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.
UFOs
By Jack Ruttan in Blender 3DOf 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.
Yelling People!
By Jack Ruttan in color, Coloured Pencils, heads, pencil, Portraits, sketches, watercolor, watercolour, womenNewish Pages
By Jack Ruttan in ballpoint pen, black and white, brush pen, color, horses, men, pencil, sketchesNewish 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.
Gene Luen Yang
By Jack Ruttan in black and white, cats, collaboration, comics, sketchesBack 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.
Guest Cat and Random Bird
By Jack Ruttan in cats, color, Jack's House of Cats, paintings, sketches, watercolor, watercolourRandom Sketchbook Page
By Jack Ruttan in heads, Portraits, sketches, watercolor, watercolourWatercolour Therapy
By Jack Ruttan in color, sketches, watercolor, watercolourGot a ton of thick, good quality watercolour paper lately.
So, I’m just trying to paint, without worrying about ruining good paper. Not all of these are masterpieces, or will go on walls.
But they feel good to do.
Watching the paint dry, as Jill Thompson put it. I wonder what she’s doing, these days?
I sort of love backwash, which is supposed to be the worst sin in watercolour, anytime. But I think it’s cool and interesting.