Drawings of Guys

Maybe these would be more interesting (and also better drawn) if they really told stories, rather than just standing around.

Temple Door

Trying for more sexy Egyptians, but this one is more present-day and in evening wear.

March Montreal Comic Jam Antics

Here's part of the loyal group, jamming away, at last night's March 2008 Montreal Comic Jam. (I love Patrick's face in the upper left corner!)

A couple of our artists: Patrick Hénaff:


and La puce à l'agonie ("the flea that hurts"? No, "The Flea in its Death Throes"), below on the right, with her friend, Eli.


Here, it's Jane, Mistress of the Jam, cutting her delicious birthday cake. (It took me hours to shop for.)


One of the pages the gang turned out that night:

My French feels shaky today, but here's the translation, (and who did what):
Poll: What do you like about Winters?
Panel 1: (by Nicolas Plamondon)
Panel 2: (by Jack Ruttan)
Panel 3: "Honey, have you seen the kids?" (by Sirkowski)
Panel 4: "Goddamn slush!" (by Kurt Beaulieu)
Panel 5: "I can wear mittens and socks." (by La puce à l'agonie)
Panel 6: "The vacations..." (by Éric Thériault)

Life is good in Hochelaga, and at the Comic Jam!

To entice you to tomorrow night's Montreal Comic Jam, here's a page we've done:



Lots of hands took part here. I did the panels with the "JR" on them, at least the pencils, and some of the inks as well!

(by the way, the middle panel sez "Smell of great cat food.")

The Montreal Comic Jam takes place tomorrow, Thursday March 27 8 pm at Bar des Pins, 3714 Park Avenue. Take the number 80 bus North from Place des Arts Metro, and get off at Avenue Leo Pariseau, near Pine Avenue, just before the park! And it's Jane Tremblay, the Mistress of the Jam's birthday!

More Collaboration, and Types.

This guy with the hair was in a restaurant I was in with Rick the other night. His friend is imaginary, but typical. They're perfect intellectuals. The trouble with this drawing is that Dogville came out in 2003. They'd be watching Fassbinder, or if I was feeling especially nasty, Anthony Minghella.

Now, this picture below is a collaboration, and pure imagination, except for the "pineapple head" dreadlock guy, who was drawing that strange symbol in his book as I walked by. I started the picture with him, Rick carried on, and I added in after that.

Still haven't totally figured out his take on the female face, but try to make it look as good as he makes my stuff. In this case, I was inking over his drawings, except when he said "here, let me do it," and took over. I've always liked the idea of ancient Egyptians blundering into downtown Montreal.

Truck Guy Dog

Missed my Friday meet with Gagnon, because both of us were sick. But tonight we had tasty noodle soups across the street, and made up for it. This was "arts and crafts" night at the Cock N' Bull, so everyone was painting on little hobby canvases with toy paint sets. Not drawing like this (hrummph! hrummph!). It's my pencil drawing with finishes in ink by Rick, or "tracing," as a girl pointed out who had seen the movie Chasing Amy. Ha ha ha! Seriously, Rick does a great job, and makes my pics look nice.

Oh yeah: According to Rick, this is what Meat Loaf looks like these days.

More Sketchbook Faces

More from the book, and out of my head (still a little bit sore from this flu bug). These aren't the most perfect things. But one thing I've learned, is that to do good work, you have to take chances and allow yourself to fail, even spectacularly at times. If I wanted it to be perfect all the time, I could repeat something that's been successful in the past, and become the master of drawing cute cats, or big-headed cartoon characters, for instance. Like this artist, who's won local fame drawing a certain kind of pretty woman's face over and over. But I'd rather stretch, even though it means occasionally lousy drawings.

Still trying to work out laziness in my drawing, which means if I draw something a certain way, such as an eye or the shape of a mouth, it comes out convincing; trying to get away from shortcuts. That's what's good, actually, about drawing from life, or photos. They take you away from the tricks you're used to. Give you new ideas. Of course, models are expensive, and photos are "cheating," unless you take them yourself. In my case, not having a studio and thousands of dollars, that means pictures of myself and my cats, or going out into public, or trying to wheedle my friends ...



I've tried doing underdrawing, to make sure the features line up (they usually don't), but that pretty much always ruins the drawing: it's stiff, and out of proportion anyways. Working on this, however.

The challenge here is to use tricks (or what some artists call "aids") to make the art good, but not lose the spontaneity. I draw easily out of my head, without planning, or second-guessing. Trouble is, I have a hard time seeing in the early stages whether something's technically right. Because everything has to be right in the basic structure, or the drawing's screwed up.

Here, one can take time away to let it sit, and then come back (not good under a deadline), or one can look at it in a mirror, or also scan it into the computer and flip it. Still haven't got all this down into a system, so that a perfect drawing would result every time.

Recovering over Easter

If people actually visit here every day, looking for new things, apologies. I've been sick with flu. Still drawing, just haven't finished lots. But feeling better, if this is any indication.

Characters

Characters who take up single pages in my little (5.5"x8.5") sketchy-book.

Stardust

This is Fletcher Hanks' Stardust from I Shall Destroy All Civilized Planets and a masked, robed, pinhead villain. I've always liked drawing superheroes as lumpy, wide muscle men, and making aliens as weird as possible. Of course, this one looks more like a craft project made out of objects found around the home.

Below, another old-fashioned comic book baddie:

Bulgemobile

They don't make 'em like this anymore!

By the Pricking of My Thumbs ... Something Witchy This Way Comes

This is Gagnon's version of Winnie the Witch, inked from his pencil version. It's big! Fills the whole 9" by 12" page in my Canson sketch book. That looks like an entire cartridge of Pentel Brushpen ink he's used.

He was impatient with me, because I hadn't gotten around to inking the picture. I've been working on my own stuff.

The Cock N' Bull was jumping this last Friday, because of all the Saint Paddy's day nonsense. Luckily, I had my smaller sketchbook on me (both of these were $3.95 at the local chain art store, so I stocked up).

I drew this fortune teller. Also witchy, but older.

Rock Band

Sketched this rock band, then tried colouring it on the computer, with my Wacom Tablet, which has lately begun working again, if only for limited periods of time. (I think it's the computer's fault) Anyhow, could be better, but not so bad.

Raymond Scott

Last night, I went with friends to a special concert, the Raymond Scott Centennial Event at the Loyola campus of Concordia University in Montreal. It was one of those concerts only a university could mount, because of the number of personnel involved, and the scope. It was a one-time only show, so I feel lucky to have caught it.

Raymond Scott was a composer and bandleader relatively few people remember. But everyone knows his music, as soundtracks for classic Warner Brothers cartoons. He actually never wrote the music for these cartoons. His tunes were part of Warner Brothers library, and were borrowed by cartoon composer Carl Stallings without credit. Scott's tunes such as Powerhouse and The Toy Trumpet sold millions in their day. But Scott was less interested in making money, or even leading a band, than he was in tinkering and innovating. Not a "people person" to say the least, he was happier building machines which were the ancestors of today's synthesizers, perhaps aiming to replace human musicians altogether.

The stage at Loyola's Oscar Peterson Concert hall was divided in two. On one side, the traditional big band. The other side held the electronica, operated by people in white coats.

Whitecoats, making music in Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. (photo by R. Gagnon):


With almost three hours of music, there was enough going on for several concerts. The big band stuff was exhilarating: it's fun music, and the musicians obviously enjoyed themselves. Towards the end of the first set there was a violin and piano suite that reminded me of French composers such as Ravel. It would have been a pleasure having a whole evening of either of these.

And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon (Photo by R. Gagnon):


Sprinkled throughout was Scott's electronic work, including his Soothing Sounds for Baby, which was marketed as a scientifically therapeutic program of sounds. Rather than soothing, the music with its repetitive tones tended to aggravate me: there's just not a lot of variation. But a baby, who was brought on stage to noodle with a keyboard, as seen below, seemed to like it just fine. Scott composed a lot for industrial films, and commercials, as well as experimental projects with future Muppet-master Jim Henson. There are hundreds of disks of material yet to be released. Producer Irwin Chusid, who gave a very enlightening but poorly-attended talk about Scott the night before, has dedicated himself to a life-long project of getting it out there. Scott's son, Stan Warnow, was shooting material for a documentary film about his father, which I'll be waiting for.

Baby (far right), jamming on some Soothing Sounds, with the Unireverse (Photo by R. Gagnon):

Art Films, Cows, and yet more Snow

As I said, there was heavy snow over Montreal, the night my friend and I went to the Fifa (Festival International du Film sur l'Art) at the Fine Arts Museum. The bronze cow outside the museum was embedded up to his neck. Lots of people were taking cell phone pictures of it. I had forgotten my camera, so I contented myself with later making this drawing:


Two films that night, both documentaries, but very different.

The first was called Notes on Photography, not the most stimulating title, by Jan Knutzen. Narrated in Norwegian by the filmmaker, and with English subtitles, it was an unpretentious series of almost still shots made with a DV video camera, mixed with photographs from the filmmaker's own collection and famous photographers, such as Eugene Atget.

With very little movement of the camera, and quiet words from the narrator, it invites you into Knutzen's thoughts, and before you know it, you are sucked into his world where photographs are numinous, and are a means of letting you travel back though time.

The next film was Achever l'Inachevable (Achieving the Unachievable), by Jean Bergeron. This was made for North American TV, possibly the same market I write for. Much flashier, this documentary uses computer graphic special effects to untangle some of the mysteries behind the lithographs of M.C Escher. Why, it asks, is there an empty space in the middle of one of his pictures, Print Gallery?

The computer graphics are well-suited to explore Escher's world of distortion and optical illusion. But the film is compromised by its concession to the TV market, such as a young "Escherian" host, (maybe the filmmaker. UPDATE: No, according to my friend, it's this guy) who doesn't seem to be much of an authority on Escher, only a pretty face, and by interviews with Quebec art celebrities who seem to have little to do with Escher. Their inclusion undoubtedly brought the project funding. I would rather have heard more from the experts and seen them help with the demonstration, but they were overdubbed, and only talking heads. I have to admit my enjoyment was curtailed because of my lousy French, and the fact there were no subtitles.

If you skipped over all of that, here's a last drawing of a guy in the bar where we stopped off. Behind him are a bunch of kids, laughing and dancing, undoubtedly cheesing him off, or perhaps making him feel envious:

Ugly Guys and Beautiful Girls

Went out to FIFA last night, which is the Montreal Festival of Art Films. When I was writing art criticism for Espace Magazine, I got a journalist's pass to see this, and spent a happy week in the dark watching film after film. Unfortunately, films about art tend to look alike. It's a challenge to come up with something new and compelling, especially as most visual art tends not to move.

I'm sure there's lots on the web to find later about these films, such as the titles. Feeling pretty lazy this morning. Oh, well, maybe I can drag out a program and check them out in a later post. That's what this couple are doing. Checking out the films, I mean.

This time, for a switch, they're drawn by my friend Richard Gagnon, and then inked by me. He's supposed to be this very ugly guy G. referred to as "goat boy," but he turned out rather dashing.

I supplied some ugly later on.


This, like the above, was done over a pitcher at our not-usual bar, down the street from the Art Museum, where the films were showing. There was a gang of kids there bopping to some very pre-processed beats. Apparently Americans here over spring break, marooned by the latest snow dump we've just had in Montreal. Maybe this angry old man didn't like the music. I asked G. to add a female character in the back. Rather than someone else screaming, which I would have done, he drew the server. Again, it's me adding the inks over Rick's drawing in the corner, in a reversal of our usual roles. The scratchy, cross-hatched stuff is all mine.

I've done more drawings from this night, but maybe will hold them back for another post. Also the movie reviews, if there will be such things. I feel fairly geeky, sketching like mad with my friend at whatever bar, but it's fun, and works the creative muscles. Sort of a mini, two-handed comic jam.

Finally, here's a drawing I made all myself of Winnie The Witch, who while sexy and all (I hope I didn't make her head too mannish) doesn't seem to rate her own fan web page. This is a shame. If my friend Rick, who collects comics and original art, set up a web site showing off his collection (hint, hint), you could have the benefit of his taste in comics history. Even I haven't seen all that he's got squirreled away!

TV and Comics Heroines

Couple of pics today, after meeting with my friend R. Gagnon at the Cock N' Bull bar. Above, he's inked my drawing of a couple of the heroines of the Firefly TV series, which became the movie, Serenity. I like River, the crazy girl (L) because when she shows up in the show, stuff happens. That's supposed to be Kaylee, in her party frock, in front. I added colours, later, with my Prismacolour pencils. (I'm a bit of a Luddite, but that just means I'm bad at computer colouring)

Below is Gagnon's drawing of Winnie the Witch, from the old Charlton Horror Comics.

More Red and Yellow

Maybe should blend the colours more. But I likes me the yellow.

These pictures of women come off stiff to me, but they are what I've been drawing. I'm more happy when there's a touch of personality or purpose in the pic (even a slightly zombiefied or stupid personality, like the guy in the B & White wash below), not just a schematic face. That's why the sketches from life are usually better, because there's a real person behind them.

But I'm working on inventing interesting people out of my head, rather than just drawing wax-works. A lot of that involves getting away from schematic ways of drawing things such as lips, eyes and eyebrows. Sometimes tricks that make one thing look good get dull when repeated too often.

Well, this blog is about process, and I try to put it up, mis-steps and all.

Whatever....

Cave Girl and Fat Case

I'm going to add colour to this later.

I thought the boy cat was the beauty of the house, but taking a lot of snaps of the girl. It's a blog, so you're getting cat pics:

No, those are not kitty boogers!

Woof, Woof!

Just More Drawings of Women

Friday Collaboration and Fun, and My Latest TV Episode is Airing Tonight!

Another meet with my friend, R. Gagnon, produced this sketch of our favourite other-dimensional gal, Clea, from the Doctor Strange comics.

Wish I had a picture of Gagnon playing this crazy unrollable flexible keyboard, which is like the paper piano keyboard you had to practice on if you were a poor kid, but this one makes sounds and can accompany you like a Hammond Organ.

I'll settle for this nifty portrait by Gagnon of a Video Lottery Terminal gamer:



Meanwhile, I was drawing bar characters, and the Saint Paddy's Day decorations, which were up. I added the grey in photoshop with a lot of effort. Don't know if it was worth it. Would have rather done it in wash, but that cockles the thin paper in this book:


A programming note, please tune in tonight at 7 pm. to watch the latest of the episodes of What's That About? I wrote, on Discovery Canada. Tonight, it's "Power Quest." Zap, zap!