Couple of sketches

Sketchbook wanderings

I've been busy writing comics but miss drawing when I do. To counterbalance the feelings this week I've been putting the old brain on autopilot and been drawing various sketches from photos. Trying to quickly bang them out with just a brushpen. I always enjoy looking at other folk's sketches so I thought I'd put mine up too. Here's a few of the results:

Sketchbook throwback

Since I decided to put up the newer sketches, I figured I'd throw these that were preliminaries for Art Murmur 5.




The idea was to do quick detailed studies from reference so that I didn't rely on photos for the end result. I probably should have done some quick color gestures as well to have made the final piece stronger. These are brushpen also.

The thrill of the struggle, the agony of naps

I am unsure how many folks reading this have kids. Unless of course the only people that are reading this are the folks that I personally know, in which case I know exactly how many have kids.

Anyway, my daughter just got back from a getaway with her mother and usually when infants and napping toddlers travel they do a little thing we as parents like to call "getting off schedule". Which is the formal way of saying "my kid doesn't think think that they need to go to sleep when they're in dire need of it". A parent's impulse is to shield their little ones from anything that causes them pain but, if taken too far, it rapidly becomes coddling and hinders the child's ability to grow up. My daughter caught on quick to settling herself down to sleep but since getting off schedule over her vacation she has had real issues with it. This is where you have to have a "hard heart" as a parent. Running in and picking your child up out of their crib when they're old enough to comfort themselves is a real no-no. It only delays getting back "on schedule" that much more and spoils your kid in the long run to boot. Consequently, you have to be prepared to listen to many wails of anguish and much gnashing of teeth until your little one settles down. Good times.

The irony of course is that your child will probably reach a point when they really can't often make time for naps but would love to sneak one in... but I digress.

Still hashing out that comic to the best of my ability so images for today include a couple more quickie brush pen sketches-

my daughter from last Halloween...



and my wife.



The third Moreau/hyena image I did.
The next installment of Herry Poops.

FACA4, fish and figure drawing

I had originally intended to do a daily blog when I started this but it quickly became apparent that it would be better for me if I didn't. I have a tendency to get a little wordy when I type these (I can't seem to shut it off) and that cuts into my art time. While I could show many older pieces to fill the gaps, I don't want to get to the point in which that is all can do because I am spending too much time doing this and not producing new work. I'll just have to see if I can find some sort of happy medium and go from there.

As mentioned in the previous post, FACA4 is going on right now. I won't be in the tournament. I did however submit an arena girl, Sting Rhea. Since it isn't an anonymous post, I'll show it here .

To continue with the aquatic theme, I have a sketchbook piece based on a dream I had. It's just barely old enough to have made the last website update but it didn't make the cut. I decided to post it tonight.

I really love drawing the figure and I miss figure drawing. Living outside a city means you're often teased with the possibility of being able to attend figure drawing sessions but weighing the time and gas you'll expend into the mix makes it seem less appealing. The closest session I'm aware of is about 35 or 40 minutes from the house (if traffic plays nice) it really is pretty cheap for a session but I can't fully convince myself it's worth it. Drawing people in public places can be fun but isn't really feasible when you're watching kids in the day and trying to churn out art at night. Maybe I'll try to shoot for visiting the figure drawing sessions every once in a great while. In the meantime, I use photos for practice and warm ups. Below are a couple I did with the Pentel brush pen that two lofty talents, Sam Hiti and Craig Thompson, have been touting.

My grandmother...

and my daughter wrestling with a stuffed elephant.

Finally, for the fam, Cookie Monster joins the fray that is Herry's potty struggle.