‘Cause of my getting a new scanner, I’ve scanned all these pages, which, up until now, were hidden in my sketchbook. Now they’re here, for all of you to enjoy!
A couple of the characters here are taken from Barbara Bradley’s book Drawing People: How to portray the clothed figure. Will have to talk about that, and some other books, some day.
The new scanner is faster, and captures more detail in my wonky watercolour pics. I still haven’t worked out all the kinks, because there are more options to deal with.
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!
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.
Lotsa little watercolours lately. These are fun to do, and look more sophisticated than my usual production. It’s true that the more you do, the better you get at it. If I stop, it often takes a few lousy pictures before I get up to speed again.
A big part of it seems to be unconscious, like drumming. If I thought about it, I’d slip up (well, more than normally)
That’s Nora, looking kitteny, up top, and then Mr. B. below, a little more chunky than he really is.
Cats are slime. Little cat this morning woke me up by knocking over books and a fan, as above. I’m sure she thought she was awesome.
Below is a rendering of cat violence at its worst, chez Ruttan. The large cat, Mr. Boggedy, thwacks with his eyes closed, which is a little ineffectual. But he’s always very relaxed, until he runs away. Nora, on the left, usually starts things. Ms. Boggedy likes seeing other cats get thwacked.
Random pencil drawing of cat (Mr. B) and plant.
New stuff. I guess kind of the same, but I like it like that. I’m also enjoying some of the new gadgets on the blog. Don’t want to make it too busy.
I tried a couple of new themes, but didn’t like them as much as this one. This one was pretty old, and didn’t have a lot of devices I could use in it, but seems to be working.
I’ll fool with some other stuff, and see how it works. Unfortunately, I’m not a genius with CSS or any kind of computer programming, though I hazard to tinker.
This quick sketch I think really captured an aspect of Nora, the new cat. As spring comes in, she’s sort of lording it over the other two cats. Or, at least they’re nervous of her, but seem to hold their own. It’s a house of happy cats, still. Which is great.
I Photoshop coloured the woman I drew yesterday. Not that great at it, but that’s how you learn and get better.
It was such, yesterday when I drew these, and it’s another such today. Happy to draw real animals, etc, from my balcony.
Other people are TV and DVD-inspired faces. Not so bad, but I’m waiting for people to start walking by looking less frozen and bundled up.
Or just some random black and white cat. Nora, my new cat’s been getting bigger. She’s still the smallest of the gang, but it’s often hard to judge. There were some other drawings today, but this is the only one I could find to scan and post.
Also, I’m not intending to slight the other cats, who are beautiful, but the symmetrical black and white is easy to draw.
Busy again, which is good. I’m doing some logo, graphic design things, which is new for me. I sketched this little version of my black and white cat, Nora which I like.
Those seem to be my two modes of drawing (get your mind out of the gutter!)
Further hindering me during these cold December days is Nora the cat, who thinks she owns my chair. If I’m sitting here, she’s sometimes below, looking up anxiously. I get up, and she takes over.
i’m seriously thinking of retiring this chair, and calling it a “cat tree.” But she’ll probably want to take over the new chair, too. Not a lot of space in this little work room!
Was drawing a lot, late at night, in my tiny book. The tinyness helps me finish the drawings more quickly.
These are black ballpoint drawings in my moderately small sketchbook. Mainly drawn in bed, actually. I wonder if anyone else does this?
Wild people. Drawing by me, inks by Rick.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my blog. I can express stuff here and gas on about things, and look at my funny sketches. Who cares that only about 30 people a day visit the thing.
But busy computer-related work (websites and writing) takes its toll of how long I want to stay in front of this glowing screen. And twitter has taken a bite, too. Oh blog, don’t get upset!
So, I’ve got some funny drawings, and a couple of posts to write. I’m going to try and spread them out a little, just to enhance the bloggy goodness. Or, put them out all at once. These usually just happen. I’m not big on planning.
Right now, these are drawings from my most recent Friday afternoon bar session with Rick Gagnon. Not too many, because I had only brought one book for the both of us to draw in. I was looking on forlornly as he was inking the pic that goes up on the head of this piece. Then I got my book back, and drew various cats (one suffering from the heat, as my guys are at the moment), plus a polar bear from a beer ad (a few of those on the walls, no surprise).
Then a loud bachelors party moved in next to us. They were taking whacks at the groom to be with a paddle, and offering the paddle to pretty girls passing by. Surprisingly, there were few takers. But what these passers-by probably saw was a bunch of guys waving their arms, yelling incoherently. Of course, that was just Rick and I having a political discussion. The wedding party was loud, too!
I’m hoping that Rick sends me a couple of the shots he took of this. Good, if somewhat loutish times!
