I was very unhappy that an earlier drawing of mine ended up linked to a creepy type of web forum, but of course you can't control that sort of thing, and you look like a putz if you try to complain.

I'm actually trying to have it both ways, because I like drawing attractive people, and am very anti-censorship. I do have to watch myself sometimes, because I want kids to visit here and laugh at the cute, funny drawings, and get in the habit of drawing with sketchbooks -- that kind of thing. I guess too bad some of the links at the right are sometimes "Not Safe for Work," which defeats that purpose.

Anyway, it's a big tug of war, and like the issue of cartooning people from different ethnic backgrounds, probably won't be resolved in my lifetime. I'm just trying to do what feels right to me, and hope that doesn't manage to be too creepy or deranged to the rest of the world.

People Standing, Looking Worried

That's the subject of a lot of my drawings. The lamp post is too short, because I drew it in before I decided to draw in the people. That's the way it goes. I like how I'm handling the wire fence, because those are difficult. So is all that stone work, if you're not prepared to micro-render every block.

Watercolour sketches:



This one makes me think of my late Uncle Roland, who was way better at drawing horses than I. He's interesting. Actually, his name is Roland Gissing, and he's related to George Gissing, the Edwardian Era British author, who is also worth looking up.

I never actually met Uncle Roland, but he used to send me beautifully illustrated childrens' books when I was a youngster. As well, I inherited some of his stuff, so he's an influence on my art.

Interesting guy. I'll write more about him sometime, if there's nothing on the web. He's worth a web page.

Nothing to do with the below, except that I sometimes feel like that kid.

The Whole Crew

Don't know how he got the shirt to fit, but he must have rolled a Yalie. Or found a dead one.

Of course there's also Value Village, for the less morbidly inclined. But a girl I knew always assumed they were selling the clothing from dead people.

Outside my front door, yesterday and today:

Rainbows!

Balloons!


It's like living in a frickin' Peter Max painting!

Riding down the Road

The last one made me nervous. Here's a long-haired bike guy, with sideburns.

This is just strange

Was basically drawing this guy from "Princess Mononoke," but without the facial wart, and what better to put in front of him than a pussycat? Sorry, that's what it's like when one's mind wanders.

I'm enjoying working the monochrome wash, however. You have so many levels of light to play with!

I guess the drawings would look a little more sane if I copied photographs, but I hate that, because it usually looks dead to me. Prefer inventing out of my head, from a suggestion of something I see. That's when the drawing's not being done from life. But there's the risk of this oddness, plus lousy proportions, and the like.

I've thought of making a blog where I put all of my totally failed drawings. I think a lot of artists have these, but they destroy them, or at least don't put them out in public. I don't think I'm the only artist who screws up proportions, or misdraws a hand. I think, though, I'd be alone, or at least a very rare person who showed them to people. (not that I really think I'm going to go ahead with it. But anyone is welcome to start. I've got a title for the blog: "Guh!")

Actually, one of the most inspiring things for my own art was looking in a published version of a Picasso sketchbook, and seeing a drawing with a messed-up hand. So, even the deities perhaps went through trial and error.

This to me is an essential part of the learning process. I use mistakes and failed drawings as things to learn from, and always have to go through a certain amount of these before I get my touch back, for instance, with watercolour after a period away from a brush.

Sometimes, of course, there are those happy accidents, but it's hard to rely on them. Then, on the other hand, there's planning, and preparatory drawings, and all the tricks illustrators use to get the image down in reasonable time. A lot of people in illustrative art copy a master. That's okay. I'm just moving along a different path, a harder way to do it, with a lot more blind alleys. Don't think this is a better idea, it's just where I've ended up.

In the Reign of ....

Watching Barry Lyndon, but she looks more Victorian.

Even More Pictures

Probably blogging too much. I know, how is that possible? Because I'm always looking forward to what my favourite blogs have to say. But I was reading that too much posting can confuse people, and turn them off. Still, I only get about 14-25 hits a day, so I don't know if it will go down a lot.

Quite amazed to hear, last night, from a poetry editor, that poets published in books don't own copyright to their work for ten years. So they can't put up what they write in their blogs without asking for elaborate permissions, or else getting into trouble. And that's why there's not a ton of exciting poetry on the web, at least that I've found, after a not too diligent search.

I don't know if the above is true actually. I'll have to ask my poetry editor friend. Sorry I don't have a link to the above editor's site. She's getting lots more hits than I am, but she's done promotion. Not just putting something up, and seeing who comes, and sometimes commenting on other's blogs, and getting a link that way. (that's what I'm doing, and I'm not methodical about it).

Really, I was going to write about how in a way dismaying it is that I'm not drawing exciting, dramatic or funny pictures all the time. The above, which I scratched this morning while listening to the CBC (a mystery writer, former CBC person who's a recovering alcoholic - so those nice lady CBC freelancers have secret vices!), is a scene out of my head, set in the editing room.

That's really my favorite place to be when helping make TV. Lots of possibility for creating. At the moment, I'm writing scripts, which is being creative in that way. The next step, of course, is shooting, where you can either get everything, or run into problems. The script is the guideline for this, where the story is captured in the visual ('real') world. The editing is where the program takes shape, where a lot of the real creativity happens.

Making a show is teamwork. The researcher hands material off to me. I make the story. The story is shot by the director, the director goes into the suite, with the editor. Been lucky to have been involved in a lot of these areas, even trying my hand at editing, during the Lord of the Rings Concert project.

Of course, there are lots of other people involved in the current Discovery Channel project. Producers, people who make phone calls, so that things to shoot or animation will be where it's supposed to be. A lot of hands. I'm really interested to see what the final, final project will look like, and what resemblance these episodes will have to the scripts I wrote, oh, maybe a lifetime ago.

More pictures

I don't put up everything I draw. But today I decided to do almost that:

Thought of this, because of the casino show I wrote. Below that is the front of a school outside, drawn from life:





Sort of to do with the Tam Tam jam on Mount Royal (don't know what they're doing this year, because of restoration on the angel monument which is the centre of the event). Actually, I began with the horse guy, but he started looking a little stiff. So, the people went in, in front, and the guy became a statue.



Chee-Hooa-Hooa. Woof! (actually: YIP YIP YIP YIP!)

Doesn't need a title

June 15 028
Originally uploaded by Mr. Boggedy.

Out tooling around Saint Helen's Island. Sitting on the riverbank, and riding along the Formula One track on my bike. Vroom!


Here's a scan of the drawing:

Afternoon Lazing

Not doing too much. Recovering from some stress (that's my excuse), and waiting for the last stage of my series job. Other, little things are taken care of, so I'm just hanging out. Drawing people in parks without their noticing.

Afternoon Walking

He's the walking man.
Walking, walking, walking.
Where's he going? No one knows.
He just keeps walking - there he goes.

This is an old guy who spends his day just walking around the neighbourhood. I guess it's for the exercise.



Walkers in colour, because I've got a new sketchbook, which works with watercolour.

Stiffness in the male, and "background action!"

I always like to look at a colour picture at the top of my blog, rather than those black and whites. This is a sketch I did which is stiff on purpose. The one guy walks stiffly because he's full of rage, while the other does so, because he's full of nerves.

My life seems to be coming back together. Of course everything happens at an inconvenient time. Did an interesting extra gig yesterday for a French Tv series called Le 7ieme Round. I was a boxing fan. Wearing my old suit, I tried to come off like a dissipated Harvard boy.

It was very bizarre, because the show was being shot by the same company for which I was writing the series I'm working on, so I felt in a strange way to be slumming. However, I enjoy chatting to often funny or show-biz aspiring people who take these gigs. It would be a good way to cast your independent film, by getting names and numbers (I think the casting agent might be pissed at that!). Lots of little stories to share, and I was talking about how I broke through with the writing. Full of energy for a bit, but wore out towards the afternoon.

I haven't rented any of the films or shows I've background work in, after seeing how spastic I looked in "Timeline." [link]* Bad actors (I am one), tend to over-gesture when asked to do simple things, such as pretend you're talking. Still, when I get around to it, I'll post images when I can find them. My postman recognised me making an ass of myself on a 1960s disco floor in another series. I still find it fun in ways, and never turn down work, when it's offered.

*Sorry, I'll fix the unlinked-to pix on my web site. It's been two years since an update, and it's a little like the state of my apartment right now. Things are not in the places they are supposed to be.

More Scary Stuff

On the right is a sketch of a friend's girlfriend by me. Left is Rick Gagnon's illumination of my other drawing of a much different woman, riffing on someone who was walking by while Rick and I were sitting last Tuesday at an outdoor cafe, near the Maisonneuve Market.

Lafontaine Park

A lot of paint slathered, and not very representational. But I'm pleased.

Radish Spirit

Don't wink at the radish spirit!

McGill Reporter

Paying illustration for the McGill faculty paper. The subject is things for your kids to do at summer camp. I was aiming for cheerful and colourful.