Colour Pens

Nothing special for Hallowe'en. While buying candy for kids who didn't show up, bought a set of 24 colour markers for a dollar. Some of them were kind of dry, but they're cool.

Below, a First Nations kid in pencil.

Neglecting the Blog

But still drawing stuff.



Sometimes I think I'm doing nothing, but then all this stuff pops up. Still, it's mainly to relax, and learn. I seem to lose whatever chops I have, if I don't keep my hand in. Doing some watercolour things, which are complicated, and not ready.

This stuff is self-explanatory. At the bottom of this post is a page of doodles -- the sort of thing I usually don't post here.







Cat in middle is saying "Taste my paw-fu!" While the guy in lower left is saying "The kets! The kets! They's killin' each other!" -- something that is often exclaimed chez Ruttan.

R. Gagnon's Hallowe'en Hi-jinks

Hold onto your seats -- you're about to be terrified.

Rather than the usual sketching jag, which happens many Fridays when artist/translator Richard Gagnon and I get together for a pitcher of beer, yesterday we were caught up in the unexpected.

The management plunked down a pumpkin on our table, and asked us, since we were artist-types, to design and carve a jack-o-lantern for the bar.

So Rick got to work, and designed the following blood-curdling image:



Of course, having let him have the honour of designing the pumpkin, I let Rick do the cutting and cleaning. I went off and played pool. So, this is all Rick's work.

Brace yourself for a nightmare of terror:



Pretty spooky, huh?

Of course, it's even more sanity-threatening when lit up, as follows:



Hallowe'en's not 'til next week, but people are going out to parties and all this evening, even though it's raining in Montreal. Spook responsibly!

Evening Encounter

Started drawing this last night in bed. Then this morning added in some of the furniture and background. My mom was an interior designer and I grew up with a lot of furniture history and style which just sort of soaked in, though I never studied it. Still, for a real picture, it would be handy researching things.

First I thought her head was too big and scary. Did some other heads I was going to paste on, but they weren't as interesting. I think he's about 2/3rds her height if they stood together, but I've known guys like that.

Characters

Bunch of sketchbook characters

Fairy in Colour

I coloured up that picture today. Listening to Wagner's Ring cycle, so there will probably be some more drawings like this.

Pocket Sketchbook

This is the small, pocket sketchbook.

Collaboration all over the place, again.

There're so many Rick Gagnon-inked drawings here, I'm going to have to rename the blog. Or make a separate blog that contains only these collaborations, and the comic strips we've done in the past.

But, it's all more material to post, and if it's fun, no harm in that.

Below, everyone gets dark, in the style of one of these '50s comic artists Rick admires. The guy below is saying "Once, I could have left with Jeanne Moreau." (we were talking about French films).

Also darkened is my poor cat, and his newly-cloven ear.



As a bonus, here's another drawing from another day, based on sketches I was making while watching Fargo:



And finally, what I was drawing while he was inking all of those things. This is a woman at another, very yackky table near us at the bar. She's holding a spider because I wanted her to be doing something with her hands.

Another Pierrot, a nurse, and a naked lady

Just more stuff. As I draw them. Not too busy right now, but not so stressed as I have been. Hope that nude doesn't bother anyone. I like the loose, non-realistic style.

Reeva, Ghetto Lit, and Children of Paradise

Sorry, not that much to post. And I'm sometimes a little reluctant to change the top picture on the blog, when it's one I like. (sometimes they're pictures I don't like, and I'm happy to push them down the queue.)

Anyhow, she's a quick sketch of Reeva, the mystery-solving suburban reporter from a friend's mystery book, called Dead Men Can't Surf the Net. Not sure if it's really been published or not (maybe if I can find a link, that will explain), and the book isn't widely available. The plotting was shakey, but I liked the sense of character, and wish the author good luck in her so far, promising writing career.

Doing more, and different stuff in this post. Here's a link to an interesting article about "ghetto lit." If people who don't normally read books are reading, is it right to decry the subject matter?

Below is another quick sketch I drew while watching one of my new favourite movies, Les enfants du paradis.

Dragon Dog and Doris Lessing

It's not every day you get to see a blonde walking her Norwegian Dragon Dog. But they do need walking. I hope this isn't the animal who put a big notch in my cat's ear. (he seems kind of proud of it)



Listening to the CBC interview of Doris Lessing. Her The Golden Notebook is one of those defining books of the 20th century. I didn't like her other ones. This drawing is based on a photo by Chris Saunders. Though it doesn't exactly look like the photo (that's why I'm not putting a link to it: you can look for it yourself), it looks like my idea of Doris Lessing, so I think it works.

Love (or is it lust?) at the Comics Convention

Haven't actually been to one of these. (well, there was expozine, and another free event way back) But there's enough about them on the net.

Gagnon to the Rescue

This week, my collaborator R. Gagnon went to town on a bunch of my drawings, new and old.

Above, was a very quick scribble of an old man. Hope R. doesn't mind the grey tone I added to the dog.

Middle, two guys in a bar, in colour this time. Skeletal flying fish up above has nothing to do with the scene.



And below, an older picture of mine he had started on, of Bono and Leonard Cohen. They have a very scary look in the eyes, like they're about to do violence. I love Lenny's checked jacket!

Random

More black and white shaded drawing. He needed something on his shirt, and I went through a few ideas. "Bee Fizz" sounded wrongly suggestive, while "Random Calculations" was too long. So the word "Pensées" went in, but it doesn't really mean anything. I'm listening to a DVD commentary for a film called Candy, so am in the mood for explaining, or commenting on, such things in the drawings.

Would have been more fun to have a drawing with likenesses of the actors, but there you go.

Roller Pen and Dip Pen

The pen used above is called a Sanford Uni-ball Onyx fine. The one below was drawn with the usual dip pen -- the Hunt #102 Crow Quill, "The Nation's favorite art pen" according to this vintage ad.

Sketchbook Funnies Redux

Did another comic starring some guy I sketched walking in the street. The first one's here.

Gagnon Fridays Return

Again. R. Gagnon and I meet at a bar for an end-of-week beer. We're both freelancers, so the week doesn't have the usual kind of structure. Indeed, late Fridays is when I often have to take calls, etc. But here we go. I like the finish he gives to some of my pencil scribbles.

I know, this is a Saturday, but the drawings are done on Friday!

Below, an interior of the Cock and Bull Pub, with contributions from both of us.

Orthodox Girl

This is an orthodox jewish girl playing in what I thought was called St. Viateur Park, but was really Outremont Park, on rue St. Viateur. It's still possible to sit in parks and draw, though even the wasps have abandoned them.

That's a bug squashed in the corner, however. Not very Jainish of me, sorry.

Etc.

A couple, done with brush pen, and cheap black ball-point. Below, an earlier horse I didn't like. But I saw what I had already put up on the blog, and so thought, "what the heck?"

I've been drawing horses for years, ever since working at a stables in my youth. Never quite could get the back legs right. I think that's more because I stand them in stiff, unnatural positions (and hate copying directly from photos). Sort of like some of my people. A figure down below looked good, and less stiff because I based her on an "S" - curve.

That's the trouble with working out of your head, and being self-taught. You get into ruts, and end up drawing symbols rather than things that breathe. Still working on that, which is perhaps often just the need to relax more.

Another Horse

Here's another horse. A little better drawn. Plus a despairing LOLcat in the foreground, who is about to be washed.

More Cowboys

Noticed I'd already done three posts with cowboys in them. Should put tags on these posts, so that I could collate them. I'm trying to draw better horses. Have done so in the past, but those were usually from life. There aren't that many cowboys and horses wandering around South Central Montreal.