I’m way more comfortable drawing in a spidery scratchy way than I am making the slick lines that seem popular in animation and graphic art these days. Still, fun to try. Doing some construction is also helping me with the heads and bodies. Part of the trouble with being self-taught as an artist, is that you miss a lot of things. In this case, it was my drawing with contours, rather than from the inside out, as you’re taught in art classes.

So, even though I’m am old (-ish) guy now, there’s still lots to learn. Which actually is fun. So boring to do the same thing over and over again, or copy someone else’s work. It will give you a good “surface” for commercial work, but it seems that a lot of illustrators are trapped into that. I’m doing the best with what modicum of talent I’ve been blessed with.

While walking through the park, had to force myself to sit down and paint this. Obviously I could have scooched over so the lamp-post wasn’t in front of the fountain. But hey, I was sitting there. The girl in front, playing with her puppy was super-charming.

I’ve set up a tumblr blog. http://jackruttan.tumblr.com Don’t know why I did that, but I want to make it a little less formal than this blog. Kind of like an expanded twitter. I’d better set things up so they all intersect!

Don’t think I’ve completely mastered the scanner. Have to look at all the options. In the meantime, here’re a bunch of things I’ve been drawing on scrap paper, while drawing stuff for another job I can’t show you at the moment.

Mainly front balcony things.

Sorry about that. There are actually tons of sketches, etc. to post. I did this picture today of a female comics artist with an Icelandic firedog.

It’s very cozy this evening on the balcony stairs, twittering, and typing, and watching people walk by. Couple on the next balcony are snogging, which is a little awkward, but you don’t get much privacy here.

Unfortunately, I gave up my old laptop, which can connect with the parallel port on my scanner, to a friend who’s off to Vancouver for a month to try and write a novel. I can still use the scanner, but I have to reconstruct my old huge Windows 98 computer, and it’s powerfully slow. Still, the camera works, for snaps of the drawings.

Painted a ton of little pictures I’m pretty happy with. Above, is Mr. Boggedy on the balcony.

Serious Guy. That’s also the view from my Balcony, but he’s just imaginary.

More funny little pictures. The edges are masked with painter’s tape. The green type with slightly less tack, which can be “left on for 60 days,” or so the maker claims.

More characters. Upper and lower class. Again, I’m using yellow underpainting for that feeling of “warm light.”

A sketchbook page. More masked-off little paintings, and me with my new goatee, and the cats.

And a woman’s face, again with that “light.” Plus a frieze of walkers on the sidewalk across the street.

Lastly, a dog walker. I tried to catch the sense of him being pulled along. These beasts can do that, and some owners are literally scooting by!

Went to the park at East Mont Royal Ave today. Mont Royal used to be a working class street, with taverns and fast food restaurants. Now, with the emergence of the Plateau as a trendy neighbourhood, it’s a place where people go to be seen. So, I thought I’d draw some of them.

The dog above took off almost as soon as I started painting it. A part of sketching from life is using your imagination and experience, because the subjects aren’t sitting still for you. The people sitting on the concrete wall were there for a while.

Fashionable woman on the street:

Later, when I got home, the sun was still out. So I drew the cats in a typical scene:

The cats are so peaceable.

Another pretty woman, because that’s what my gigs entail drawing, so I’m working on them.

Hooray! Fun!

I just like the colour. Lotsa work to do, and I’ve been slacking off. The usual worries, but I hope things will be all right.

Happy 1st of May, if that means something to you. These are just a couple more drawings, in one case gingerly approaching work that I’m doing.