bugged out.

I did another small sculpture, this time of the daughter louse character.

Sugar and Spice and everything.... Lice?

After a bit of a struggle, I think I've hit upon a design for the daughter that I like. My first designs seemed too old, and I wanted the character to seem like a tween-ager, not a 20-something.


Here are some throw-away gags I want to put into the cartoon- The lice see "deer ticks" on their camping trip:

and for no real reason, here is the back of poppa louse's head.

Poppa Louse (enlarged to show detail)

I made a 3-d version of the headlouse character design to help me visualize him more fully, and get the tricky perspectives and camera angles right. The pose I selected was based on this sketch of the character.

I made the head, body, and arms as separate pieces for a couple reasons: first, so I could sculpt it more easily, without the clay all mushing together as I worked on details; and second, so that I could move them around afterwards as drawing references.


While the clay cooked, I figured out a basic color scheme using the sketch on which I based the pose in the model.


Then I mixed paints and proceeded to apply color to the finished sculpture.

blending with surroundings

a little part of some experiments i am working on with character and background environmental integration/blending.

Camping With Pop

I have been mulling over an idea for a rather bizarre concept for a future cartoon I plan to draw.

It is the story of a father and daughter on a camping trip.

"how is that BIZARRE????" you may be asking.

Okay, maybe that concept sounds a little pedestrian...but here's the hook: the main characters are headlice.

"Gross!!!" you say.

and you're right. it's revolting. but i really don't care what you think. I think the subject is full of comic possibilities. in fact I'm certain. I filled three pages with ideas for jokes, gags, story ideas, etc. (while I was working- as the ideas came, I scribbled them on a piece of scrap paper and pocketed it and resumed working)

Then i began quickly scribbling out ideas for character design for the two leads. These were done quickly (since my job requires efficiency and speed, I had to draw these in as little time as possible so i could get back to work) and they were mostly drawn rather small.

I have photoshopped the various scraps of paper into two large collages here, one for the father (who is closer to a final design)


and the daughter (who i haven't really worked very hard on yet).



Here is a comparison to give you an idea how small I drew these.
sometime later I may post more of my ideas for this cartoon, but just in case you totally hated the whole concept, here are a couple completely unrelated things i did recently:

a chicken i drew today at work during our monthly shift meeting,


and a bunny i drew on a plastic fork with two marks-a-lot pens.

Playing With My Food.

I ate breakfast with a group of friends at a local restaurant, and while they all drew on the placemats with crayons, I took a spoon and spread around the leftover syrup on my plate, mixing in a little pepper to darken and thicken it, and using the burnt crisps of some homefries for a goatee.

Phoning in a cameo.

And now for something completely non-visual....

I changed my voicemail message today from my Ted Koppel impression...

to an impression of Jimmy Stewart.

Next time i re-record it, I'll probably do Regis Philbin.

Water Colors For, or, Light Painting, Being the Detailed Accounting of the Further Adventures an Aspiring Artist on His Journey to Create Art.

I seems to have had a sudden surge in the number of posts I've done recently. Here is another, a detailing of the process I go through to create a watercolor. This was something I painted this afternoon in preparation for a demonstration I will be giving to a group of 7-8-9 year-old boys tonight about the medium.


It is interesting to note the difference in appearance between a photograph of the painting and a scan of the same painting. The colors seem a lot more rich in the photograph(above), as the natural light plays over them, more like the way I saw them as I painted, whereas the scanned version(below), even after tweaking the colors, is a lot flatter with only the light from the scanner reflecting on it.



After I finished the painting, I drank the apple juice in the glass as my reward.

zounds! a pink hound!

Somewhere I read once that Salvador Dali used to lie on a couch with a silver spoon held suspended in his hand above a tea platter so that as he drifted off into a dream-sleep, his loosened grip on the spoon would make a sound that would awaken him so he could paint or sketch what he had dreamed before he could forget it. Whether the story is true or not, that restful twilight between here and dreamland is indeed ripe with images that are waiting to be drawn. I often have zillions of ideas pop into my head as I am about to drift off, but being too tired to get up and draw them before I fall asleep and forget them, they are often lost forever. However, I was taking a nap this afternoon and had an idea which I decided to act on. I grabbed out my pastels and a piece of paper and drew it out straight-ahead. It was more of a color-image than a detailed drawing, so I didn't sweat details like contruction, composition, or other technical aspects of art, focusing more on capturing those colors I saw in my head. sadly, what you see here is a mere shadow.
A fun shadow, but still not quite the picture I saw.

the next generation

Tonight I was asked to do an impromptu demonstration of the art medium of pastels for several royal rangers, a Christian-type boy-scout group. The eight boys were around 9 or 10 or so, and my mission was to give a quick overview and some samples of the medium. after showing them several of myfinished drawings in pastel......I got a fresh sheet and quickly showed them the process of creating art in pastels.
I very rapidly drew this freehand:
and started to reproduce this photo (poorly):
Then I had the boys do their own drawings, letting them use my chalks to color on some smaller sheets of paper I gave them all.

next week i get to do watercolors! oh boy.