Large Horse

Still drawing horses. This one in the spirit of those medieval German artists such as Albrecht Durer and Hans Baldung Grien.

Images

Another watercolour lady, and a glamour girl, who was copied from a comic strip.

Jangled

Back to anxiety again, because the little cat I took in raised hell with the usual cats, and I was worried one or the others would run away. Pretty sure it's my usual paranoia.

Anyhow, this image belies that mood, tranquil as it is. I like the abstract, splashy style. It somehow fell out of the queue when I was scanning sketchbook pages from Calgary. Might try to do some more, if only to relax, aiming towards getting real work done.

Jack is Back

Happy to be back home. The trip was about family stuff, not sketching and relaxing, but I had a decent amount of time to do that, even though my mind was preoccupied. Still, it was a good trip, outside of the problems with machinery. Meanwhile, the animals and plants here were getting exemplary care. So, I'm very content.

To see all the things I did, you'll have to visit this flickr group.

Disconnected!

I'm in Calgary at the moment, visiting family, and my little computer has seen fit to take a holiday from the internet. Also, my camera isn't working. So, no pictures! Later, I hope things are working.

Mensuhell #104 out

Here's my cover for the July issue of the Quebec fanzine MensuHell.

Inside is a comic story of mine, The Happy Wall of Flesh. Hope those with access enjoy it!

Drawing from Reference, and Not.

The girls below were drawn from photos. But I kind of prefer inventing stuff, as above. Still, a little bit of reference, just like a bit of structure and perspective, can be a good thing in a drawing.

Planes

Some World War One planes.

The Small Book

What these pics have in common is that they were drawn in my small (5" x 8-1/2") Canson sketchbook. Working on my figures and heads. Trying to keep loose, but still use at least a little structure. I'm doing that with the heads here, using a formula that Andrew Loomis thought up in the 1940s. It seems to work, but most of my "constructed" people look like stiff mannequins.

Below, I'm trying to draw "good" cheesecake, but always feel vaguely guilty about it. Robert Crumb I am not. Too much of a Nice Guy.

Creepiness

One new way I've discovered to make watercolour sketches of cute children I saw on the street the other day unintentionally creepy is to use an icy blue as the key colour.

Actually, I'm having fun painting an undercolour, blue in this case, or some kind of brown, and then adding details with darker paints. Sometimes it works to paint with a dark colour first, and establish your dark areas, then do colours. But be careful with the faces!


These pen faces are mostly minor characters from The Big Lebowski, but a knight has crept in there somehow, plus some random lyrics from a song I was listening to.

Now, here's a purposefully creepy drawing, in honour of the Fantasia Film Festival, playing in town now:

Collaboration, Characters, Colours and Cars

Another bumper night of collaboration with my friend, R. Gagnon at the Cock N' Bull bar last night. Above, Rick's stellar inks on a drawing of mine, which looks a little like one of the productions of Margaret Keane.

Unfortunately, one of the gentlemen we usually sit with was in the hospital again. Hope he gets better, soon.

Meanwhile, I'm getting worried that R and I look like a special education class at the bar, what with all our sketchbooks, pencils and paints spread on the table. But if we are mocked, we have a fine time mocking others at the bar, in our drawings.


Take this sensitive guy, for instance, with pompadoured mullet. Drawing by me, colours by Gagnon.

And I made the girl below even fatter than she really was, which was fun.


Rick had his car comics, which inspired me to draw a couple of 1970s vintage muscle cars, which he then inked. First is supposed to be a 1968 Pontiac GTO, then a 1972 Plymouth Duster. They're drawn out of my head from memories of model kits I built long ago, so please don't jump down our throats if the details aren't accurate.


Actually, the top one looks more like a Ford Torino, or some Mercury product.

More Colour

This guy looks like somebody's agent.


Another in my series on awful guitar players adored by girls.


Squinty people, quickly painted.

The Back Side of the Paper

I've noticed in one of my filled books, the paper is thick enough you can paint on the other side. So, I'm going backwards through one of the books again. It makes for a very lively book, and for some reason, the fact that it's not pristine paper gives me a little more confidence. Seem to have done a lot, yesterday afternoon.

Street Scene

Above is your classic sittin' in the park, painting something, kind of painting.

Viking, and Friends

More sketchbook characters.

More Colour, and Birds

I think I've finally coloured all of those drawings from the "Dr. Sketchy" modeling session. To find out what that was, you'll have to click the link below.

Mixed Up

An amusing and cool collaboration with R. Gagnon from last night. Also, a watercolour girl, more of which will come, tomorrow.

Early Bird without the Worm.

I coloured, in my usual technically-precise, painstaking way, this months-old sketch from one of the Dr. Sketchy sessions, so it counts as something new. The other things were drawn on my front step this morning.

I like getting up early, catching the sunlight out front before it gets too hot, drawing while the cat hangs out on a lower step, and the flies on the brick wall are only warming up, and haven't forced me to close the front door.

Middle Ages

We're visiting the Middle Ages, yippee!

Vampires, Guys, and Out-of-Context Comments.

This character is just out of my head. Nothing to do with anything else. The bookmark ribbon makes another appearance -- I think it goes here. The little sketchbook is hard to scan from, and then there's the question about watercolours bleaching out when scanned. I think that effect works here, also.

Below, a couple of guys from the street.


I wrote the note below as part of a comment on a post in another blog. It got so long, I thought I'd post it here instead. But it's hard to get it to fit with what I've been writing about, so here it is, out of context:

I was surprised to find the Gov't liquor stores still open yesterday. I'm not calling it "tension' any more, but an interesting contrast in Montreal between St. Jean-Baptiste (or journee nationale, as they call it these days) last week, and Canada Day, today. I think of it now more as "moving day."

Pretty dismayed at the piles of junk left everywhere, but there are some interesting objets trouvees, and I've almost got enough parts for another bike.

Church Steeple, and Chunky Stiff Girl