12/27/10 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2010 - Rough for color image and the genesis of an idea

We are are having a real winter here in Kentucky. Our first snow was right after Thanksgiving and now we have had several measurable snowfalls since then including only the 2nd or 3rd White Christmas I can remember! The snow has stirred creative plasma from the past..

Gil Kane (p), Tom Palmer? (i),
cover Marvel Premier #15, 1974

Iron Fist is a comics character I have followed since his first appearance in Marvel Premiere 15 back in the mid 70's. The setting of the characters origin story is a mystical Asian city high in the snowy mountains: K'un L'un is obviously inspired by the mythical city of Shangri La. Danny Rand (the current, and at that time only known, Iron Fist's real name) is only a child at this point and the expedition to find the lost city by his father, mother, Uncle and himself is memorable for the adventure aspect, the tragic loss of a parent, and the search for a more enlightened way of life. All these concepts dug deep into my tween brain. I think I really empathized with the young Daniel's plight and envied the adventure and life he was about to embark on. Men are suckers for stories about sacrifice and honor - that is why war movies are able to evoke so much feeling in us - even among the most stoic and staid of us. We are hardwired to go out and fight tooth and nail against the imminent danger to our families without a moment's hesitation or regard for own safety. Even as children we have this instinct... that is why we are drawn to certain sports or hobbies.

At that time the Martial arts were a great mystery  and held me tight in and fascination - people like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris were incredibly influential role models. This period was near the height of the martial arts movie craze and I remember an incredible poster hanging in the hall at my elementary school Linlee.

Neil Adams, cover
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1
 Magazine, April 1974

It was fifth or sixth grade and I was absolutely stricken by envy for the fellow artist and classmate (Mark Desmond?) who created this image of Bruce Lee applying a flying leap kick to strike down his enemy. This large, poster-board masterpiece I later found out was a recreated Neil Adams (who would soon rise to near god-like status in my pantheon of comic artists) cover from an issue of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu - a Marvel Magazine. This revelation elevated my ecstatic longing even more since this was a more adult (almost akin to Playboy! not for nudity but intense adventure) form of comic than what I was currently reading and very elusive (much like Shangri La) publication for me to ever attain or read. (For an eleven-year old boy in 1974 there weren't a lot o back issue buying options like we have today! No comic shops, no internet, no eBay!).

So anyway, I was a faithful follower of this Marvel character and very much enjoyed the early story arcs (never liked IF as superhero - but have always felt he was better suited to the adventure genre!

Paul Gulacy (p) Jack Able?(i), HoSC-MOKF #29, June 1975, 

I wished he had been treated more like Marvel's other MA inspired character, Shang Chi, who got to live in a Bruce Lee Meets James Bond world.

James Steranko, cover
Doc Savage #3, February 1973

The Shang-Chi - Master of Kung Fu comic enjoyed the best art Steranko never did! Here is a sample of that seminal comic by another 'revered on high' artist: Paul Gulacy.

I was too young to experience most of Jim Steranko's comic work and only saw a bit of his work through his self published mag. But I think I did get this Doc Savage (another influential comic and pulp character on my young impressionable psyche) comic with his cover art. The black and white image is an illustration from the novel based on the Chandler detective series and proof that comics are very incestuous in the way one artist influences another. Frank Miller was thought to be very cutting edge with his graphic high contrast black and white style he used to great success in his noir crime comic series Sin City.

James Steranko, Chandler - Red Tide, pen and ink 1976

Frank Miller , Sin City, 1991-1992

Sites and blogs I have referenced from or been informed by during the writing of this post:

http://nealadams.com/magslist.html

https://spaceintext.wordpress.com/

http://www.giantsizemarvel.com/

http://marvel.wikia.com/Doc_Savage_Vol_1_3

http://www.thrillingdetective.com/steranko.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Miller_(comics)

http://consequentialart.wordpress.com/tag/sin-city/

http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2009/02/02/ten-of-the-most-bad-ass-women-in-movies/

12/21/10 - Happy Winter Solstice

Happy winter solstice.

There is a somberness to this season, it is a time when nature tries to thin the heard, so to speak. We rage against this fear of letting go with our holiday distractions and gross materialism. However it should be a time of reflection and putting to rest what is no longer essential in our lives. Brace yourself with the FAITH that is a preparation for even better things to come in the next cycle. It is one of the many sized waves of life and death, growth and decline that repeats at different frequencies and amplitudes throughout our lives. Expansion - contraction...these rhythmic patterns are essential to our existence and support the metaphysical/advanced physics ideas that we are essentially vibrations. Turn off your cell phones, walk away from the CRT/LCD - unplug and RECONNECT. Please take a walk in the woods, or park, take time to meditate in a peaceful place and let yourself connect to your intrinsic being and your higher calling. Embrace your human nature as your consciousness modulates between heaven and earth, practical and theoretical, light and dark, cold and hot. We never fully understand either extreme - like Icarus we can come tantalizing close, only to fall back - and thus we are almost always existing in some degree of MYSTERY. All is as it should be.

Did anyone see the lunar eclipse - I was up at 3:45am EST but we are having a little snow storm and I could not see the moon. I understand it would look dark, not black but actually red...

12/11/10 - Coloring Book Style Drawing

A quick little drawing for my daughter to color while we ate a favorite local Japanese (Korean owned) restaurant. We were all hungry but stoked from attending a good friend's wedding! Yay Duncan and Tomoko!

12/07/10 - Draft for Editorial Cartoon

This is my first online attempt at an Editorial cartoon - still just a draft really. Just put some of the relevant info in this photoshop comp. How do I take this to the next stage and create a a cartoon?

Update 12/27/10:
Here's a link to a site with a SNL clip about Julian and Mark Zuckerber - funny and really to the point! http://www.mediaite.com/tv/julian-assange-interrupts-snl-to-explain-why-he-should-be-times-person-of-the-year/

01/22/10 - Digital Link to Sketchbook Pro File in Google Docs

Sharing!



Here is a link to the actual file that the above image was created in from Sketchbook Pro 2010. If you have the program (really nice 15-day trial versions available online) you can download the .tif file and play with it as you like!

• Image005.tif - Google Docs

08/16/09 - Watercolor Illustration

This was done back in August from a photo ref (Target newspaper circular) with W&N Cotman paints on a 8.5 x 5 in sample of Strathmore's Wet Media Illustration Board (thanks to Barbara Faro, our local Strathmore paper sales rep!).

I spent about 3.5 hours (probably much too long for the size of the painting) or so on this - I really tried to do this in a controlled manner and am relatively please with the results. I was striving to keep the look controlled while matching the vibrancy of the photo's colors.

I 'm not sure about the watermark proclaiming my copyright as this is very faithful to the photo which I don't have any claims to.

01/19/10 - Digital - Painter 11

Two really quick and loose sketches from a new install of the trial version of painter 11. Sometimes a program just clicks on the first take. The tool was the "6B real pencil" it senses tilt with your stylus to the tablet. So you can approximate the the thick and thin lines you get with a real pencil. Nice, when it works. It is still a little buggy...

01/09/10 - Life Drawing - Cabaret Life Drawing at 21c : Bodybuilder

I attended my first Cabaret Life Drawing at 21c for the new year yesterday. The model, Kevin, is a bodybuilder and depicted both a boxer and a cowboy (sounds like a Simon and Garfunkel song, doesn't it?).

I have recently been working with Flickr for hosting photos and scans so thought I would try something new (and save some of my Blogger resources :-)

Here's a slide show from yesterday's output:

01/10/10 - 2009 Sketches and Doodles

Here is a link to my Flickr set for "Sketches and Doodles 2009". This set will be scans and photos of traditional art - typically pencil or pen. These were quick and fun! The magic and power of simple b&w images is just incredible to me sometimes!

Flickr Set

10/10/09 - Life Drawing - Takedown of 3rd Annual UK Community Art Show

This late September and early October I participated in the third annual Life Drawing Show for the UK Community Art Group. This show was held in Reynolds Building #1 in the Barnhart Gallery. Thanks to Arturo and Ben Withers for approving this and assisting!

Here's a little movie I made from photos I took of the show as it was being taken down on Saturday October 10th 2009. I wish I had gotten to take photos earlier - there was a lot of nice work displayed.

12/08/09 - Life Drawing

Here is my output from one of the last Tuesday night sessions of 2009:

10/06/09 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2

Another digital sketch - with a favorite program of mine for getting stuff down fast: Sketchbook Pro 2. I saved this with the rough sketch layers on - kind of shows my working process of refining from a very loose shape to a tighter pencil line. Inspired by a college student I saw and drawn from memory.

10/29/09 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2

Catching up on stuff from last year - this was inspired by two things: the clear bright light of autumn and trying to catch a sense of motion (leaves and paper blowing in the wind as the dog lunges). Not to say I did either of these concepts justice - only to document that they did move me.

12/02/09 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2

Here's a digital sketch from memory of a 1970's pinup. As time passes the models from 1970's and before just seem more aesthetically pleasing - before cosmetic surgery became so common.

01/01/10 - Cartoon - New Years 2010

Here's a quick doodle I did at the end of last year (a couple of hours ago). Red col-erase pencil on letter size copy paper. Wanted to hit some of my new years resolutions with this. Where did the father time with scythe and baby imagery come from anyway?

01/01/10 - Digital - Sketchbook Pro 2010

Happy New Year everyone!
Here's a quick Santa head I did in Sketchbook Pro 2010. A great program!
The old jolly elf is not so easy to draw and paint. Haddon Sundblom did some incredible work for Cocoa-Cola.