I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got six new comics.
Check them all out here:
I like images. That’s my general preference when it comes to art. I like making images and I like looking at images. I’m in no way against abstract art, Ad Reinhart’s black compositions are among my favorite works of art, but, in general, I like a picture with my pictures. To narrow it down even further I like images of the human face and body. Those are the two main subjects that I paint and draw. Even if my faces get so out there that they bare little resemblance to actual faces there is still a face there. Occasionally I make abstract art made up of shapes and colors with no images to it but that’s fairly rare.
I’m also not much of a sketcher. I don’t go out into the world and draw from life. I know a few people who like to do that. They like to draw on the subway, the park, or even at a bar during “Drink and Draw” events. I think my work is too much inside my own head for that type of thing. As a consequence I don’t do a lot of landscape drawing. That would require me to go out and find some landscape worth drawing to sit in and draw. That never happens.
Of course sometimes I draw landscapes because they’re part of a drawing with a figure or figures in it but that’s a different beast. The landscape is just a background and is therefore subordinate to the main image so the landscape doesn’t have to stand on its own and is generally incomplete. An image of some sort will be blocking most of it.
I bring this subject up because this week I actually did make some landscape drawings. No figures in them at all. I guess the drawing would still be considered an image as opposed to an abstract drawing but to me it’s not really the same as if there were people in the landscape. They’re also not real landscapes. They’re not of any real place. I’ve been trying to think of a name for them but all I have so far is “Sci-fi Fantasy Landscapes.” That’s fairly descriptive of them but not very catchy.
It’s a style of landscape drawing that I’ve developed over the years and have done a number of them but not often. They come out of my “Busted Brush” technique (see, there is a catchy name) where I draw in ink with a watercolor brush that is so far gone that it can’t even come to a point anymore. When I go to draw one ink line on the paper three or four lines come out of the brush. The thickness and thinness of the line can also be quite random. Over all it’s a technique that forces me to loosen up, improvise, and embrace the randomness of making marks on paper.
I start out with a five by seven piece of watercolor paper and draw on it with my busted brush. This is where all the image making happens. These landscape drawing are all about the building I put in the. Sometimes it’s only one small building and sometimes there are multiple buildings filling the landscape. The building don’t adhere to any architectural style and are made to look interesting. Sometimes they look like buildings of an ancient civilization and sometimes they look like they belong on some other planet in outer space. That’s where the fantasy and sci-fi name come from.
After I decide on the first building (drawn straight in ink) I decide on the landscape around it. Or at least I decide on the general direction of the landscape. Then I add some of the elements of the landscape, more buildings, more landscape and so on until I’ve got it down. I’m careful to realize that I can always add more later and so I try not to add in too much stuff right away.
After the black line work is done I come in with some color. I’m not a big watercolorist but many years ago I decided to get some tubs to keep some liquid color in. The tubs are pretty big as paint containers go. They hold about a pint of liquid. Years ago I filled them up halfway with water and then squeezed a tube of watercolor paint into them. Now any time I want to use some watercolor it’s all ready to go. I have about six different colors set up that way.
With my watercolors set up that was they’re pretty watery. They color is light and thin. To darken the color I have to use a lot of washes. And I do. I’m not looking for wild illustrative color. I’m looking for subtlety and a little bit of visual interest. The color isn’t going to carry the piece as it does in so many of my paintings. So I usually have a bold sky color and then the buildings have color with just some small changes in tone in it.
If I want to color to be a little bit bolder I break out my pan gouache set. That give me twenty colors to choose from. Gouache is an opaque watercolor but with this style of drawing I thin it out and use it like regular watercolor. It can give me a little more variation in color density too.
After I get the color all done I go back into the drawing again with my brush and ink. All that watercolor going over the black ink can dull it down and make it look brown so adding some more black makes the drawing look strong again. Plus the drawing now has two different blacks in it and that makes for more visual interest.
After I finished the first five by seven drawing I made five more over two days. And then I decided to go bigger and made two nine by twelve inch drawings over the weekend. They all took me longer than I expected them too. They look like they should take less time than they do. Plus I’ve got the technique down and it’s a simple technique so I always think they should not take too much time. But they do.
I finished them up on a Sunday night and then a strange thing happened to me. I felt disconnected. It’s weird but sometimes making art without people in the images makes me feel off. Like I’m in a dreamworld. When I make dream-like drawings of people in them I’m fine. That even grounds me. But landscapes cam make me feel out of it. No wonder I like people in my painting so much.
I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got seven new comics.
Check them all out here:
Memory is a tricky thing. Especially as we get older. When I was younger I had a very good memory for stuff: incidents, people, places, words, and images. I could remember them all with good clarity. What happened, where, and when? I knew. People would often remark on how good my memory was. That was back when I was in my early 20s so now it’s my memory of my memory but it’s not my memory anymore.
As I’ve grown older my memory has grown murkier. Not in an abnormal way. My memory is still very good but there is a lot more to remember when you’re fifty compared to when you’re twenty. I think the steel trap memory of my youth had a lot to do with being young. When you’re young there are lots of new things happening all the time. Lot’s of new experiences and firsts to remember. As time goes by a sameness can creep in. It’s gets tougher for things to make a distinct memory in the mind.
When you’re at a friend’s birthday party for the first time it’s an event. Or even the second or third time. But what about the twelfth time? What distinguished that from the thirteenth? I bet at some point the birthday parties might even stop. When did that happen? Was there a birthday party in 2003 or 2004? Who knows? Sometimes 1986 is clearer than 2006. That’s how memory works.
What has me contemplating memory today is, in fact, a memory. A lot of my memories of days gone by are linked to photographs. Not only have I taken a fair amount of photographs since my college days but I’ve taken care to label them with time, place, and who is in them. Even in my days of remembering lots of stuff I knew my memory wasn’t perfect and so I should write stuff down. I’m glad I did. Organizing photos helps burn the memory into my brain and even if it doesn’t looking at the photo can bring that time back. And the notes help with clarity.
At least that’s how the photos I took work for me. I always find it weird to see some old photo of me that I’ve never seen before pop up from a friend on Facebook. My photos are familiar to me but one I’ve never seen before gets my brain going “Is that really me? Where is it? How come I can’t remember that at all?” It’s like looking at an alien self from the past. Always a strange experience.
The memory that I was contemplating today didn’t come from a photo. It came from a day when neither I nor anyone else had a camera with them. It’s not like these days when everyone has a camera on their phone with them at all times. It was in 1986 when if you wanted to take photos you had to decide to bring your camera with you before hand. That day I left mine behind.
It was a spring day in 1986 back when I was in my fourth and final semester at what is now called SUNY Sullivan up in Sullivan County NY. I’m guessing it was sometime in April and school was closed for the day. I think it was a Friday and it was a beautiful Spring day out. I’m trying to remember who I was with but can’t quite get if there were four, five, or six of us. I think I was with my roommates Jeff and Jay plus our friend Denise. There may have been a couple of other friends there but I really can’t remember.
Campus was pretty empty that day as there was no school and we were hanging out in a far off place on campus so it was even emptier. It was so far off the beaten path that I don’t think I had been there before. The reason we were there is that Denise used to be a high school basketball player and had discovered an outdoor court over in this corner of the campus. So we went there to hang out and shoot some hoops. She and I were the only athletes in the group so we played some horse as everyone else explored the space. It was a nice space.
Other than the basketball court there was a big field, some small hills, an embankment, and lots of nature on that warm Spring day. I can’t even remember what else we did but we were out there for hours and hours exploring this new corner of campus. I wish my memory of that day was clearer but it’s faded over time. I can only remember bits and pieces of the landscape. What hasn’t faded is my feeling of warmth and friendship on that day and that’s why I remember it.
High School was mostly bland for me. I knew a lot of people and had known a lot of people since grade school but I wasn’t very social. I went to school, did my school work, came home, and either hung out with my friend who lived next door or drew by myself. I was the only creative artist I knew in high school. But college changed all that. I was at SUNY Sullivan to study commercial art and so was the rest of my class. Suddenly I had a lot of people to share interests with and life was a lot more fun. I made some good friends and had some good times. Especially that warm sunny day shooting hoops.
Even on that day I knew I wanted to remember it. I knew it was one of those special fleeting days that don’t come around often. I can still feel its warmth. All of us who were there were friends for since we got to school in September of 1984 and we had about another month of classes until we graduated and moved on to other schools to complete our bachelor degrees. I knew it was almost over for this gang of mine and I wanted the memory go this day to stick with me. All these years later it has. Just not as clearly as it once did. That’s time for you.
I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got five new comics.
Check them all out here:
I wouldn’t call myself neat, not that I’m sloppy, but I would call myself organized. I’ve got a lot of art supplies and such that have to be in their place so I can find them but not tucked away where they are hard to get to. It’s the eternal balancing act between order and disorder. But sometimes I do have to tuck things away. Such as all the drawings that I make. They build up over time and the places that are at my finger’s reach get full. That means I have to tuck them away in a cabinet and it helps if they are not loose but in a box.
I like boxes. They’re good storage devices. They actually make storage boxes for art and I have bought some in the past but when I don’t have the money for them I make my own. I usually make them out of whatever scrap mat board or foam core board that I’ve got lying around.
I’ve never found a really good way to make a box. Mine are more practical than pretty. A week before I made my art storage boxes I made a box to carry comics in and it came out terrible. It was just a small box that fix about ten comics but it doesn’t look good, feel good, or function well. I cut the mat board a bit in order to fold it and then had to use tape on the folds to reinforce them and not of that worked well.
The main problem with making a box out of mat board is that the thickness of the board doesn’t make for easy folding. It’s not thin like paper but a paper box will do no good. For the comic book box I used the method where I draw a line where I want the board to fold, cut through the mat board a little bit with an X-Acto knife, and then fold along the cut.
Folding along the cut can be a real problem. I used to think the cut should be on the outside of the fold but found that the paper would tear away from the edge if I did it that way. With the cut on the inside of the fold the paper would tear on the outside (it was being stretched after all) but be more stable than if it was cut. On the comic box I used tape to reinforce the outside edge but that made it look ugly and it didn’t feel nice either. That box was a failure.
This past Saturday as I was fighting the battle between order and disorder I decided to build another box to put some of my drawings away in. I had a bunch of 6×9 and 9×12 inch drawing lying around so I decided to make a 10×13 inch box for them. Since I made that failure of a comic book box the week before I decided to not go with the X-Acto method. I had recently seen something called a folding bone for the first time and wanted to try one.
A bone folder is used by bookbinders to fold paper so I figured that would be a good tool for me to use here. The only problem was that I didn’t have one. So I decided to improvise. A folding bone looks like a big dull knife. It’s used for scoring paper. It uses pressure to push the paper down and create a valley in the paper to fold along. I went out to the garage to see what I could find among my tools to do the job. I ended up finding a bike tool. It’s a small metal tire lever that’s used for prying the tire tread off a rim. One end was smooth, rounded, and about the width of a quarter.
I wanted to make a box with a separate lid so I pulled out two pieces of mat board and drew the box on the first one. It was just a 10×13 inch rectangle with two more inches on all four sides to make the sides of the box. Then I put my straight edge along a line I just drew and ran my folding bone along the line. I did this two or three times to really press down the mat board. It tore the surface paper a little bit to but this couldn’t be helped. Since the board was so thick I decided to score the other side of the paper too. So I flipped the board over, marked the lines again, and scored along them.
It worked out pretty well. When I went to fold the mat board it folded fairly easily and though there was some tearing of the paper on the outside of the box it wasn’t as bad as with my other methods and I didn’t need to tape any edges. I made a top for the box and thought I was done. I wasn’t.
As I was trying to find a way to fit a new box into my cabinet of drawings and supplies a pile of 11×17 inch drawings that I had been ignoring couldn’t be ignored anymore. So I built a box for them. Then a ran across a pile of 5×11 inch drawings so I built a third box. Finally on another shelf in the cabinet I ran into an even bigger pile of old 5×11 inch drawings and so had to build a fourth box. I ended up spending a lot of my Saturday building boxes out of mat board.
It was really my new method of using a faux folding bone that made me build four boxes instead of one. After I had built that terrible comic book box a week ago I was in no mood to build any more. It was ugly and impractical. That didn’t inspire me to want to make any more. But I’m a tool guy in general so I like trying out new tool and finding the right tool for the right job. Now I need to try out some bookbinding tape.
I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got seven new comics.
Check them all out here:
It’s hard to get things done. Really hard. That thought was banging around my head today as I was making my comic book haul video and showing off some of the “Dreams of Things” faux comic book covers that I’ve drawn lately. You can ask anyone who is creative and makes art and most of them will tell you that it’s no picnic getting things done. Especially if you’re not making any money for it. Then you have to find other motivations to get things done.
I have heard artists describe how they don’t like making art but they like having made art. That’s because it can be hard to make art. Art often falls below the expectations of the artist making it. Or it takes a lot of concentration, time, and effort to get done and none of that is fun. But looking back and being proud of the art you’ve made can be fun. There can be more satisfaction in that than in the doing.
In talking on camera about my “Dreams of Things” I used the word “Comfortable” to describe working on them. I had never thought about that before but it is a very apt word. I like to keep busy. Keep busy making art that is. It’s good for my mental health. I may not have much in life but I have talent and the drive to nurture that talent. If I was to just sit around and do nothing I’m sure that would be bad for me. But the question for any artist is always “What should I do?’ Since it’s hard to get anything done that’s not an easy question to answer.
From September to January I made a lot of big ink drawings. I was on a roll and liked making them. Though I would not call them comfortable. It was physically hard making them. They were all on 22×30 inch paper and were drawn on my easel. That means a lot of moving around, twisting, and turning to get the drawing done. It’s more physically taxing than working on a smaller drawing at my drawing table. It’s more mentally taxing too since it takes three days to make one. It takes more mental effort to work on one drawing for three days than it does to work on three drawings in three days. That’s the way it is for me.
So for the last month after making those big ink drawings I’ve been working on my “Dreams of Things.” I have a different method of working on my faux covers. It starts the same way. I look through one of my ink book sketchbooks to find a thumbnail drawing that I like, print it out at 6×9 inches, make a new drawing, scan that drawing in, set it up in my “Dreams of Things” template, print that out on 11×17 inch paper, ink it, and then color it with markers.
What’s good about that method is that I can stop at any step. I can draw one, two, three or more pencil drawings and then put them aside if I’m tired of them. I can ink one of them when I fell like it and then put that aside. If I want to work in color I can grab one of the covers off the inked pile. As long as I have a bunch of them in various stages (pencils, inks, colors) I can pick whichever stage I feel like doing without a ton of thought as to why. After all the why can be fatiguing.
That’s what brought the word comfortable to my mind. Often we think we have to challenge ourselves and do something new In order to achieve greatness or even keep up with the world but sometimes to get something done it’s better to go with comfortable. Why make things hard if there is no reason for it? If you want to get art done putting obstacles in your own way is probably not the way to go. The world throws enough obstacles at us.
I also made some cartoon art cards for my “Drifting and Dreaming” comic strip. Those are not comfortable. I have to write, draw, and lately I’ve also been filming them. That takes a lot of concentration. Each video of me drawing them is only 10-12 minutes long but that’s 10-12 minutes of total concentration. Plus that’s not counting the 5-10 minutes it takes to write each one. I find writing those weird little sayings to be a chore. I have to clear my mind and roll ideas around in it too. I’m not much of a procrastinator but I find myself putting off writing those cartoons. There is nothing comfortable about writing them.
I also recently finished a big 22×30 inch photo of the 1996 Marvel Comics office Halloween party. That took a lot of time and a lot out of me. It took about 50 hours to make and was in no way comfortable. I never expected it to be so hard to make but there was a lot of photo retouching involved. More than I thought at first. Making art can be unpredictable.
I’ve been feeling a little down about my “Dreams of Things” covers as I’ve been doing them. That aren’t as big, striking, and ambitious as the big ink drawings I had been working on. After working at 22×30 inches 11×17 inches seems a little puny. Any individual one seemed a bit of a disappointment. I wasn’t getting a lot of satisfaction out of them. But then a funny thing happened.
I’ve been putting them up on my easel as I’ve been finishing them. That makes them easy to look at. I know have three of them in a row on my easel and seeing all three at once looks pretty cool. It’s an “Impressionist Stacking” way of seeing them. I used them as the background for my video so as to show them off and that’s when the word comfortable came to mind. That’s what they are to me in this moment. Art that I could get done comfortably. And that’s a good thing.
I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got four new comics.
Check them all out here:
It’s time for my tradition of writing about what TV shows I’ve been watching. Here you go.
Russian Doll – A new Netflix show about a NYC woman caught in a Groundhog Day like time look. I found it funny and interesting. It was only eight half an hour episodes so it wasn’t very long but it didn’t ned to be. With these time loop plots I always find it more interesting how the characters deal with the loop rather than them solving the problem. I found that to be true here too but it was still entertaining even at the end.
FBI – A new police procedural show. I’m hit or miss with police shows but this one is a hit. It’s faced paced and is more involved with the solving the crimes than with personal lives. That’s how I like my police shows but your milage may vary.
Broad City – Our comedy duo is back for season five as we follow two thirty-ish women living in NYC. This one is zanny, faced paced, witty, and with some gross-out humor thrown in there. We usually get one or two episodes (out of twelve episodes a season) that are more experimental or conceptual than the rest and that’s fun.
Corporate – A show in its second season that I’ve only heard about now. It was mentioned in the back matter of one of the comic books that I read so I decided to check it out. It’s a dark comedy about working at a huge corporation. It’s funny but can also be depressing. So far I’m liking it.
Unsolved – I’ve been watching this Buzzfeed show on Amazon Prime. It’s in the tradition of “Unsolved Mysteries” in that it looks at crime, ghosts, and general mysteries. It has two hosts and any show of this type is all about the hosts. These two guy work for me. One is a skeptic and wise ass and the other is a believer and little too earnest at times. They make for a funny duo as we take a glance at the weirdness of the world.
Big Bang Theory – The twelfth and last season. I’ve been watching it from the beginning. It’s solid. I like it better as the seasons have gone one and the female cast member have been added. It’s never been my favorite sitcom but I’ll miss it when it’s gone.
Young Sheldon – I finally gave this one a try in season two. It’s a spin off of Big Bang Theory that takes place during the childhood of one of the Big Bang characters. I missed all of season one but that’s okay. It’s more of a family sitcom than Big Bang and is funny in its own right.
Supernatural – Season fourteen and another show I’ve been with since the beginning. What can I say about it? Our two lead characters fight monsters and keep it interesting. One of those shows that a whole new generation has discovered on Netflix. I’m with it until the end which is next year for its fifteenth and final season.
SEAL Team – Season two of our military show has been as good as season one. This show is about friendship, teamwork, and being in an elite military unit. It’s well done. On a side note I’ve been watching David Boreanaz on TV for a line time. Buffy-Angel-Bones-Seal Team. That’s a lot of seasons.
The Rookie – Nathan Fillion as an old guy who joins the L.A. Police force and is really old for a rookie. A police procedural about rookie cops. It’s fun. This one is as much about the characters and Fillion as it is about policing. It’s on the lighter side of cop shows. I’ve liked the show’s rookie year.
Lethal Weapon – Season three and they had to get rid of the actor from the first two seasons because he was too much of a pain in the ass. This third season hasn’t come together for me. I don’t like the new character and they seem to do less and less policing as the season progresses. This one will probably not be renewed and that’s okay with me.
Modern Family – Season ten and it’s as fun and strong as ever. I think I read that next year is its final season and I’ll miss it when it’s gone.
The Passage – A new drama based on some books about vampires. So far in the show they’ve created some vampires while trying to cure disease and the vamps are about the bust loose. It’s a little bit action, drama, and horror. It’s okay.
I Am the Night – Another new drama about L.A. In the mid 1960s. It’s about a 16 year old mixed race girl who goes to find her white side of the family, a burnt out reporter, and the Black Dahlia murder case. Lost of mystery, racism, corruption, and murder. It’s okay but not terrific.
Magnum PI – A remake of the old 1980s Tom Selleck show about a private investigator in Hawaii. It’s solid. It’s more action oriented than the original but it’s not very deep. I like it but it’s not always as involving as I like a TV show to be. Still the scenery and characters are all pleasant to watch and that’s not always easy to pull off.
Angie Tribeca – A fourth season of weird “Airplane” style humor except it’s a cop show. Lots of jokes and sight gags so don’t take your eyes off of the screen. I especially like the “Fargo” parody.
Brooklyn 99 – Another cop show comedy. I got cancelled on one network and brought back on another. This one is fast paced and fun which is just how I like my sitcoms. Terry Crews in in it so what more can you ask for?
The Good Place – The third season has ended for this one and it continues to evolve in new ways. It’s a comedy about the afterlife. Screw ups have happened and things are always being thrown into disorder for our six lead characters. It has a lot of heart and a lot of funny.
Man With a Plan – This show is in its third season already?!? It stars Joey from “Friends” and is a solid middle of the road family sitcom. I like it when I’m watching it but it doesn’t stick with me.
Superstore – This one is in season four and I think it’s gotten stronger with each season. It’s a sitcom about a bunch of employees at a big box store. It’s not breaking any new ground but I look forward to it. This one is somehow a feel good comedy to me.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel – An Amazon show that won a lot of Emmys for it’s first season is back for a second. It was as good as if not better than the first. It takes place in the late 1950s in NYC and a recently divorced woman is trying to start a career as a comedian. I’ve read it is inspired by the life of Joan Rivers. True or not the show is a lot of fun and has some great style.
The Umbrella Academy – I just started watching this one on Netflix. It’s based on a comic book that I’ve never read but now I want to. I’m only two episode in but I like it.
Manifest – A new mystery show in the tradition of “Lost.” A plane disappears but then five years later reappears and no time has passed for those on board. How could that happen? Who is behind it all? Is it a conspiracy? These are all the questions our characters have to find out. So far it’s been decent. Not great and a little too slow at times but I’ll stick around if it gets renewed.