Marc Andersons life drawing blog

Drawing III Introduction

2011-01-25T17:19:00.000-08:00

Last year in drawing III I began drawing editorial cartoons. I had done a few every now and then previously, but getting the chance to extensively study the craft was very beneficial for me. I've always had an interest in politics. Editorial cartoons and similar social commentary add to the political discourse in a rather humorous way, and that really excites me. In addition cartoons and illustration rely on a lot of drawing which, I've found, always has a way of presenting new and interesting challenges.

With regards to illustration, I've been fortunate in doing commission work for several publications for the last two years or so. My freelance work hasn't always involved a ton of creativity on my end. The art directors have tended to be pretty specific in what they want. It's harder to find my own voice in the images. However, finding the joy in drawing and painting them has not been a problem.

I've been experimenting with a variety of mediums, some more traditional than others. Pen and ink drawings create the bulk of my work while I have been doing a bit of digital painting as well. I find that a tactile piece of artwork is much more enjoyable to create. Ink, graphite, and watercolors can create effects that will never be replaced with a computer. Digital media does have some benefits as well, such as speed and making corrections easily.

I've posted some of my recent cartoons and illustrations below.

Figure Drawing

2010-09-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

It's been quite some time since I posted on this blog, but I figured since I just did a bit of figure drawing I'd throw it up here. I finally got a chance to go to an open life drawing session tonight. It was a lot of fun, but I'm definitely a little rusty. I wanted to go with a more exaggerated approach this time around and I think it went well overall. I feel like it helps me understand poses, the human figure and anatomy better by doing this, plus it can create some pretty interesting drawings. I did notice some anatomical slip-ups in some of the drawings disregarding the exaggerations. I'm trying not to get too caught up in correcting every little flaw. Sometimes over working a drawing can kill it, and I'm really working toward a fresh, quick, almost gestural feel. I'll take another stab at it next week.

2010-05-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

This semester in drawing has been a wonderful chance for me to explore several styles, genres, and mediums. I got to revisit charcoal, something I hadn't drawing with in quite some time. I also continued exploring digital media and painting in Photoshop. I ultimately ended up getting back into editorial cartoons.

The first project was the charcoal compilation drawing. The reference photos I gathered were some from the Devils Punchbowl, and a few from around my apartment. I wanted to set up a mildly humorous juxtaposition between a seemingly monotonous domestic image, and a beautiful natural phenomenon such as the Punchbowl.

During the 6 hour pose we got to work on, I brought my Wacom to class and decided to work on painting digitally. I still have a long way to go before I'll be close to satisfied with my photoshop results. It's been a struggle to find local colors, and depict them convincingly. On the flip side however, it does go pretty quick, and its very easy to fix mistakes. I never did finish this painting to a point that I'm happy with, I did notice some of the colors turning out better. Also I was pretty happy with the likeness I got on the model.

The next project was a lot of fun. Our assignment was to use the 3 words we were given somehow in our drawing. My three words were contest, surreal, and powdered charcoal. My main focus was to use "surreal" in a way that was completely disconnected from the artistically surreal images of Salvador Dali and others. The drawing was inked with a brush, then I added the value with watered down powdered charcoal, almost like watercolors. It was a fun process that I would like to explore more. Overall, I enjoyed how the drawing turned out. The drawing also lead me back into a more editorial field of illustration.

This was another painting of Rush Limbaugh done in photoshop. Mainly I was concerned about getting a good likeness and caricature of the man that has thus far eluded me. I reached a point in the painting where I thought I needed to put the stylus and let it be.

For the last couple projects, I gave myself a challenge of getting 5 editorial cartoons done a week. For one, I wanted to be a lot more prolific for the remainder of the semester, and also I wanted to explore some more controversial topics and put my spin on them. I have been drawing editorial cartoons off and on for the last couple years, and feel that I've made some big strides in these last bunch of drawings, especially in the jokes and imagery. As far as drawing goes, I tried to use a brush a lot more on these drawings. For one, it translates better when the drawing would be reduced to print size, and it also makes for more dynamic linework.

Bipartisan Breather

2010-05-10T08:17:00.001-07:00

I find it funny how Congressional productivity is directly related to the timeliness of hot issues and elections.

Chewless Campus!!??

2010-05-06T08:37:00.001-07:00

Well, there have been a few things during my tenure at UW-Stout that have gotten me a little steamed, but most recently it has been the campus wide ban on all tobacco use. Last year there was a referendum for a smoking ban (socially enforced as it was unlawful to ban tobacco use on government property), but now the Stout Student Association and the student body have expanded upon the referendum to include all types of tobacco. I still am wondering in what way a person chewing, snuffing, snusing, etc. has anything to do with other students on campus. Other than the appearance being unpleasant for onlookers, there is no harm to anyone, save the users. In the case it is for the sake of tobacco users that the administration and SSA banned tobacco use on campus, there are many other health conscious issues that should be addressed before the minimal percentage of chewers and smokers on campus. How about the nutritionally unsatisfying food they serve at our dining halls that many of the students indulge in. Freshman 15 anyone? Wisconsin has a 63.5% overweight/obese population. Hows that for unsightly/unhealthy?

Oh, and there are two other cartoons down there. One about Oklahoma and abortion, the other about Arizona and them crazy illegals... or legals, whichever the case may be.

Oh baby don't cry.

2010-04-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

Nothing too much to say about these, except I liked the internet one. Out here in rural Menomonie, WI, we have one internet service provider to choose from: Charter Cable. Many rural areas have to succumb to the monopolies of the ISPs as there is no competition in those places. Not only is my cable bill much higher than I would like it, but Charter has a tendency to send a shoddy internet signal. Of course its up to "their standards", but I didn't realize they settled for utter crap.

As far as the art goes, I had a lot of fun with the top Uncle Sam drawing. It was a challenge to draw him from the first angle, and I completely changed the text at the very last minute. I think its a little funnier. I also noticed I'm getting a lot more confident in inking with a brush. Some of my earlier lines show somewhat shaky lines, which isn't necessarily bad, but it's nice to get a good smooth line when I want one.

2010-04-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Here are a few cartoons that I've done over the last week. They're for the next drawing III project. I've been moving away from using a my usual nib/dip pen, and using a brush and micron pens. For some reason, I feel like I can get more control, and spontaneity in my line work with a brush. Though that is somewhat contradictory, a brush allows for some rather thick and narrow lines which are essential in editorial cartoons.

More Sketches!

2010-04-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

Here's another page of sketches for the next project. All I have to say is Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have some great faces to play with. Ahmadinejad in particular has a rather large nose which appears solid with all its structure apparent. But more than his nose, his eyes were a lot of fun to draw. They are sunken way back under his brow ridge which caused a lot of shading on them. Also he's a middle aged man, and most of the muscles in his face are starting to show through. That always makes for a more interesting drawing especially in the cheek and mouth areas. Well, pretty much the whole face for that matter.

2010-04-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

Here are a few sketches for the next project. I've been working on doing a few editorial cartoons every week. For the critique I'll probably end up choosing a couple that I like to show.

Influences

2010-04-06T12:28:00.001-07:00

Artistic Influences

Humor is one of the most effective mediums to express a thought. As long as I can remember, I’ve loved looking at cartoons. My father always had a subscription to Newsweek, and that is where I had my first exposure to editorial cartoons. There was something about them, whether it was the amazing caricatures that were put in front of me, or the ten seconds it took to convey a very heavy topic, I’ll never be sure what got me interested. To quote editorial cartoonist Jeff Danziger, political cartoons are a strange combination of the serious and the humorous. It’s an editorial, which is a serious commentary on a topic, and then it’s a cartoon, which is perhaps the least serious form of art. In ten seconds one can make or ruin a viewers day. I think it was this effectiveness that first attracted me to editorial cartoons.

Joe Bluhm Caricatures

Kevin Kallehuer

Matt Davies

Influences from outside the art world:

I've always been interested in politics, geography, economics, social dynamics, religion, and any combination that creates conflict. Not to say that I or anyone else enjoys conflict, but there is something very human about it, that draws attention. I think it is conflict and the commentary on it that I really get interested in.

Personal Influences

I grew up in a strict christian home with 3 brothers. We went to church every weekend, and were expected to act like it inbetween. My parents are both conservatives, but I assume its mainly due to their religious views and how they coincide with many conservative platforms. I've found that a lot of their bullet points were things that I cared little about and I started exploring the other "big ticket" items that I found to be more serious. It might have been my own form of rebellion, I'm not sure.

More Rush Limbaugh

2010-03-22T07:13:00.001-07:00

My three words for this project were Surreal, Contest, and powdered charcoal. I didn't want to use the word surreal in such a predictable way, so I decided to think about real things in this world that I perceive as surreal. Case in point, the popularity of Rush Limbaugh. I've posted about him before, and done plenty of drawings of him. It's hard to find a more misleading person at his level of talk radio. I used to listen to his show somewhat regularly, and his arguments are filled with fallacy. Anyway, without saying any more about the man, I decided to draw him as the fictional character Casey from "Casey at the Bat". It's titled "Champion of America".

As far as the drawing goes, I wanted to keep it loose, yet controlled. Rather than using a dip pen like I usually do, I used a brush to ink the entire thing. It gave me some very interesting lines which I enjoy. It was a bit more difficult to get a likeness since I had a little less control with the brush, but It turned out okay. To add the value, I shaved a little pile of charcoal off a stick, watered it down and used it just like watercolors. It worked out pretty well. I was hoping that it would be easy to erase in the event of a mistake, but that didn't work out as planned. All in all, I think it was a success. At the very least I was able to experiment with a new process.

Digital life drawing!

2010-03-21T10:22:00.000-07:00

This is an in progress look at the figure drawing from the other day. I'm not 100% on where I want to go with it from here, but I'll think of something. Painting digitally continues to be a struggle for me, but I think there are a few good things about this one. The flesh tones seemed to turn out well, and the overall head structure was a success (minus the nose, that needs some touching up.)

INTJ

2010-03-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

After taking the personality type test in class the other day, I found out that I am an INTJ type personality. I-introverted, N-intuitive, T-thinking, J-judging. INTJ's are problem solvers. They have a natural curiosity for "why things are" or how things work. We tend to be perfectionists, in the sense that we have a capacity for improving on anything that takes our interest. Another trait which I found interesting is that INTJ's know what and how much they know, but also know what they don't know.

For the most part, I found the articles' descriptions of INTJ's to be pretty close to me. The afore mentioned characteristics fit me very well. I've found myself being interested in the process of things. I feel a need to know the "hows" and "whys". I do tend to be introverted, and I've known that for a long time. One trait that I hold in common with INTJ's is that when prompted, we will unload a plethora of information for you, but otherwise we'll be rather reserved. This has been a weakness for me during critiques. I'm able to analyze a piece to a degree that I feel comfortable with, but then rarely will share unless called on. With regard to my art, I feel a need to have something representational in the piece. For the most part, all my work is very representational. I think where my personality type fits in is trying to figure out a system or set of rules which would apply to my various cartoons/illustrations/caricatures. By that I mean to find out what makes an illustration successful, or more or less successful than other options. Which medium best portrays the message? What point do I want to exaggerate, etc. Everything can be broken down into a series of steps that, with any luck, turns into a finished drawing/painting. I've noticed that I tend to break down painting, for instance, into several mechanical steps of paint mixing, rules to find local colors, application and mark making, and so on.

I couldn't say with any certainty that being an INTJ influences much of my subject matter. Only in that I find humor to be a challenging genre to work in. Being able to take a somewhat abstract thought and portray it with pop culture icons, politicians, and others, is just one more puzzle to be solved.

More Rush

2010-02-26T07:34:00.001-08:00

Still working on Rush. I've found it very difficult to get a likeness on this asshole. So, I gave in and decided to do a digital painting of him. My hope is that I'll be able to go over it again and again until I get the desired likeness. Something that photoshop allows for in short time.

Marc the wood worker?

2010-02-23T17:38:00.000-08:00

I got a chance to do a little woodworking last week. Melissa asked me to help her build (or build it while she watched) a plant stand for her wheatgrass, which she's started growing. It was pretty fun, and I haven't had any building projects in a while, so it felt good to be in the wood lab again.

Here's the growing light under the top shelf.

Also I carved her a cutesy bear pen for valentines day. It turned out alright, but I could tell it's been a long time since I did any whittling. Sorry about the fuzzy picture.

Right-Wing exaggeration!

2010-02-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

I just started doing some sketching for our next project, which I have to say, I'm pretty excited for. One of my three words for the next drawing was "Surreal". My initial thoughts went straight to Max Ernst, Salvador Dali and a few other surrealist artists. Now I'm looking at other ways to describe the surreal or better yet, real things, situations, or phenomena that are so absurd that the mind might even perceive them as surreal. Above are a few characters who I'll be exploiting for parts of the project. More to come.

My Punchbowl Runneth Over

2010-02-16T11:41:00.000-08:00

Over all, I was pretty happy with how this drawing turned out. Like a lot of people, I was trying to use this project to get back into drawing with charcoal. I've been working almost exclusively with the figure in my work, and to take a step back and do a landscape was a bit of a challenge.

There are a few technical things about the drawing that I don't really like, but I'll have a chance to fix those now. It was mostly some of my mark making decisions that I don't think really portrayed the space and magnitude of the Punchbowl. As far as the conceptual side of my drawing, I think it was somewhat successful. At the very least it gets the viewer intrigued, and might even set up a little narrative.

Freelance sketchy sketch sketch...

2010-02-12T09:00:00.001-08:00

Recently I was approached for a little freelance gig. Just a few gag cartoons. Below are the prelim sketches.

The gag that went along with this one is pretty self explanatory. Ironically, this one really hit home since a very similar situation occurred in my studio not more than a week ago. My cat happened to tip over a large cup of water all over my desk and pretty much soaked everything. Life goes on I guess.

I did revisions on all the sketches by now, but I thought I would post these as they are.

Digital sketchy sketch!

2010-02-04T07:09:00.000-08:00

Whilst working on our latest project, I decided to do some sketching in photoshop for it. There really was no call for it other than I forgot my sketchbook at home, but happened to bring my wacom. Never-the-less, here are a few quick sketches. I was more or less just getting a feel for some of the images I was hoping to use for the big drawing. Each were 10-20 minutes.

Introduction postage.

2010-02-02T12:38:00.001-08:00

Hello art world. I'm Marc Anderson. I'm a studio art major concentrating in drawing. I've been directing most of my energy for the last couple years at editorial illustration and cartooning. I have been using a variety of mediums including pen and ink, watercolors, acrylics, and most recently digital painting. I use a lot of exaggeration and caricature in most of my illustrations.

I've found that using more traditional media such as pen and ink for editorial illustration can be a challenge to really find my own voice within the illustration world. However, it was also a great starting off point. A lot of my recent work can be seen below.

Old Sketches

2010-01-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

Here's a few sketches I dug up from last semester. I was working on a few Cheney and Madoff illustrations that never came to fruition. Also there's a couple skull studies.

Merry Christmahanaquanza!!!

2009-12-25T13:38:00.000-08:00

Semester finale!!!

2009-12-18T17:58:00.001-08:00

So I just had my painting IV crit today. It went well, and all i have to say is...

I painted a big Dick.

Entitled "Dick Has Ways Of Making You Talk".

"Black and White" -The Process

2009-12-16T07:39:00.000-08:00

The first of 60 pages is complete! Actually, it might end up being shorter than 60 pages (God willing). Jared, the writer, is going to go over the script again and maybe give it a rewrite in spots. Hopefully it'll reduce my work load.

Upon looking over pages and pages of drawings it was nice to reflect on how the whole process took shape. It all started with reading Jared's 60 page script several times to get a good feel for the characters. Then of course designing the characters followed that. The design stage was probably the most challenging part for me. I almost felt like I had to relearn how to draw. After a few years of drawing caricatures and cartoony illustrations, I had to get back into a more realistic style with accurate anatomy and gestures. After the character designs were completed, I started going through the script again to do thumbnails for each page of the graphic novel. They started off pretty rough, but were refined as I went along.

The process from there starts to get a bit more exciting (well for me at least).

Carter character design

Rico character design

Devil character design

Here's the rough for page 1. Initially I had started to do these just with a pencil and paper, but I think it may have worked better for me to do it in photoshop (which is shown above.) From here I blew it up to 11"x14". This is standard procedure in the comic book industry. After the final image is completed, it gets shrunk down to print size. In this case print size was planned on being 8.5"x11" while comic books generally are a tad smaller.

After I blew it up, I printed it off and traced it onto bristol board. It's called the pencil stage, and its the point where any final revisions are made. The drawing gets tightened up. The pencil artist is a very important position in the whole process for comic books (the pencil artist, inker and color artist are often not the same person). Depending on if the penciler and inker are the same person, sometimes the pencil drawing can be a little looser and less detailed.

The inking stage is a lot of fun for me. This also a very crucial point, but more on a technical level rather than conceptual or compositional level (this was all figured out at the pencil stage). After the inks are done, all the pencil lines are erased and the ink drawing gets scanned in. Then the photoshop fun begins...

After many hours have already been invested by now, the tediousness of painting in photoshop can be a little draining. Never-the-less, you can start to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and if you stick it out, you'll end up with a finished page.

Comic book progress

2009-12-15T14:18:00.001-08:00

It seems that with every stage of this darn thing, I realize how big of an undertaking this project has been and will continue to be. Granted I think I'm getting a little faster at laying out and drawing the pages. Still, its quite a labor intensive project.

Below is the first page and it's almost done. I just threw the text in to get a rough idea of what the completed page will look like. I've got to touch up the coloring a bit, then clean up some other areas.

Karzai illustration in progress part deux

2009-12-12T09:19:00.000-08:00

Well here he is again. Its almost done. I thought I might throw it up here just for poops and giggles.

Black and White Update

2009-12-07T15:44:00.001-08:00

I've been taking a short break from the "Black and White" graphic novel to work on a few illustration projects. Below is a Christmas card illustration. I decided to try it going completely digitally. I started with a pencil drawing, then started painting over the top of it. It's starting to take shape, and I'm enjoying the process.

He're's the roughs for page 1 of "Black and White." I started working it out traditionally with pencil and paper, but I thought I'd try it out in photoshop as well. It's working pretty well especially for making revisions and fine tuning. From here, I'll blow it up to about 11x14, trace and tighten the drawing on bristol board, then finally ink it. Long process, but allows for more and more corrections at every stage eventually producing a good strong drawing.

President Karzai in progress

2009-12-03T16:09:00.000-08:00

I think I finally made a breakthrough with my Wacom and Photoshop. This is a section of an illustration of good ol' Presidents Obama and Afghani Karzai. I'm starting to get much more comfortable with painting in Photoshop. It's taken some time, but finding local and arbitrary colors isn't always that easy in photoshop for some reason.

On a side note, it always surprises me how much quality an image loses when saving a file as a jpeg rather than psd. file.

Some finished-ish work

2009-11-20T08:31:00.000-08:00

Finished piece about gay marriage in Maine

This was an old drawing I did in life drawing that I started to digitize the other day. I've got a lot of tones roughed in, but there's a lot of work yet to be done ie. smoothing out her steroid induced abs.

I did my first all digital editorial cartoon. Yay for me for spending over an hour on something that would have taken me 5 minutes with a pen.

And finally a digital sketch of the lovely Sarah Palin.

Sketcheroo!

2009-11-10T22:48:00.001-08:00

Here's a few sketches.

Just a caricature sketch of Melissa. I think I caught a little bit of a likeness, but I'm far from pleased with it. If she'll be patient enough, I'll give it another try sometime.

Sketches from open life drawing

This is a work in progress illustration in about Maine repealing it's gay marriage laws. What a bummer. This one is in pen and ink and watercolor.

Sketches: Al Gore and Luggage Thief

2009-11-04T11:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple of sketches. The top one is of a man that was arrested for stealing luggage from the Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. After the police raided his home, over 1000 bags of luggage were found. Here's an article about it. Its pretty funny. Below that is a drawing of Al Gore. I've never really been a fan of him. He's kind of a money grubbing eco-whore. I think all of his investments in green technologies and other earth friendly stuff is great, but when he reaps massive profits from such companies, it really begs the question if his heart is in the right place. He's been lobbying for government support in green technologies, those that he's invested in, and thusly stands to make a substantial amount of money.

Odosketch!

2009-11-03T08:05:00.000-08:00

I ran across this cool site: http://sketch.odopod.com/ where you can do a sketch right on their site, and it records it for you. I just did these quick 5 minute doodles, but I have a feeling it will be a good distraction from other chores for the next couple days.

More Digitized work.

2009-10-28T14:19:00.001-07:00

As I've said before, I was rather skeptical about creating digital art. Not so much that artists can't create some amazing work in Photoshop, Corel Painter, etc. etc. but more that at the end of the day, I prefer to have one tactile and original piece. Anyway, painting in Photoshop is starting to grow on me the more I use my Wacom. Below are a few quick, and I emphasize quick sketches.

30-40 minute painting.

30 min pose at open life drawing last night.

10 minute foot study at open life drawing

30-40 min "mug shot" haha get it!

Lame jokes aside, I can't write off the Wacom just yet. It's good fun, and the best part is, there's no fuss, no muss.

Balloon Boy

2009-10-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a sketch of balloon boy Falcon Heene. Hoax or not, I find the story to be ridiculously hilarious.

I did this with my newish Wacom Intuous in Photoshop. It's a lot of fun to sketch with, but I still have yet to do a really polished digital painting. I guess I'm still feeling it out a bit, and am still hesitant to invest too much time in the digital media.

Black and White

2009-10-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

Black and White is a comic book that I'm collaborating on with one of my best friends from high school. He's a TV, Radio, and Film major with a creative writing minor at UW-O. Anyway, he wrote this movie script that we are now turning into a comic book. The short synopsis for the story goes as follows:

A horde of creatures have escaped from Heaven and Hell. God and The Devil, female roommates, recruit two mortals, a cop and a criminal, to retrieve and/or execute these creatures and bring them back to where they belong.

There's more to it, but that'll to for now. Below are some sketches of each character. One thing that I found very frustrating was trying to draw a convincing face/head without the use of a reference. Pounding though tons of drawings of skulls and very basic planer heads has helped immensely. Another cause of much frustration has been trying to draw a character consistently with different expressions and angles. It's been challenging, but I feel that with every page I fill with sketches, they get better.

The Devil

Rico

God

Carter

Up next is roughing out some storyboards and basic layouts for the comic. The script is 60 pages long, so its going to be a chore to organize the whole thing into thumbnails and what not.

Bernie "The Invincible" Madoff

2009-10-06T23:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick shot of an in progress illustration of Bernie Madoff. As much as most people hate him, I'm pretty amazed by him. The sort of Ponzi scheme that he got away with for so long, and the shear magnitude of the heist is so incredible that it's hard to really fathom what kind of person he really is. Never-the-less, I'll talk more about the piece when its done.

Sketch dump!

2009-10-05T11:29:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple doodles. I've got a lot more from this semester that haven't been scanned in yet. The first, of course is Alfred Hitchcock. He's got a great face, and I think I'll try taking another stab at him sometime. The other sketches are some memory sketches of skulls. I think I'm starting to get the hang of drawing them from memory somewhat convincingly. (after drawing millions of them from skull models, you'd think eventually I could do it from memory)

Are you Tweeting serious!?

2009-09-30T15:13:00.001-07:00

Not at all like riding a bike.

2009-09-29T21:15:00.001-07:00

I've been drawing at the open life drawing sessions every week, and I'll just say that I was way out of practice. I noticed a lot of lost dexterity and lack of patience in my drawings starting out. But the last two sessions have gone a lot better. I've been trying to work on nailing down proportions, good line weight and value variation, accurate musculature, and accurate values. Most of the poses have been pretty short, rarely over 30 minutes so the value studies are a little harder to come by.

This was an hour pose from last week. There are a few good things going on, but I don't think the value really strengthened the drawing at all. In some areas it makes the forms confusing.

These two are from last week as well. One is a 10 minute pose and the other was 15 or 20.

Here I was just playing around during the 5 minute warm up drawings. All were done in 5 min. except the bottom facial study which was 10.

20 min. pose

30 min. pose

This last one was 45 minutes.

Inspirations, Influences, and Aspirations Part 2

2009-09-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

The other day I stumbled across this blog and thought I might share. Artist/illustrator Matt Zitman posted a substantial collection of figure drawings. The drawings are much more caricature than our anatomically accurate, academic type drawings. Never-the-less, his drawings are beautiful. There's something really funny about his exaggerations, but he still displays a well rounded understanding of the body. In class, Amy often stresses the importance of exaggerating certain features i.e. curves of the spine, the long axis of the femur etc. Of course Matt takes that to a much greater extreme, but I think his drawings are a good example of really capturing the pose and form of the model. Below are a couple drawings from his blog.

Follow me on twitter!

2009-09-20T21:34:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, follow me on twitter!: http://twitter.com/Lordmarcus005

Inspirations, Influences, and Aspirations Part 1

2009-09-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

One of my biggest inspirations the last couple years has been illustrator Hermann Mejia. Although Mejia does a lot of work for Mad Magazine, don't disregard him as an amazing painter, draftsman, and all around cool artist. One thing that struck me about Mejia, aside from his hilarious and grotesque caricatures, is his watercolor paintings. They are so loose yet controlled, something that I've been struggling with ever since I picked up my first set of Crayola watercolors when I was in grade school. His mastery of the medium is apparent when looking over all his illustrations. In addition to watercolors, he plays around with a fair amount of mixed media which I find the most interesting.

Every character that Mejia creates is so dynamic and original. Sam Viviano, art director of Mad Magazine, told my manager, who in turn told me how Mejia actually brought a real casket into his studio to fully capture a seemingly unimportant prop for one of his MAD movie parodies. It's that sort of attention to detail that I'd like to incorporate more into my work.

I strongly suggest that everyone check out his website and prepare to be blown away: Hermann Mejia

Below are a varied selection of his works.

Another semester, another blog post.

2009-09-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

I had a very interesting summer. With regards to drawing, I did a lot of it. If I had my way, I would have done more, but life intervenes. The drawing I was doing this summer was basically broken up into three categories: theme park caricature, freelance illustration work, and sketchbook junk.

I finished up my third season at Valleyfair, and instead of focusing on drawing really fast and making lots of moneys, I wanted to slow down and really do some good drawings. At times this is frustrating due to annoying customers, fatigue, and a plethora of other reasons. But at the same time, slowing down allowed me to really enjoy every drawing I was doing rather than crapping out a bunch of so-so drawings. I can't say that there's much or any artistic merit to the theme park work, but drawing that much all summer definitely had its benefits. My manager put it to me this way: we get a new model every 10 minutes, and guess what, they pay US to draw them. We should be so lucky!

I was also fortunate enough to start getting some freelance work for a couple publications in New York. There really isn't a whole lot of creativity that goes into these illustrations as the respective art directors pretty much tell me exactly what they want, but I can't see myself turning these jobs down for a lack of creativity. All of the pieces I've done for them have to deal with local politics, so its hard to really connect to them. I'd really like to continue doing more work like this with the hopes that I'll get to use more of my own creative juices.

Lastly, I've been pounding through a few sketchbooks lately. Mostly I've been trying to experiment with new mediums and styles. I feel like I've gotten stuck in a rut with regards to my use of line. So I've really tried to expand my abilities with ways to depict form or even simple shapes.

I really want to continue the work that I've been doing in my sketchbooks, and apply them to some finished pieces. One thing I regret from the summer is that I didn't get any finished pieces done other than the retail caricatures and freelance work.

The most glorious mustache known to man...

2009-09-07T16:53:00.000-07:00

It's so beautiful.

This was a sketch of my summer roommate Dani. She asked me to draw her sometime this summer, and I told her I would do it, but it wouldn't be pretty. I can't wait to show it to her.

Another recent development for me was a little inkage. It took me 4 years to learn to be impulsive.

And lastly, another summer at Valleyfair has come to a close. It was a great season out there. As usual, it was truly a pleasure to work with some amazing artists. These were a few customers that I snapped pictures of on my last day. I was trying not to hold back, but also trying to nail at least one 100% likeness. I think I came close on one or two of them, but there's lots of room for improvements.

Tis a dumpage of sketches.

2009-08-27T07:45:00.001-07:00

So I purchased a Wacom Intuos this summer. I always kinda wanted to play around with one, and now I've got it, but no time to work with it. Sad day, I know. Anyway, above is my first all digital sketch. Its about 15 minutes of work. I can see how people would utilize a Wacom as their main tool, however, I can safely say that the bulk of my work will remain in the traditional media.

The rest of these are a few sketches with no order, rhyme or reason.

Mustache confusion

2009-08-24T07:07:00.001-07:00

I started collecting pictures of things/people with cool mustaches. I think its going to be a very interesting series of images.

Some Valleyfair junk

This is my latest freelance job. I wish I would have laid on a lot more paint. Oh well. I'll get em next time.

Puppetmasters

2009-08-14T21:36:00.001-07:00

Here's yet another illustration for City Hall Magazine. I drew this mainly with Micron pens because my piece of crap nibs were not drawing at all, and it was very frustrating. I started inking it at Valleyfair, and I didn't think to bring spare nibs with me. I did also learn that a semi-decent watercolor job can cover up a semi-crappy inking job.

Caricature Bliss?

2009-08-03T01:04:00.001-07:00

This was a really fun family. They sat down and asked to be drawn really exaggerated. What else could a guy ask for?

The guy in this drawing had such a thick neck that it swallowed his chin. I was so excited over it that the only reference to a chin that I put in was a little dab of facial shadow. I lost the likeness a little bit, but I didn't care, I just wanted to draw it exactly as you see it here.

Final

2009-07-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

This is the latest finished Illustration. Needless to say, I got little to no sleep this weekend, and the last two days I've been moving into a new apartment in Menomonie. I really really need a day off. But its back to the grindstone for this cat.

More Sketching

2009-07-24T16:23:00.001-07:00

So here is yet another rough for some NY political literature. I got a call this morning asking for a cover illustration which is due on Monday morning. Should be an interesting weekend considering my 11 hour shift tomorrow, working Sunday, then heading to Wisconsin to move into a new apartment Monday morning. But tonight, I'm going to sip on a couple beers and get a much needed good nights sleep.

Oh, I almost forgot, the cover story is about three lesbians who are running for city council in NYC. I'm not sure why, but the way the art director described the story to me was just hilarious.

Finished Illustrations

2009-07-23T05:40:00.001-07:00

I finished these two yesterday morning before work. I was given 5 days to complete both of them and I thought that would be plenty of time. One thing I didn't really realize was that I only had one day off during said 5 days, and that day I was going to be out of town and unable to work on them. However, with several hours of drawing after work everyday and one really late Tuesday night, I got them all done.

Anyway, I think I'm making some good strides with my watercolors lately. I like where things are going. Don't get me wrong, both of these still had their fill of frustration, but I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with them.

When it rains, it poors...

2009-07-20T07:58:00.001-07:00

I got a call last Friday from the same art director that I did an illustration for earlier. He first asked me to do another piece for the next issue, then later called me back and asked for a cover as well. Needless to say I'm VERY excited about that. Well, the roughs were due this morning, and I just got them done and sent in. The top one is for another article about the stimulus spending. The second is about some confusion and turmoil in the NY state senate. The final colored illustrations are due either Wednesday night or Thursday morning, so expect to see those in the next couple days.

Completed Freelance Gig!

2009-07-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

And here it is. I got it all inked up an watercolored. I liked how the watercolors in the "red tape", fleshtones and suit turned out. I'm not too keen on everything else, but I got it done, and I hope the client likes it. I forgot to get a scan of the inked drawing. I really liked how that turned out but you can use your imagination.

VF Extravaganza bonanza

2009-07-14T09:14:00.001-07:00

Just a couple pictures drawn at Valleyfair. I had to draw Greg and Matt while working with them. Again, I'm amazed at the quality of pictures my phone is capable of taking.

Freelance gig?

2009-07-09T07:10:00.001-07:00

Yesterday morning, I got a call from an art director of a political magazine in New York asking me to do an illustration to accompany an article about NY's stimulus package, and how the money is being tied up at the moment therefore not creating jobs like it was supposed to do. More details on that later, but above is the rough sketch. It's a caricature of Mayor Bloomberg being "hung up" by red tape over the Brooklyn Bridge which is one of the projects to included in the stimulus budget. I'm waiting for approval and then will move onto the inks and coloring over the weekend. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about it.

Just "Leave" it be.

2009-07-05T04:35:00.000-07:00

I completely forgot about this pile of sketches that I had from my first summer at Valleyfair. I was on a leaf-drawing kick for a while, and here's a couple of them. I used to really enjoy drawing leaves. They're so unique in form, and every stage of their life is so characteristic of the time of year. I wouldn't say that it is all that challenging to draw their form convincingly because there really isn't a wrong way to depict them. Never-the-less, it is still fun to explore the shapes, sizes, textures etc.

Sketch Dumperoo

2009-07-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple sketches done at Valleyfair. I made myself chuckle at the "Stonewall Catson" and the "Fat Cat and Bulimic Cat" not sure why.

Below are more comic book character design sketches. This Rico character has been a problem for me. I just can't seem to capture the essence of the look I'm going for. I'm heading in the right direction, but much more sketching is needed.

Valleyfair

2009-06-26T18:30:00.003-07:00

I thought this kid was funny lookin, so I snapped a picture.

The Boss man

2009-06-22T18:47:00.001-07:00

Here's a sketch of the boss man Tom Richmond done at work today. I thought it was funny, so I'll share it with you fine folk.

Help! I'm in danger of becoming a comic book guy. Am I being sentenced to an alliterative daunting, dorky, demise?

2009-06-19T08:39:00.000-07:00

Way back when, I posted a couple sketches that pertained to a certain comic book that I'm attempting to draw for my home town "besty"(homosexual jargon for best friend). Well, I went on a month and a half long hiatus from the comic work, and the last couple days I've been trying to get back into it. It's been really hard as I've been trying to get back into the swing of the caricature season as well. Well, excuses aside, I've been struggling with drawing a compelling character, or a compelling face for that matter, off the top of my head. I felt like I've made a bit of a breakthrough the last couple days, in my character sketches: something a little more alive about them. They still need a lot of work, dont get me wrong, but I feel like I'm heading in the right direction.

There's a lot of inconsistencies in the sketches above. I didn't realize it until I was cleaning up the scanned image in photoshop. One more thing to work on...

There's something VERY sexy about a girl who has short hair, and can actually pull it off. I really want to strive for that in this last character. Yes, she is the devil. On a tangent, if there is an actual devil, it has to be a woman.

The Valleyfair Colonel is a drunk.

2009-06-15T00:30:00.001-07:00

This is an old drawing I did while out at Valleyfair. I just found it randomly and decided I should color it. I could tell I'm a little rusty with photoshop. I don't think I've done any coloring with it in several months.

New Sketchbook!

2009-06-11T13:10:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple sketches from my newest sketchbook. I snapped these pictures with my phone, so they're pretty crappy. Never-the-less, there's an Obama (who I recently discovered that I really love to draw), a Marky Mark Wahlberg, and then a self caricature sucking down some beer. I've been working with a ball point pen and a larger micron pen lately, and I'm starting to enjoy the results.

Sketch Dumperoo

2009-06-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

Baby Bobble-head

Matt in watercolor

So Trendy

A fat asshole and Sotomyer

GM

I started a series of Dick Cheney sketches, and I'm just kinda seeing where its taking me.

Valleyfair Chicken Scratch

2009-05-29T13:25:00.001-07:00

Here's a few sketches from last weekend at Valleyfair. It's been a really long time since I've done these quick sketches of random passerbys and customers, so it was nice to pick it up again. There's a Dick Cheney in there too. I've never drawn him, and I kinda got the creeps from looking at a reference photo for that long.

Op Ed Madness

2009-04-28T17:41:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple cartoons for this weeks Stoutonia. I was asked to do a cartoon about the resurgence of 80's fashion. I was really hoping to find a way to incorporate MacGuyver, but alas my MacGuyver-like instincts were not with me today and I couldn't come up with anything. I settled for a mullet instead.

As far as the piggy flu cartoon goes, that was another one that I met a creative roadblock with. I do like how the drawing turned out however.
I'm getting sick of hearing about the swine flu. I have a feeling (and I pray that I'm right about this) that the seriousness of the swine flu is being over-exaggerated by the media. That being said, the death toll in Mexico being attributed to the swine flu rose yesterday from 20 in the morning to almost 150 by noon. Swine flu, drugs, drug runners, lots of guns.... why the hell would anyone vacation in Mexico. I for one will not be visiting there any time soon.

Oh, and Obama's coming to the end of his first 100 days. Pretty exciting stuff if I might say so.

In Progress Paintings

2009-04-23T12:02:00.001-07:00

Obama being creepy as hell with no eyes! The first time I learned about using an underpainting two years ago, it absolutely blew my mind. I do it with every painting now, even if its supposed to be a quick "ala prima" painting. It just adds so much, especially since I tend to paint pretty thin.

My camera washed out a lot of the colors in this one. I'm none too pleased about that, but not concerned enough to photoshop fix it.

Somehow this is my first attempt to caricature Bill Clinton. It hasn't been quite as much fun as I thought it would be. I guess I've seen way to many Clinton caricatures to try and be original.

In my painting class, I've been doing a lot of pen and ink and watercolor stuff lately. The last couple weeks, however, I've longed for the days that I used strictly cheap Walmart acrylics and somehow made it work. And so I picked up my palette knife and paints and went to work. Right now I've got these two Presidential caricature paintings in the works. If time permits, I hope to do a larger Palin pinup painting as well, but we'll see. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how these are going. I get pretty anal about acrylics sometimes. And that sucks because I also get really impatient (the reason I started a second painting before I finished the Obama one.) As a general rule and means of motivation to finish, I try not to work on more than one painting at a time. But with these two, I'm enjoying switching back and forth between them. It keeps my eye fresh and keen. Not to mention I don't get bored as easily.

Oh, the sound of music!

2009-04-18T14:18:00.001-07:00

So I've been attempting to write some songs over the last year or so with limited success. By no means would I consider myself a writer, and even worse a singer. But never-the-less, I felt compelled to try my hand at recording a few songs. They're all rather silly and should not be taken seriously. So everyone go check em out right now!!

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=446743588
On a side note, when creating the Myspace music account, I had to come up with a band name. Rather than doing the boring "Marc Anderson" type of thing, I opted for the name "Stealing Duffer" which was a name that a few of my friends and I came up with in high school. It was a fake band that we said we were in to impress all the ladies. Needless to say, it did not work. We were dumb and horny. That will happen I guess.

Sketch Dumperoo

2009-04-04T08:54:00.001-07:00

I've been neglecting my sketchbook a lot this semester. I wouldn't say that I haven't been sketching at all, but I've been doing a lot less exploration and doodling, which I don't like in the least. However, the last week or so, I've gotten a chance to sit down and just burn through page after page and it felt great. Above are a few new sketches as well as some old.

My mother took a trip to Puerto Rico this past winter, and took upwards of 700 photo's. I don't blame her, I'm sure it was beautiful. Never-the-less, I got to snag them off her camera the last time I was home to use as potential reference photo's someday. I came across a picture of one of her fellow travelers with an extremely grotesque scared look on her face and of course that was the first of the photos I would use. It was just a great expression revealing a lot of anatomy in the face that I had not had the opportunity to draw. Then I drew a crab. Not quite as exciting.

Also there are some sketches/studies to be used for editorial cartoons. My personal favorite is the angry Obama sketch. It's so out of character for him and I think thats why I like it so much.

What I wouldn't do to snuggle up on that chair...

2009-04-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

So the next page for the book of satire that my good buddy Kyle and I are creating is on the wonderfully charismatic hotness that is Sarah Palin. I was brainstorming on how exactly I should depict her, and thought up the idea of a pin-up poster, and just had to run with it. I'm working on 11x14 bristol, which limited the amount of photo-realism and detail that I could attain. Never-the-less, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Some of the proportions are off a little bit, but I'll get over it. The piece was done in pen and ink and watercolor. (I think I'm starting to get a better hold on my watercolors lately. Im pretty stoked!)

Toons

2009-04-01T16:05:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple cartoons. The first one is the most successful of the bunch as far as I'm concerned. I really liked how the drawing turned out. However, I do wish I would have used a little more intense imagery to convey the seriousness of the situation down in Mexico and near the border.

Not much else to say about the rest of them other than Kim Jong Il scares me. We'll see how that whole situation pans out over the next couple weeks.

Something Politically Correct

2009-03-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2009-03-23T15:55:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-05T11:22:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-02T11:37:00.001-08:00

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).

Michael Phelps: like a fish out of watercolor.... what?

2009-02-28T14:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a Michael Phelps illustration I just finished. I came up with the concept after doing a couple quick sketches, and this one stuck out. So I worked it up at a larger size, and went to town. I was pretty pleased with the inking job, but when I started with the watercolors, my mood quickly sank. I think I nailed down the fleshtones pretty well (though some of the color was lost when I scanned it). But the water and the smoke aren't nearly as successful. After finishing, I started to rethink the green smoke elevating out of Phelps, as a reference to his recreational drug usage. I think it makes him look too much like some sort of smoke stack releasing toxic waste. But on the other hand, I'm guessing the news is recent enough that viewers will make the connection. As for the likeness, I dont know that I quite captured the goonish face of Phelps. One would think it would be an easy face to caricature- big ears, big nose, weird mouth, skinny face, big chin, eyes close together, fairly defined brow ridge, etc. Somehow though all those characteristics were featured, I just missed him somewhere. It might be the hair, or the eyes might be a tad big. I'll figure it out sooner or later.

Toonage

2009-02-17T07:06:00.000-08:00

Here's a few cartoons. Not a whole lot to say about these. I'm a little disappointed in the drawings and how they turned out. I did some good crosshatching on the fat cat and muscle-bound donkey(which I think looks more like a bull). But other than that, nothing was really going right while drawing them. I think a couple of the gags turned out well so as long as the message gets across, i guess its best not to get hung up on the poor drawing.

Are we there yet??

2009-02-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

The portrait of my little brother is complete... I think. I worked on the hair and shirt today. The hair came out a little more blond than I wanted, but I'll cope. I did a red under-painting for the shirt which showed through very well when I roughed in the colors. I really didn't want to lose that, so I thought I would just add some tints, tones, and highlights and see how it turned out. Well thats how you see it now, but I feel like it looks unfinished compared to the rest of the painting. I don't think it's too distracting, and the red under-painting is still popping through like I wanted. Anyway, painting aside, there's my reference photo right below it. I had to play with the lighting a bit. Also, I missed his likeness a little bit, but for the most part I'm satisfied with how it turned out.

Below those two are a bunch of sketches I pulled out of my sketchbook.

Vertebrae and an angry misshapen skeleton dude.

2009-02-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

Here's a few of the vertebrae. The first is an example of a thoracic vertebrae. I really enjoyed drawing the form of that one. The front 3/4 view drawing was a bit more successful. The proportions are much better and it has good symmetry where the second is lacking in both areas. The second drawing is of a lumbar vertebrae, and both of them are pretty successful with regards to proportion and symmetry. I wish I would have used the values to push the perspective and give it more depth (something I did much better with the thoracic vertebrae.) I'm finding myself using a lot better variation in line this semester, and I'm really happy about it. In life drawing I, I didn't think line variation was as important in these drawings as it really is. Now I can see that, and I know how much further I still need to push myself.

Drawing the rib cage was a lot of fun. It's very tedious and a little more difficult, but lets face it, the rib cage is pretty sweet. Any way, one thing I really need to work on is putting value on the planes to make the form feel more solid and give it more volume. I didn't really add any value to the rib cage and because of the slender feel of the ribs, it becomes too outlined and flat.

The little guy on top is a disgruntled retiree who enjoys whittling little wooden birds, tying flies, and throwing rocks and beer cans at the neighborhood children as they pass his yard.

Acrylic Adventures

2009-02-09T12:32:00.000-08:00

I'm currently working on a portrait of my little brother with a working title of "The Brotherly Bond is Tainted When Paint is Applied" Not sure where the idea came from, but I like it. Anyway, it's still in progress, but most of it is roughed in. It's been a little while since I've painted any portraits so I really tried to slow up and nail down some flesh tones. Right below the portrait is a painting I did on my palette to use up some paint at the end of the day. It was weird and I did it in about 5 minutes, but I thought better of letting such a masterpiece go to waste.

Uno Mas

2009-02-03T06:17:00.001-08:00

Blagojevich gets the boot!

Bailout Bonuses... a thing of the past?

2009-02-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a cartoon on the proposal for a salary cap for CEOs who are getting part of the bailout package. Sen. McCaskill of Missouri first introduced a bill after Obama had called Wall Streets use of the money "shameful". McCaskill went on to cite some $18 billion dollars that had been used for corporate bonuses. I would say that might be deserving of the word shameful.

The drawing is a little different from other stuff I've been doing lately. I wanted to use a lot of hatching to describe the forms. I think it worked out all right. The inking however took a lot more time.

Blago watercolor

2009-01-28T19:33:00.000-08:00

Here's a watercolor of Rod Blagojevich. I just love his face. Its got a lot of character to it.

Governor Rod Blago..asdfjlk;..jevich

2009-01-27T20:48:00.000-08:00

Well, its a new semester, new classes, new blah blah blah...something something... sketches. The first one is of Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. If anyone has been following what he's been up to, its hard to take him seriously at all, not to mention that hair. I wish I could make my hair do that. The other sketches are some animal studies. I have a major lack of animals in my visual repertoire, so I thought it would do me good to sketch a few everyday for a while. The best way to learn is by doing, so I like to keep drawing and drawing. Not to mention its just so gosh darn relaxing.

Figures, and a little narcissism

2008-12-17T10:14:00.000-08:00

skulls and gestures

2008-12-17T09:55:00.000-08:00

Life drawing I has been a great learning experience for me. My drawings have benefited in several ways: I've gotten better control of the structure and proportions of the human body, I've renewed a looser drawing technique, and I've gotten a better variation in line wheight and value. The biggest gain for me has been learning all the parts of the body. Knowing the actual anatomy makes it a lot easier to use landmarks on the body and therefore get a more proportionate drawing. It brings a lot more life into the drawing when the pose is very natural and not awkward. One thing that helped me in that department was gesture drawing. It loosened up my drawings so much, and helped give the more lively pose/gesture to the drawing. Using a good variety in line weight and value brings a lot of life to the drawing as well. I had been in the habit of doing dark outlines in many of my drawings, but once I started adding lighter tones, it pushed the depth of the drawing a lot more.

All in all, Life Drawing has been a very favorable experience. The level of my drawings has increased much more than I would have expected. I can't wait to take Life Drawing II.

Merry Christmahanaquanza

2008-12-07T19:20:00.000-08:00

Well, it's that time of year again. The holiday seasons are upon us along with all the hustle and bustle. I did this Christmas card of my girlfriend and myself that'll be getting sent out pretty quick here. This was a pretty fun piece to do. I was hoping to get a Norman Rockwell, Christmas nostalgia feel. It's no Rockwell by any means, but I'm pretty happy with it. I haven't gotten a chance to do much coloring in photoshop this semester, which I dont mind too much. I normally prefer to color my drawings more traditionally with watercolors, but this drawing lent itself pretty well to the digital tools.

On a side note, after taking my first life drawing class, I have a much greater appreciation for the work of Norman Rockwell, and many other artists and illustrators. His ability to capture the candid moments, expressions, vitality, and life of his subjects was simply astounding. It comes as no surprise that Rockwell is by far the most successful and well respected illustrator in American history.

Sketch Dumperoo

2008-12-01T13:33:00.000-08:00

For whatever reason, I haven't been doing much sketching lately. I think it's been close to two weeks since I even opened my sketchbook. Most likely due to schoolwork, and Thanksgiving break and the like. But today I finally got to sit down for a bit and do a few. Each of the above took around 10-20 minutes. The first is of my little brother, then a Jack Black, Ben Stiller(s), and a George Lucas. I was pretty happy with all the likenesses. One thing about sketching, at least for me, is that I need to constantly be drawing, otherwise it takes a bit more to warm up and get into it. At times, doing so might feel more like a chore, but I find that once I force myself to sit down and do a sketch, it's harder to put the pencil/pen down than it was to start.

I encourage everyone to listen to this podcast by Stephen Silver on his philosophies about sketchbooks. http://silvertoons.com/silvertoons/podcasts/Artcast003.mp3 Stephen is an amazing character designer who is the lead character designer for Kim Possible, Clerks, and art director for Danny Phantom. He stresses the importance of sketching as a tool to better your drawing skills.

Valleyfair exaggeration exstravaganza!!

2008-11-23T20:08:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since summer ended, but I thought I would share some caricatures I drew out at Valleyfair. It was my second summer at the concession job, and I've seen a lot of improvement in my drawings, likenesses, exaggerations, and airbrushing. I suppose drawing for 10-12 hours a day all summer will do that. One of the things about drawing at an amusement park is that its very easy to get bored, and your drawings can become stagnant and generic. The best way for me to combat this is really pushing my exaggerations. When you really nail a customer, its a great feeling. A lot of the time, customers will have a preconception about what the drawing is going to look like ie. not making them hideous monstrosities. Most of the time they just want a cute drawing. Not only is that insanely boring, but it'll rarely turn out as a good caricature. If a customer sits down for me and they specifically ask to be drawn cute, or ask me not to go to town on their ears/guady teeth/lazy eye/ what have you, what I really hear is draw me as ugly as you can. That keeps the job real interesting. Getting drawings returned is not uncommon for caricature artists that really like to exaggerate. It's somewhat of a right of passage. Anyway, I took my camera to work one day to snap some pictures. These were a couple that I thought turned out pretty good. The bottom drawing is a self caricature that we hang at the booths. I'm not sure what inspired my 300 lb. figure, I think it was the funnel cake stand right next to our booth. BTW, if you can eat a whole funnel cake and not feel like death afterwards, you are my hero.

The death of a sketchbook

2008-11-17T20:57:00.000-08:00

I always start to get ancy when im nearing the end of a sketchbook. Mostly I'm just looking forward to starting a new one. It's really nice to look through a recently filled up sketchbook and see all the little experiments, and improvements in the sketches. Also a good chance to see areas that still need improving. They are just sketches, but I think they do hold a lot of value/merit in the growth of an artist. Anyway, here's two sketches from the last couple of pages. The first is of Sean Connery. For being a somewhat handsome guy, he's got an easy face to caricature. The same goes for the second drawing of John Trevolta. A couple of my fellow caricature artists that are now employed out in California have switched from coloring with an airbrush to Prismacolor color stix. Theyre pretty much giant colored pencils without the wood around em. I haven't had a chance to try them yet, but I did these with regular prismacolor pencils. I've never done much with colored pencils so I was trying to slow down a bit on these and nail down some of the flesh tones. I guess I'm more or less happy with them, but theres a lot of room for improvements.

Blogging about blogs

2008-11-11T07:14:00.000-08:00

I've really enjoyed the blogging process. I think it's a great addition to a drawing class. Many of my coworkers/coleagues, and fellow artists have blogs that they update semi-regularly most notably Tom Richmond www.tomrichmond.com (my boss, and MAD Magazine illustrator extraordinaire) He blogs on all things art, illustration, and caricature. Once a week he'll post a sketch or two, as well as illustration jobs he's working on or recently finished. I also follow several cartoonist blogs that tend to post a single panel cartoon every day, or close to it. It's refreshing and inspirational to see new work everyday.

Apart from those other blogs, I've found our life drawing blogs to be a great outlet to share what us art students so diligently work on every day. We don't really get to look over or dissect each others work in class to a great degree, not to mention see students' work from other classes. We all together have a very large body of work, and its great to be able to see that work that we might not otherwise see.

That being said, I would like to see others post more of their work from outside this class. I would especially like to see their work from outside school altogether. That is the stuff that people tend to put a lot of themselves into thus making them stronger pieces as a whole. I have found several blog posts from my classmates that were quite interesting. I enjoyed Jennie Ekstrand's posts of ongoing shows and the like. It's nice to be in the know about things like that.

As for my own blog, I've kept pretty up to date on assigned posts as well as adding several extra posts of projects I've been working on or sketches I enjoyed etc. I haven't kept up on posting comments quite as well as I should have. But overall, I think I have portrayed myself clearly as the artist I am, and the art I create.

Gumby on the disection table

2008-11-11T06:54:00.000-08:00

Now that we've covered the leg muscles, I'd have to say that the quadriceps, hamstrings, and adductors have been the most fun to build. The first of these that I built were the quadriceps. When It was just that muscle group, the femur seemed very bare and I kept wanting to add more volume to the quads. Then I added the adductors which again, didn't make much sense to me until more of the leg was put together. As soon as I started working on the hamstrings, things started taking shape. But it took a lot of faith for me to keep adding the long slender semimembranosus, semitendinosus, and biceps femoris. With the exception of the biceps femoris, I couldn't wrap my mind around the individual muscles thing lengthy look. I always thought of the hamstrings as big and massive. But once I got that whole muscle group together, it made a lot more sense, and my suspicions were put to rest. The anterior view still seemed very strange, but once again, when I added the sartorius muscle, it filled in the gaps(no pun intended). I had a complete thigh/upper leg.

I started to notice that my gluteus muscle group had a bit too much mass to it. I started to smush it down a little, but its still a little to big when you look at it from a front 3/4 view. With a little more trimming, the problem will be corrected.

Long pose compilation

2008-11-11T06:47:00.001-08:00

2008-11-11T06:11:00.000-08:00

The first drawing was one of our earlier long poses. Although some aspects of my drawings have improved a bit since, I think I captured the model pretty well in this drawing. The first thing I noticed was the pose of the model. I depicted the contrapasto stance naturally. The models weight seems to be situated on the right leg and the musculature and angles of the long axes reflect that. I also made a good attempt at adding a variety of line weights and values. At times the figure is a bit outlined, but I think with the lighter thinner lines contrasting it, it is less apparent. I added some value rendering to show the musculature. At this point we hadn't discussed the muscle groups of the posterior view, so I was just going on what I saw. For the most part, I think I got it spot on, but there are some inconsistencies.

The second drawing is one the later long poses. The model's pose in this one was pretty interesting. I had started off putting in with a fair amount of detail, the long axes, rib cage, pelvis etc. Then I began rendering the muscle groups that we've discussed. I had a good foreshortened view of the model's right thigh which was fun to draw. I think I needed to add some darker values on the inside of the thigh to make that more apparent, however, it turned out okay. I think I did a good job drawing the abdomen as well as the proportions between the abdomen and limbs. The head and neck are a little off from where they should be. Again I used a good variety in line weight and value. I think I could have lightened up the far left arm, but with the value I added to the muscles, it isnt too distracting.

The third drawing was another of our earlier poses. With this one I was really pleased with my depiction of the rib cage and pelvis. Although the pelvis was angled towards me, and the rib cage away, I messed up the proportions between the two a bit. Also, the model was leaning away from me and I made the torso a little too long for the pose. But never-the-less, I really enjoyed how the long axis of the spine turned out. I rather enjoyed rendering this drawing. I got a little too caught up with the rendering however, and consequently the gesture of the model suffered. But it was still a good chance to really examine the rib cage to the fullest.

Gesture Sketch Dump

2008-11-10T22:54:00.000-08:00

2008-11-10T22:09:00.001-08:00

I've noticed much improvement in my gesture drawings as the semester has progressed. One aspect that has I've fixed is that my early gesture drawings didn't show the long axes very well.(1) Also, they aren't very naturally situated. Just the way that I very jaggedly outlined parts of the figure make it feel stiff and rigid.(2) The outlines flatten the drawings. Even though they are quick gesture sketches, there is no sense of depth because of the uniform line weight and value.(3) None of the first three drawings correctly show any volume in the figure.(4) There are no rib cages or pelvises.

On my more recent, better drawings, most or all of the afore mentioned items have been corrected. In the 30 second pose(5) the rib cage is foreshortened and shows good depth. (6) I could have pushed the variety in the line weight and value to create more depth.(7)
The 60 second drawing(8) really captures the figures pose. I set up the long axes pretty well(9) but missed it in a spot here or there as well.(10) I think I used a good variety of line weight and value,(11) and that makes the drawing much more appealing. I think I did a good job placing the rib cage and pelvis.(12)
The 10 minute drawing(13) was done from the skeleton and I added some musculature. I really enjoyed this one. Again I used a good variety of line weight and value, as well as rendering some of the muscle groups.(14) Taking the time to do this drawing helped me to start concentrating on the long axes a bit more when drawing from the live model.

More Cartoonage

2008-11-06T12:25:00.001-08:00

It's nice that all the shenanigans of the election are done with, but I guess there's still plenty to cartoon about. Politics aside, I think I'm starting to hit my stride with my editorial cartoon style. I find that when I draw with pen and ink, its hard for me to loosen up. Many editorial cartoons are very sloppy, but its a controlled sloppiness thats very appealing. I think if an artist tries to force a style, it will be evident in their work. MAD Magazine artist Tom Richmond once told me that your style will just develop after many hundreds of thousands of drawings. So all I can do is keep pounding out drawings, and it'll come.

Election Day: is it over yet...?

2008-11-04T12:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a long haul, but the day is finally here.

Sketch dump o' frustration

2008-11-03T20:50:00.000-08:00

I'm in the process of finishing up my latest sketchbook. Over the last year or so, I've been going through sketchbooks a lot quicker than I used to, and here's a couple sketches from the most recent.

There are some faces that some people just can't get a likeness on for whatever reason. For me, in my latest sketchbook, it's been Brett Favre(in the top picture) and Kelsey Grammar(bottom two pictures). I filled up several pages with sketches of each, and just couldn't get any decent results. It's very hard to put my pencil down after doing a crappy sketch, but after several attempts, frustration takes over, and some explicit phrases may be uttered before my sketchbook is closed for the day. I normally like to come back to these faces if I am still not satisfied(or not completely defeated), and give it a fresh eye. In some instances this will help, and others, not so much.

Vote early, vote often.

2008-10-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple pen and ink doodles. I've worked as a caricature artist at Valleyfair in Shakopee MN the last two summers, and I've gotten an earful from many a customer about making them too fat, their nose too big, buck teeth, colossal ears, etc, and the list goes on. I did the first drawing after getting a drawing returned from a rather obese woman who had no reservations about telling me where I should stuff the drawing. But these very instances are a great learning experience. We as artists, or in whatever we are doing, have to be able to defend our work, and sound competent while doing so. But at the same time we have to be open to criticism. I definitely wont be taking advice from a visually illiterate carnival goer, but when someone has something of value to say, its important to listen.

Well, my caricature woes aside, I thought I'd do an Obama and McCain. Election day is coming up soon, and I hope everyone ready to exercise their democratic rights. As they say, vote early, vote often.