Something Politically Correct

For Painting III, I started working on illustrating a picture book that I'm collaborating on with a former Stout student. The idea behind the book is we're creating fictitious pieces of literature or conversations from a list of characters we came up with. For example, below is a conversation between Joquin Phoenix and his mother after his appearance on Letterman. Each one is supposed to be rather satirical, yet relevant to the character and the reader.



Joquin Phoenix



This one is of Rush Limbaugh as a child in school. Kyle (my cohort) came up with a hilarious letter from Rush's kindergarten teacher to his parents. Above is the inked drawing.



And this is the final colored piece. I guess I'm okay with how it turned out. Watercolors are rather finicky for me. At time's I'll get results that I feel are outstanding, then on the very next piece I'll want to throw it out half way through painting it. As for successes in the drawing, I really enjoyed the exaggeration of Rush's body, and the pose of the kid he's bullying.

Caricatures Galore!!!

So for my spring break, I had the opportunity to draw caricatures at the Mall of America. It was a great time and a good change of pace for a week. I brought my camera along just in case any drawings turned out really well. There were only a couple drawings that I actually liked, and that was a little disappointing. Anyway, it was good to get back into the swing of doing retail caricatures, even though it was only for a week.

Skeleton Drawings

This first drawing had a couple good things about it, but I keep finding more things that I dont like. The first is the size and shape of the rib cage. It feels off, and the sternum doesn't seem to be pushing out as much as it should. Also, it looks a little too narrow and not egg shaped. The spine, though the curve is good, just looks awkward. I think it has to do with how I drew in the vertebrae. It gives a feeling that its twisting to the side. All that aside, I will say I rather enjoyed how the little dude at the top turned out.



This drawing turned out much better than the previous one. I simplified the spine quite a bit, and that seemed to help me to not get wrapped up in the small details. I enjoyed how a lot of the values in this drawing turned out, especially in the rib cage. That being said, the rib cage was a huge frustration for me in this drawing. It started with the thoracic curve of the spine being tilted too far forward, and consequently the rib cage didnt have that "egg" shape. So with a little correction, I straightened it out a bit and the front of the rib slopes forward quite nicely.



Anatomically speaking, I think this has been one of my more successful drawings. The rib cage does look like its pulling to far forward in space. I wish I would have made some more extreme value changes to make the forms really pop. One thing I know I need to work on is varying my line weight and value, most notably in the rib cage. It really tends to flatten it out, but I find it frustrating to get the ribs correct with out going over them several times with several lines.




I really enjoyed drawing the legs for some reason. I guess it was just a good chance to really slow down and observe all the little variations along the bones. I think the tibia and fibula got a little short on the left leg. I really tried to push the variation in line weight and value in this one, and I think it paid off for the most part. Some parts flatten out a little bit though.

Rush and toons

Michael Jackson announced that he'll be holding a press conference regarding a potential summer comeback tour. I for one couldn't care less. However, I'll be curious to see if his current "child molester" reputation will have any affect on ticket sales.

In other news, I'm sure most of you have heard that insurance giant AIG suffered a record setting 62 billion dollar loss last quarter. It's things like this that make you wonder why there has been any opposition at all against a CEO salary cap for companies receiving bailout relief. On a side note, the drawing was a thing of frustration for me. My pen nib was acting up on me, so I put in a new one, which in turn started acting up. To top it off, I was in a rush, and the whole thing was not going well. But as soon as I started putting in some finishing touches, and beefing up some line weights, it all pulled together better than I anticipated.

The final painting is one of Rush Limbaugh again. I don't think I'm done playing around with him yet. The colors of this watercolor turned out exactly as I wanted (some got washed out when I photographed and scanned them in) so I think I'm going to try and redo it as a larger acrylic painting. Looking over it again, it reminded me of the blueberry girl from Willy Wonka. I might have to address that next time, with some light fleshtones for highlights in the face. Also, I think I missed the likeness a little bit, but overall, I was pretty satisfied with it.

Rush Limbaugh: what a jackass

I really dont care too much for Rush Limbaugh, and his popularity really surprises me at times. On the one side of the coin, I support the fact that he has some good conservative ideals, but the way that he goes about forcing them down America's throat, is just down right uncalled for. There is an irritating amount of fallacy in the things he says, which I think adds to his "charm" if I can call it that. Rush is rapidly becoming the voice of the Republican party which I would say is a lose-lose situation for everybody. His zeal and more often than not lack of something credible to say are a hinderance to debate and smart conversation everywhere. I really feel that he's an old, angry, jackass with too many naive listeners who take Rush's word verbatim (which would be the real tragedy of conservative talk radio).