More old stuff. Bob Ryan, lower left, has been the Channel 4 weatherman for 30 years. The Awakening, lower right, is a popular sculpture that was installed at Hains Point, but has since been moved to somewhere else, I forget exactly where. My wife had wanted to do something sculptury with the piles of snow in our front yard, but I think we're all now so sick of the stuff that the best approach would be to use a flamethrower on it. Maybe call it Solid into Water, and claim it's process art.
The blog of Richard Thompson, caricaturist, creator of "Cul de Sac," and winner of the 2011 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Winter Haikus
Thursday, February 18, 2010
For Matt Wuerker By Way of Herblock, By Way of Me
Whatever, I'm just hoping, having written this fawning post, that sometime during his acceptance speech before the assembled heavyweights at the Library of Congress Matt will give me a big shout-out.
Below is an Almanac I drew in 2001 when Herblock died. I'd meant to post it on the 100th anniversary of his birth last October, but I couldn't find it. If you ever saw Herblock's office you'd know what mine looks like, and you wouldn't be too surprised how much stuff I can't find.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
More Valentine's Day Fun, This Time With Educational Value
This is also a lazy repost, also from the Post mag, this time from Valentine's Day '03. And every word of it is true, or close enough. I was shocked to find out that my editor didn't know that diarist Samuel Pepys' name is pronounced "Peeps", especially as I'd only learned it the day before. I always thought it was Pep-eez, which is actually a stomach antacid. And look, aren't the colors pretty?
Valentine's Day, or Now We Are Six
Or, another crummy rerun repost, this from last year. This is Alice's first appearance in print, on the cover of the Valentine's Day issue of the Washington Post Magazine in '04. There had been a plan to also have this printed on the bag that holds the Post supplements, but that didn't happen, probably because they were afraid it might depress sales. Alice has since gotten a haircut and a face-reshaping. But haven't we all?
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Games of the 21st Olympiad
This is actually from six years ago, the Athens Olympics, but it still makes some sense inasmuch as its roots are Greek. And this blog post is actually from two years ago, so I might be stuck in some kind of temporal loop. But no, I'm actually at my wife's family farm in Salem, Ohio, sitting at a large kitchen table watching about a dozen loaves of bread come out of the oven. Mmmmm.
What I like best about the Olympics is that it's spread out so that I can be a sports fan every four, or two, years, and for me that works out just right.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The Whole Cover
Here, courtesy of Ms. Caty Neis, Graphic Goddess, is the Whole Shebang.
I might try my hand at designing or counterfeiting paper money some time. I hear there's bucks to be made in that field, and drawing little ornatey curlicues sure is fun.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Current Conditions
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Groundhog Day
This is a better scan of an old, previously posted cartoon, sort of reheated leftovers. It's about the best you can expect from this blog
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Bottom of the Bag
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Scaring Away the Customers
These are from a series of about a dozen drawings I did as promotional mailers for GVI, a video production company that my friend and neighbor Andy runs. I don't often do stuff like this, advertising or institutional or whatever category it fits into, because my work likely scares away customers, thus depressing sales. But mostly because you have to chase after work like this, and do proposals and submit a potential budget and I'm lazy and I keep going back to the same old clients over and over until they wise up and find somebody better and cheaper.
But this was fun, because Andy has taste and a sense of humor, and access to a snowblower when such a thing becomes necessary. So he's a perfect neighbor, friend and client. Each card showed a possible problem that might present itself in your search for a suitable video production company, then offered a solution on the back. And the solution, of course, is GVI- the one video production company with taste, a sense of humor, access to a snowblower and a great recipe for a frozen gin and tonic. And a nice family to boot!
For what it's worth, the first one is the best drawing but the last one is the funniest.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Your Unnecessary Spot Illustration of the Day
Your Unnecessary Spot Illustration of the Day
A Public Service Announcement
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Mike Rhode at the City Paper
Mike Rhode, the noted author, renaissance man, polymath, comics blogger & historian, medical historian, archivist, stalker/chauffeur and good friend, just started writing on comics for the Washington City Paper online. Rush right over en masse and crash their site please, and tell Mike hello!
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Artsy Stuff
Somebody asked what my palette is for watercolor, so this is it. To illustrate this I took the scrap piece of paper I put on the right side of my drawing board to wipe off brushes, catch ink splots and doodle on. I usually use a piece of watercolor paper that's got a drawing on it I've rejected. This one has what looks like a doctor sitting in an armchair; I don't remember why I did it, but it was some old illustration job. There's a pile of these rejects in a drawer by my drawing table and some date back a ways, like to the Clinton years. The medium here is pen and ink and watercolor, and in a few bits, like that almost-elephant, was scribbled with iron gall ink, an ancient type of ink that'll eat through the page, if you're lucky.
The watercolor paint I use most often-
- Hansa Yellow Medium
- Cadmium Yellow Lemon
- Yellow Ochre
- Cadmium Red Medium
- Quinacridone Rose
- Quinacridone Coral
- Quinacridone Burnt Orange
- Burnt Sienna
- Burnt Umber
- Terra Verte
- Green Gold
- Pthalo Green
- Cerulean Blue
- Cobalt Blue
- Ultramarine Blue
- Indigo
Those are the paints that are always squeezed out on my butcher tray palette. But wait- there's more! There are likely also some blobs of
- Perinone Orange
- Pyrrol Red
- Perylene Maroon
- Cobalt Green
- Viridian
- Emerald Green
- Sepia
- Manganese Blue
- Some Kind of Black (Lamp or Ivory or Carbon)
Plus maybe a few "convenience colors", some of 'em proprietary colors like Daniel Smith's Undersea Green, which is a mix of French Ultramarine and Quinacridone Gold that just looks purty. I've got a big tackle box full of paint tubes, some I've barely touched in years and some that I go through every few months. A few are no longer made, like Manganese Blue (toxic) and Green Gold (same, I think), but there are "hues" available, which is a near identical mix. The strangest tube of watercolor paint I've got is Red Lead, which is highly toxic and hasn't been made in years as an oil paint (I've got some old tubes that've since hardened) and should never have been made as a watercolor. It was stuck on a shelf at the old Pearl Paint in Alexandria, under the label for Cadmium Red, and I bought it so no one else would. I'm not about to use it either. The history of paint and pigments has some nasty things in it (like "mummy", which I leave to your imagination) and some intensely toxic substances. The most poisonous was the original Emerald Green, which was a bright, happy green good for foliage and grass. It was a copper arsenate, i.e. arsenic, and in the 19th century it was used as a house paint and for coloring wallpaper, and would off-gas when exposed to dampness. Yikes.
The piece of scrap paper up top is Arches 140# cold press, the paper I like best overall. Finding the right kind of paper for this kind of pen & ink and watercolor work, you fall between two stools; either it takes ink cleanly or it takes watercolors beautifully, and few papers do both. The cold press, with some tooth, can be too rough for pen & ink, therefor some prefer the hot press, which takes watercolor a little too weird and blotty for my taste (it's like the paint sits too far on top of the paper, but sinks in too fast).
Since John asked about this (see comment), I'll tell you. I draw a loose rough on thinnish paper, put it on the lightbox with the watercolor paper on top, draw it in ink (repeat as necessary till satisfied. Don' t overdo it, let the paint do some of the work or you're just coloring a drawing. Bo-ring), then I stretch it. This is so it can be painted without buckling. I do it like this; soak the drawn-on wc paper under the tap, both sides till all the surface is wet (this is where the importance of waterproof ink is vital), then attach it to a board. I've got this thing called a Zip-Strip (or something like that) that consists of a plywood board the size of a quarter sheet of wc paper and four plastic clamps that hammer into place along each edge, holding the paper till dry. The more common procedure is to tape it with brown tape (the kind you have to moisten) or staple it (I've got some heavy-duty foamcore board with a resin that makes is sturdy for stapling). Then wait an hour or so till it's good and dry and paint at will. When you pry it off the board it'll still be reasonably flat, with very little warping. The most enjoyable part of the process is soaking the drawing in the sink and seeing the ink turn glossy, though sometimes it's all I can do to keep myself from pushing it down the disposal.
Here are some fun links-
Friday, January 15, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)