Cat Scanning

Yesterday was a bit of a trial. I didn't have family to do a Christmas thing with, so instead I learned about SQL databases (the first time I've heard of such things) and WordPress in an attempt to rescue this blog. Should have known things would be set to rights before long, but it was frustrating watching the wheels spin, and nothing being posted. Check the temporary sister blog I set up on a web address which is going to expire at the end of January: http://ouchblog.ca/wordpress

So, I drew a lot. Above is a comic strip which started with that first panel, the man staring at the cat on the scanner: a drawing that hang around my sketchbook for months.

Then Nora the cat decided to sit on my scanner, and would not get off, so I scanned her.

I'm happy she didn't consider it a high-tech litter box.

There's a whole website devoted to people who put their cats on scanners. So, it's not that unique an image. But I like how she looked down at the last moment, so the scan captured her nose, even though it seems separated from the rest of her. Cubist cat.

That inspired me as to what to do for the rest of the comic.

Last, a disturbingly (now I see it -- it wasn't obvious before) hairless gorilla, done in gouache.

Bettie Page

This isn't such a great drawing of the late Bettie Page (top, darn it), but I like the shot of the cat commenting on it.



Below, hide your eyes, kids! Drawing nudity, from my art book The Figure in Motion. The trouble with this book is none of the photos in it are of postures ever adopted by real people. Bad girl superheroes, maybe, but that's not my speed.

Dereliction of Duty

Sorry for not posting at my usual regular clip. Been a bit more discerning in what I put up here, and haven't really drawn something complete which I like. Been having a birthday, and doing business stuff, which, happily seems to be working out. So, the next decade seems bright. I am 50 now, but people tell me I look in my 30s. I credit this edgy lifestyle of mine. Also, walking and cycling everywhere. Plus I got an involuntary skin peel in my 20s thanks to a furnace explosion. Still, I'm a 50 year old who still gets acne, though I'm not very wrinkly.

But enough about me. I've decided when there's not a cool drawing to post, I'll put up pictures of the cats, or something like that. So here's your cat. It's annoying Nora, getting hair on my printer.

I've noticed that getting the reflections of light in the eyes makes them come alive. You know, in movies, they have a person whose whole job is holding up such a light in front of actors, just out of camera range.

Cats Approve New Zine

The cats check the new zine, Cock N' Bull Nights, arrived fresh from the printer for this weekend's Expozine Zine Fair in Montreal. They gave it their approval, but want the box when I'm done with it.



This is a self-published zine of sketches I've mainly posted on this blog, done in collaboration with Rick Gagnon, who was also instrumental in putting together the publication.



I think I know what to do, now, so if this is popular, maybe I'll put out a "Utopia Moment" zine of just my own drawings. The main trick is to get all the pages in the right order.

Passel of cats

Getting all pen and inky, and practicing my chops. Below are a bunch of cat pictures. The tabbies are taking over the kitten's box, and she has to sleep on the couch, next to her painting.

Surprise, more drawings.

Above is the small cat, who has been enough of a trial I've had to shut her out of my work area. She sits outside the door meowling, which is at least better than trying to sabotage my computer. Another slightly overwrought watercolour painting.

Below, a friend of mine, whom I haven't seen for a while, but was on the radio last night, so I tried to draw him, with one of my stock white male guys, a can of coke, and an airplane.



Below, I tried to just invent a chair, rather than get a reference. As a result, it looks like it was designed by Antonio Gaudi. Next time, I'll peek into my copy of The Styles of Ornament by Alexander Speltz, the old Dover book which is full of good filigree and frou-frou.

Sorry!

Too busy! No drawings today, only cats!




You come back tomorrow!

Big Pen

I did this sketch with this big pen I bought at the dollar store. It comes with four colours which you choose by clicking a lever: red, blue, black and green. It's a little bit wobbly, but so are my drawings.

Now I want to find a pen with a whole bunch more colours, like the one I had as a school kid. Sure they're around. I don't think the inks are archival, however!

Nora the kitten prefers traditional media:

Miss Me?

When one posts in a blog once a day, going away for even a couple of days seems like a long time.

Still, I've been so involved in my web site, it sort of burnt me out on computers. Occupied enough with that, I wasn't even drawing, except for the web site. For example, the useful graphic above, which fits this blog at the moment, as well. Go to this spiffy page to see what I've been doing. There are still odds and ends hanging which I'm fixing as I learn more about CSS. Darned hard, for someone like me, it seems.

Still, I have some interesting things from the weekend to blog about, but if I post about them at all, they will seem sort of time-shifted into the past (is that clear? It's kind of late at night!). Meanwhile, new stuff might be happening.

In the meantime, I've lit the pilot on the heater, and the cats have discovered that. So these are heater cats -2008 models- making a backwards letter "S".



Unfortunately, the newest cat hasn't figured out how to fit on the heater. Don't worry, she's keeping warmer than this, most of the time.

Culture, Jamming and More Cats

Pictures in this post doesn't really reflect what I was doing yesterday. Went out to a Writer's Guild of Canada get-together, where I drank 'free' beer (paid in part by my dues, I suppose) and met and complained along with a lot of other writers. Took a blurry picture, mainly of people's backs and butts, which I'm not posting here.

One subject was politics, and of course we writers won't be able to meet or make any movies or TV if the Conservatives have their way trying to muzzle and put all the artists out of work. Read Margaret Atwood's enlightened essay in the Globe and Mail about the issue, if you want to learn more.

Anyhow, after that, I went to the Monthly Montreal Comic Jam, took more blurry, lousy pictures, and worked on silly comic pages like the one below. (I apologize for the Not Safe For Work-ness. Other people will probably be more upset about it than we get.)


Aside from that, I was trying to take pictures of cats, but they always move. At least this one was interesting, though I tried to enhance foreground cat's eyes, making her look a trifle more demonic than usual:


I love Mr. B. and his tiger yawn:

Unwinding

I'm going out later for my weekly meet with a friend at the bar, and there are usually pictures to post after that, so I'm posting these in the meanwhile. They're of people I was noticing while drawing and unwinding today in the park.

No, he wasn't really being stalked by a giant cat:

Piling up the Posts

School bus to Hell. Plus, the fat guy below is former co-owner of my new cat.

Various Animals, and cluttered workspaces

Above is a horse head. Go, Equus! Below, a politician. At bottom, a video of the cats in action.

I'd apologize for the cluttered workspace, but saw a nice documentary by Josh Freed saying that people with clutter are actually creative, and not necessarily mentally ill. I still like to pick up once in a while, after a long bout of work.

The same night, I had shot a much longer camera video of the cats fooling around (more of the same), but this has resisted uploading. Still, you get the idea.

I Did Draw Something, After All...

Drew an entire comics story based on one of the faces from yesterday's sketching. I'd post the whole story here, but think I first want to put it in my friend's fanzine, Mensuhell.

I'd like you people who don't have access to the fanzine to be able to see it, and my other stories. They're a lot of work, but make more sense for me to be doing, rather than a bunch of disconnected sketches. I kind of hate drawing the same thing more than once.

Meanwhile, Nora the kitten is being cute. Big surprise:

Graphics

Some graphics from my new web page I'm working on.

Tomato Update

Those three heirloom tomato plants I bought back in May are finally producing stuff. If the plants look a little ragged, it's because I had to bring them in while the landlady had the balcony painted. Still, they're back out, and seem to have survived being un-entertwined from the balcony railing and then stuck in a dark kitchen for a couple of days.

The little gold ones (seem red in this pic) are tasty. The pumpkin-looking one is called a rose tomato.



These still-green odd-shaped things are Amish Paste tomatoes. Tomatoes from the back balcony are a little thicker-skinned than the market variety. But still, they are tasty, and there's the pride of growing them one's self.


New kitten patrolling the balcony (one of her favourite places) keeps the squirrels away. Yay!


But there's a different cat in today's drawing:

Ink Drawings, and Cat Gallery

Just a couple of drawings. The kid below is from a TV commercial, but he now looks like a member of the Gorillaz.



And here are cat pictures. They bring the cute much more effortlessly than a bunch of dodgy drawings.

This is the complete brood, starting with a legless Mr. Boggedy:


The estimable Ms. Boggedy:


And Nora new cat. Sitting still for once:

Crofter Kitten

Today, a distant ancestor of the new kitten, as found on a croft in long-ago Yorkshire.

Splashing More Paint Around

Still watercolouring, on the spot, when the weather allows me. But I'm not allowing reality to dictate too closely what's in the pictures. Well, the first one is fairly representative of an apartment on rue de Lorimier.

Below is Parc St. Viateur in Outremont, Montreal.



For today's Nora the Kit'n picture (TM) I am contrasting her with Mr. Boggedy at his most smug, below.

Watercolours and further kittens

Some watercolour pics, painted on the balcony this afternoon.

Bonus kitten pic:


Extra bonus kitten drawing!

Confrontation

I feel bad, because a friend was with Rick Gagnon and I when we had our weekly meet at the Cock N' Bull bar, and I totally bagged on his screenplay excerpt he showed me. It needed work, but all stuff that's in process usually does, and showing something unfinished, or that's an excerpt, is the worst thing you can do. I know my documentary things are pretty dire sometimes without the fine tuning, and the final score added, and all.

Well, even if I was a jerk at least the drawing Rick and I did was cool. Something strange: that should be the left hand that's holding onto the gun, but Rick didn't make it that, while I drew in an extra left hand, over the fold. Well, it's supposed to be horror, or something.

Plus, another watercolour pic:


Bonus pics! Rick looking goofy:


And, new kitten looking cute:

Watercolour Strangeness

Watercolour strangeness, and kitten likes fireworks.

In the Village

Yesterday the rain had let up, so I wandered down to Saint Catherine Street East which had been blocked off and made into a pedestrian area, set myself up outside a coffee shop, and sketched this scene in the "gay village."

Meanwhile, at home, something mad and possibly very dangerous is living under the couch.

Back to the Cock N' Bull, and New Kitten!

The above drawing is another collaboration between R. Gagnon and myself. I fancy it's a little sombre, because one of our friends at the bar, who brought in New Yorker and Spectator magazines we would steal peeks from, is still in the hospital. Hope he gets well.



On a happier note, the new kitty I picked up after moving day in July is fitting in well, except for occasional bouts of lunacy. I took a picture of her with my new camera. Didn't like having to buy one, but the old one got wrecked, apparently after recording that storm in June. Still, this one has all the latest bells and whistles, though it's still me on the shutter.

She looks very proud here, the forward-looking kitty of the future, with the Old Guard in the background. Click on the pic to see more adorableness.