Cartooning Class

This summer I am teaching my second class on cartooning, comics and animation at PAFA (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts) in the CE program. It's a good class of eager cartoonist and we are coming down to the last two weeks of the course. This morning as the thermometer climbed up along with the humidity, I took the class over to LOVE Park to do a little "On the spot" sketching and drawing. We sketched and doodled the people walking and having fun in the park and then went back to class and took the drawings we did and refined them making new characters out of the drawings we did in the park. It was a lot of fun and for many, their first time ever drawing or sketching in people in public.





There was a class of young watercolorists from Uarts also working in the park this morning along with a band of kids from some local school, so it was really an arts in the park morning.

Super Sad continues

Here is the next painting on the easel. I started it last week and blocked all of this in in one day, it's had to sit for a few days while I finished up some commercial work, but I'll get back to it this week.

A Potrait Study

This is a quick portrait I did this week with the Dirty Palette Club, it's of the same friend who's modeling for the Super sad series I'm working on. It's 11 x 14 in oil. my goal is to still do one portrait a week over the summer to just keep pushing up Art Mountain and reinforce the recent lessons from my portrait class.

Super Sad

Here is the final painting, I spent a few days looking at it and then adjusting things and finishing the hand. I glazed back into it. It always looks duller on here than in real life and it's not so blueish, I'll eventually need to get the final paintings professionally shot.

I feel like I have a good momentum here and will be working hard on the next painting after a few commercial deadlines are out of the way.

Super Sad continues

After a few days break I got a chance today to work on this painting a bit more and I worked all over the entire canvas. I will bet a chance to rework it again live from the model later on this week.

Martians Go Home

Today I'm posting two more penciled pages from the first issue of martians Go Home. So far it seems I've really had to pull all the stops out here between drawing old cars and now cowboys and horses. I have to say goggle is great for reference on all of this stuff, better than having to do it like I did in the older days where I would have had to spend time in a library, book store or hope I had a book or something in my morgue that I could use.

I also drew everything straight, I didn't use any projectors to trace down the cars, or use the blue-line technique here. I want this to just be me and the pencil and whatever distortions come in are then more my style and take on things. This is something I always admired about gene Colan's work. He used photos but didn't trace them, he drew from them and thus made them his own, warped them through his "artist's eye". So I'd sketch the shapes I'd want, find a pick of the car close to it and then draw it in the exact angle or shape I wanted. It's more fun too and more of a challenge. Art isn't about being easy, if you want to continue to improve you must always put a little more weight on the bar, and that will mean sometimes you fail and have to erase, and fight for that drawing, and when you win--well man, that's the best thing ever.

Martians Go Home

It's been a while since I posted anything on my current comic project so here are a few pages from the first issue of Martians Go Home. I'll be halfway through the first issue by this weekend and by next weekend I should be done with all of the pencils and then be on the inking wagon.

I'll be uploading a few more pages next week.

Super Sad continues 2

I worked again live from the model yesterday morning on the painting and then more on the background after she left. Now I'll work from photos I took and develop the background more until the model returns next week.

The background is in flux and though it will have a dark stormy sky, I'm not sure if I will add anything else in yet, I'll wait and see how I feel as this goes. I'm trying something a bit different here as I am letting this painting grow organically, I intentionally cropped the legs to give the figure a weird heaviness, yet also a incomplete and powerless feeling.

Super Sad continues

I'm working on the first large Super sad painting this week, this is from the first two sets where I roughed in the figure from the live model. I'll keep updating this as I go along.

The Old and the New

Yesterday the Dirty Palette Club took it on the road again. This time we set up near Drexel University in a nice park nearby the train yards with a great view of the city, the old power plant and the new very futuristic Amtrak building.

This was what I got in about 3-1/2 hours or better painting in the beautiful afternoon sun.
11 x 14 in oil on a Blick canvas.

Portrait Class Week 6 Final

yesterday was the final class for my summer portrait class with Al Gury. I had a great time in this class and can really say I did learn somethings and felt I made weekly progress. Al's a great teacher and so affable, he makes the class a very relaxing experience even if I am ragging at myself in my head over my work. the painting above is the final painting from the morning half of the class. there are so many little things that bug me about this, drawing, edges, etc., but I am happy I was able to keep it loose. the hardest things about doing these portraits for me is the one week break in between sessions. I'm also not so sharp in the mornings sometimes and feel I don't get cooking till the afternoon. I was seriously tempted to wipe it all out yesterday but Al wouldn't let me.
This is the second portrait and I'm far less happy with this as far as drawing goes. This model was a pain to draw, I never got her down right, but I am happier with some edges and paint application--hey, you have to try and salvage something ...
Al gave us all a good final crit.

My classmate Lisa felt like many of us, weary from the battle as class neared the end.

Some of our homework, my friend Christina turned in some really nice portraits and a study.

The models Tim and Claire take a break.

My buddy Joel shows us all how to hold it down in thee nd and enjoy yourself.

My goal now is to still do at least one portrait a week, be it from life or a study so I can really drill in the things I have learned in clas and to keep the momentum going.