Judge Parker

This week's JP Sunday strip, the Judge isn't happy with his royalty checks from his latest book, I know the feeling!

Week-13 Fall Semester--more Baby Skull! Thanks fer' Nothing Break

The turkey is in the fridge and the stuffing is ready to go along with the Yams and the holiday break has officially started!

And boy--how I can use this break! Things have been cramming at all side here this week, this weeks of Judge Parker strips had to be delivered early and I had two crits along with teaching, my Monday portrait class and freelancing Magnus and more. I feel a bit behind due to missing a few days of class while I had to sit home while the furnace was repaired so I am a bit behind painting wise, but by next week I think I'll be back on track. There are just two weeks of class left, really just one full week for classes and then the crit week. Some teachers forgo an official critique and use the last class the draw or paint. I'm all for that as I really feel unless its a one-on-one with the teacher, the peer crits are as useful as grits on 100 degree day.
I inched a bit more along on the baby skull drawing in Pat Traubs class, I don't think I'll get to finish it in class but I can probably finish it from the photos I shot of the set-up.
This week we started blasting in the color on the portrait in the Incommanatti class. this pic is a little blown out as I snapped it with my iphone, but its really hot anyway. It honestly was a fight to wrestle with their chromatic palette which is based on the teachings of Henry Hensche, who Nelson Shanks studied with. Kerry Dunn was really pushing me to blast that color in and then you can work up or down and neutralize the color. I have two more sessions on this to try and get it as close as I can. I also lost a bit of the drawing here and need to go back and re-establish that.
I also made a lot more headway on this painting for Bruce Samuelson's class. It's probably the most abstract piece I've done to day besides the one I did last year in the Medium and methods class. I don't know where this piece is gong yet, I'm actually sailing without a compass but Bruce gave me some good feedback and I figure i just have to wing it--if it works great, if not--oh well.
This is the painting I have going in Scott Noel's class, I have two more passes at it, this week the light was very different so I had to go back and repaint and adjust some areas and colors. This is almost a speed painting class as I have to cut out early to teach that afternoon. I don't know if I'll get as far as I want to go on this with the time left, but the class has been great--i get a lot out of just debating whether Nicoli fechin is a "show off' as Scott would call him.

I feel like I am in seperate worlds or domains of painting some days. Mondays i go from tight pencil rendering with Pat Traub to Scott's painting class in the afternoon--too Incommanatti in the evening after teaching--and the very different approach there.

Henry Hensche vs Degas or Lennart Anderson, one of Scott's big influences. It really keeps me spinning on my feet and palette. Some of these ideas stand in direct conflict or contrary to others and its up to me to decipher and apply those concepts as I feel they apply to my sensibility as a painter. Some days it's easier than other---that's for sure.

Judge Parker

This weeks JP, the first time I get to draw sam in his office and Gloria his secretary. With this story line I'm getting to draw more of the cast which is interesting and fun.

Fall Semester 2010 week 12

Just wrapped up my 12th week of the semester so there are just three more to go and then its the winter break. The portrait above is the last one we are doing in the class with Kerry Dunn I am taking at Studio Incamminati. This was the second sitting, the first week I wiped out the block-in three times, I was so wiped myself by the end of the day I just didn't like what I had done. Now I get three more weeks with it to see where I can take it.
In Bruce Samuleson's class I decided to try something different this time by fracturing the figure. Honestly I don't know how this is going to go, but I figured why not challenge myself and see if I can do something different. If I don't like it--oh well, I can just chalk it up to progress. I am not a big fan of abstract painting or much modern art, but I also didn't just want to paint a person standing there and Bruce really encourages the student to use the model as a point of departure.
This is the start of the last drawing I will do in Pat Traubs class, its a red pencil, sanguine and white on Rives BFK. I will slowly inch my way across this still life over the last few weeks of class.
This is the last set-up in my class with Scott Noel, I just got most of my block-in this week as I always have to cut the class early to teach, next week I hope to really get some more thick paint on this thing. Scott has been talking a lot about Sickert and Valazque in class, as well as Orpen. He's really urging me to go thicker with the paint and to move quicker.

I have missed too many classes due to freelance and maintenance men in the last 2 weeks, Between my heater being busted and waiting for them to take 4 trips to fix it and for the water company to take 2 trips to replace a water meter it seems like I missed 2 weeks of school. The next big thing is to build my big canvas for my big painting, and I mean big, 48 x 85. I will do that this weekend. I'm also burning the midnight oil on Judge Parker and Magnus and Draw! 20.

Judge Parker

This week's Judge Parker Sunday.

Old Con Sketches

While cleaning out some old files and such I came across these two sketches I did a while back and thought I would post, I think both are from Philly Wizard con.

Week-11 Fall Semester--Baby Skull!

This week was really a short one for me at school, I ended up missing two classes because I had to wait at home for my furnace to be repaired and it took 3 separate visits for the service guy to finally figure out that the transformer needed to be replaced. You know how it goes, you wait alllll day for them to show up.

So I missed a crit and two classes this week and tomorrow I teach. I have really just a month left to try and catch up on both school and freelance. The sketch above was done in my class on Monday with Pat Traub. Its of a real baby, or toddler's skull and an acorn or something like that. This was to plan out the final drawing I have to do for class. its less than 5 x 7 and in white charcoal and sanguine and red pencil.

Penn's Landing Plein Air

Despite the frigid-winter-like conditions this afternoon, the DPC ( Will and Alina ) and I hit Penn's landing for another Plein air session. We had to batten down the hatches as the wind was really kicking! It was a bright and clear day-but I had to wear gloves after about a half hour as my fingers were freezing as I was sitting right off of the river. Its always a fight with Mother Nature....
16 x 20, oil.

judge Parker

Here is this week's JP Sunday and the first one where I got to draw the original Judge.

Week-10 Fall Semester--First Friday November

If this was a NFL football season this would be my BYE week, at least I felt that way. It happens at least once a semester--even twice sometimes where the commercial work builds up and deadlines clash and I have to skip classes to catch up. Now its not all bad as having the work pays for me to go to school, pay the bills and eat. Still I hate to miss digging into my school work, but thats the way it is.And working on things like laying out Magnus can be fun too.

So this week is pretty light in that way as far as school work, though I have been churning out work like mad in the studio at home. In Scott Noel's class I didn't get far in this painting, a shame as I feel it had a good strong start. Luckily I will have one more long pose in the class till the end of the semester. I did register for the spring sememster so I will have only two classes, one with painter Alex Kanevsky.

trying something different with the figure by fracturing in...

In Bruce Samuelson's class we also start the last pose of the semester. I am trying something a bit more abstract--this is by rough start after doing a few sketches. I'll see how it goes in the next two sessions, if I don't dig it, I might abandon it and do something more traditional. I like some abstract work but don't feel that is really my thing, so often I feel lost of somehow not as excited about painting when I do it. I don't feel honest. But art school is about risks and challenging yourself, and the worst that can happen is I don't like what I do, and then just scrape it off or make a bad painting and do something else. You can learn from bad paintings just as much something that is done well. The semester is down to basically a month left and at Uarts where I teach storyboarding, my class has embarked on their final assignment, the animatic for their junior piece. I can almost smell the turkey in the oven now, once we hit Thanksgiving its all but over for the school year.

The DPC gang and I also hit up First Fridays in Philly last night, we hit the Gross McCleaf gallery which reps several of the teachers from PAFA, including Doug Martenson, who had an opening last night. Then we hit Artist House where david Palumbo had a show, his brother had a show last month, both being PAFA Alumi, then we hit the Rodger Lapelle Gallerywhere another of our teachers Pat Traub had a show of her work.David Palumbo

We beat it back to the school and then I drove the gang over to West Oak lane to the book signing for my great buddy Jamar Nicholas's new graphic novel, Fist Stick, Knife Gun.





Jamar signing copies of his book


Rich Faber, Me and jamar

Magnus Robot Fighter

Since the issue is now out on the stands I thought I'd showcase some of the comic work I did doing layouts of Magnus no. 2 to help my buddy and excellent artist in his own right, Bill Reinhold. Bill was up against a pretty tight deadline so he asked me if i could jump in and help by doing layouts for him from the scripts by Jim Shooter. In the old days at marvel these types of things were pretty common, so common they even had levels of these layouts depending on the amount of detail in them. Workhorses like Gil Kane and both John and Sal Buscema were legend for being able to jump in and layout a whole book in a matter of 2-3 days sometimes.

they had breakdowns and then shakedowns, shakedowns being really almost just a break down of the plot into panels with very simple drawings, the breakdowns were more detailed. John Buscema was the king of this and could do such amazing pages this way that were later given to inkers who were finishers or really artists in their own right such as Tom Palmer, Joe Sinnott, Klaus Janson and a host of artists from the Philippines like Alfredo Alcala and Ernie Chan to just name two. marvel ran this way for many years depending of the excellent drawing and storytelling skills of these handful of pencillers to defeat the dreaded deadline doom. My work is somewhere between breakdown and pencils as i don't do this all of the time and sometimes need to get into a drawing more myself to make it work out. Bill is right up there with those golden age greats as far as drawing and finishing skills and the changes you see are partially his own and the changes asked for by Jim Shooter who writes the book. I always like the man in the pink metal skirt, Magnus has been a fave of mine since a kid and reading those original Russ Manning Gold Key Comics. Its always hard jumping into the middle of a job, middle of a story but its easier when you have a feeling for the character. I even did a cover or two for Magnus back when it was at Acclaim. I'm helping on issue No. 3 as well doing layouts, so when thats out I'll post some more pages.

My layout...
Bill's finishes.

My layout
Bill's finishes

Judge Parker

This week's Judge Parker Sunday strip.