Utopia Moment sketches and writing by Jack Ruttan and friends

More sketches from the little black hardcover book. I like that little book. The paper’s nice (can take a wash), and it’s small and scans reasonably well, if I don’t draw too close to the binding. Never got into Molesquines, and that sort of thing. (Not even sure how to pronounce that!) But I do like the Fabriano watercolour books with the red brick pattern outside. I don’t know what brand the little black book is, but the local art store sells ‘em for about $4.00.

Watching some Olympics, so drawing these types. Noting that I’m drawing skaters, but leaving out skates.

This is kind of an R. Crumb-like girl below. Sorry. That was supposed to be a cute gopher in the background, but I smeared its eyes before they dried, and now he becomes a zombie gopher.

I’m including this sketchbook page in the general theme, because it has a Hockey Goalie on it:

Well, they were fun for me to do.

Pretty tired now. Worked hard today. Maybe it’s just that I worked at all.

I was drawing in that little book. Hence, things take less time to do. I’ll have to think about the implications of that.

Not sure what the black squiggle means. I had intended it as a design element, to balance things. This morning it looks ominous.

I did some more of these, but I’ll put them up later. Good night again!

Struggling with drawing likenesses. But of course, what you do if you’re struggling with something is apply yourself to it. After a lot of failure, success, maybe. I’m not great at faces, not in life, not in drawing. Still trying. Watching my DVD of The Great Lebowski again. I don’t have a lot of DVDs!

Well, enough blogging. I’m tired. Good night!

Everyone’s been looking to the left, this time. Sometimes that seems easier. I’d also like to draw some things that have more of a story behind them, so they’re just not some anonymous face looking … to the left, for instance.

I like these little paintings. Though I have to take my glasses off to do them. The biggest is four inches high. These others, more like three and two.

No, he’s not Pedobear:

The Skinny Nameless Punk is a great cartoon character I created with collaborator Rick Gagnon, and now he has his own site. http://mruttan.ca/punk

The strips were printed in Mensuhell, the Quebec monthly fanzine that shut down last year. One of the few features in that mag that ran in English, by the way.

A few of the strips were also up on Geocities. Now that that’s gone down, there’s no place to read them. So, I decided to build a WordPress site, and upload all of the strips gradually, maybe two a week. That’s so I can get some experience producing a webcomic.

It’s really fine work I think, thanks in large part to Rick’s meticulous inks. He took way more care on them than I see in most strips, making each one a work of art. Anyways, I hope you stick around, and check in on the Punk regularly.

Another garish, unlovely watercolour to spoil your morning. But I’m not going to stop doing them. Maybe I will, and then what will you say?

I’m actually putting off some important work, but thought I’d screw around with watercolour, because it’s important to keep one’s hand in. These guys are from some things I watch a lot, which are the “making of” documentaries from the Extended set Lord of the Rings DVDs.

I think I like those more than the real films. They remind me of stuff I’ve done, both in front of and behind cameras. Painting sets, etc, running around in armour, yelling. Even writing and working with few of the people from this very project.

Below, your standard horsie. I did some yellow underpainting to get the effect of “light,” which didn’t really come off. Still, I like these, because they’re free and unlaboured.