April 26, 2024 0

April Blog

By in ballpoint pen, color, Coloured Pencils, heads, montreal, paintings, pencil, ruttan's place, sketches, watercolor, watercolour

   Here we are, in my old-fashioned editor, putting up pictures from my sketchbook into my old-fashioned blog. I used to know how to write CSS, and make pretty styles for text and paragraphs. Not to mention the tags for these illustrations.

Haven’t done much of that for a long while!

I listened to a good podcast. One of my comics heroes, Kate Beaton, gave a talk in Edmonton about rich and poor people doing fine arts, including comics. You can listen to it here: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23/clip/16052100 https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23/clip/16052100

I think her best point was that working class people are no longer mainly toiling in fields. Most are working in the services industry. I write about that up above, in my sketchbook.

I’m from an upper middle class background, but I’m not well off these days, and what is left of my family is far away physically. AI is doing a lot of what I used to do art and writing-wise, for much less money, and physical problems prevent me from working the way I used to, on construction sites and in retail. I’m also now officially a senior citizen. So, despite past advantages, I don’t feel like I’m coming from a position of privilege any more, and it’s fine if I continue doing comics and writing strange stories.

I need to get those out more, though!

Met a man today I hadn’t seen for a long time. He was working in a garden. He’s doing okay, is still in the neighbourhood, but is moving into a new place, and has heart issues. He’s been following my blog.

I was able to speak with him totally in French, at least the way I speak it, which is with a strong accent and bad grammar.

Below is a watercolour of a squirrel, which was fun to do. They have such rhythm in their bodies! I painted this on my back deck, and also painted a daffodil, which are coming out now.

Jonquille is Daffodil in French. Thus ends the lesson for today.

March 18, 2024 0

Dinos

By in sketches, watercolor, watercolour

I’m actually glad the more recent reconstructions of Tyrannosaurus Rex aren’t as feathery as they were a few years back, when I drew these things.

Mainly I’m posting this because I noticed I hadn’t posted anything this year yet, so I wanted to keep the blog more or less fresh. I am paying for the web space, after all!

October 24, 2023 0

Ninja Turtle

By in sketches

This is actually just a sketch of a guy in the metro I’ve embellished a little. I don’t get much time to draw in the metro, and I certainly can’t watercolour. But it’s fun to play with things in my book, after the fact.

October 15, 2023 0

Professor Smellie

By in sketches

Digital Drawring. I’m better at the Clip Studio Paint now. And it seems to do all the things my old pirated Photoshop used to.

This guy looks a little like Patrick Stewart.

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October 14, 2023 0

Tree and Cat

By in sketches

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October 11, 2023 0

Back Porch Cat

By in sketches
cat on porch, watercolour
August 13, 2023 0

Jack R.’s Patreon

By in sketches

I haven’t been able to put this on the sidebar of my site. But I’ve created a Patreon Page. People can visit it, see cool stuff maybe you can’t see here, and make contributions and such-like. It’s what artists are doing these days.

You can also write me and ask for a commission. A watercolour of a photo you like, a family member, pet or scene. Here’s the link!

https://patreon.com/user?u=93388363&utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

August 11, 2023 0

Skinny Nameless Punk

By in sketches

My comic strip I created with Richard Gagnon has flown the coop for the moment. I think I need to update my “comicpress” theme, and am afraid they want money from now on. Still, I’m working on it, and in the meanwhile, I did a little drawing of him to practice my digital drawing skills.

August 6, 2023 1

UFOs

By in Blender 3D

Of course, they have some new kind of name, which I forget at the moment. (“Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”!)

These were made in Blender, which I am still fooling with, but seems to change a lot, so it’s hard to keep up with the new interfaces and all.

I like the finish on the one in the back, but have no idea how that happened.

August 5, 2023 0

Yelling People!

By in color, Coloured Pencils, heads, pencil, Portraits, sketches, watercolor, watercolour, women

I have to update my blog, template and all, to add new, modern things.

I hope not a ton of pop-ups, etcetera. Still, this is a recent sketchbook page I actually worked on today!

I’m setting up a Patreon link, and also have a cool illustration thing I’m going to share soon!

Please stay tuned!

July 19, 2023 0

Newish Pages

By in ballpoint pen, black and white, brush pen, color, horses, men, pencil, sketches

Newish sketchbook pages.

You know, I used to put up a drawing every day, and felt unhappy if I didn’t.

But these days, while I’m still drawing a lot, I’m not blogging as much.

Social Media is strange. I loved Twitter, but they seem to be doing as much as they can to ruin it.

Instagram is supposed to be the place, but they want you to put in “reels,” and their format for graphics always cuts something important off.

Facebook … I’m not getting what they’re doing with it. My notifications seem to have disappeared.

But even though some things need updating, this is still my space. “Have a great day,” as others are wont to say. I’m still surviving, and have new, interesting things to share.

June 29, 2023 0

Old Me

By in Gouache, heads, men, self-promotion, sketches

Old old self-portrait. Mid 2000’s, I think.

June 21, 2023 0

QE Health

By in ballpoint pen, black and white, sketches

 
Sketches from the waiting room of the Queen Elizabeth Health Centre in Montreal. I was there to accompany a friend.

No one seems to mind me doing this. Cat and maus are imaginary….

June 16, 2023 0

Gene Luen Yang

By in black and white, cats, collaboration, comics, sketches

Back in the early 2000s, I got to do a workshop at Montreal’s Blue Metropolis Book Festival with the great Gene Luen Yang. A movie adaptation of his graphic novel American Born Chinese is currently coming out.
The book the movie is based on is an amazing exploration of being young and having a Chinese background when you are living in North America. Certainly opened my eyes to a lot.
Here are a couple of drawings I created at the workshop. Not brilliant character design, but I was collaborating with the rest of the people at the table, and most of them weren’t artists.


He told me some interesting things. For instance, one of the hardest parts of drawing was getting your characters to stand up straight inside the panel. (computers can fix this, of course, but then you don’t have nice original art to sell).
His other point was to have one story happening on the page, but then implying a second story going on inside the characters’ heads.
But the coolest thing for me at the time, was hearing about Avatar: The Last Airbender. I picked the series up on DVD from the local video store, and it was a revelation to me.