Here’s my impression of the late Maurice Sendak, from a documentary I’m watching about him on youtube at the moment.
UPDATE: Link is down, too bad. Here’re some salient things from it, on another blog: [link].
Tags: ballpoint pen, sketches
May 8, 2012
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Maurice Sendak
By Jack Ruttan in ballpoint pen, black and white, men, sketches
May 4, 2012
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Sketch-pourri
By Jack Ruttan in black and white, men, pen and ink, pencil, sketches, women
Darn. That implies “rotten” in French. I was trying to evoke “pot-pourri” as in variety, a kind of goulash of drawings. Anyhow, above is a haughty dame perfectly dressed in a retro outfit. I was happy to see her the other day. The view from the balcony is getting interesting again. Well, not today, because it’s raining. I think even the cats get SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) if this sort of thing goes on for too long.
Anyhow, below is a random sketchbook page, including Jude Law:
Tough guys, yeahh. (again, from the balcony):
Tags: ballpoint pen, pencil, sketches
May 3, 2012
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The Punk Lives
By Jack Ruttan in black and white, comics, digital, Skinny Nameless Punk
I’ve learned a lot of crazy inking tools in Adobe Illustrator, and with this study, am happy I’m going to be able to continue my comic, The Skinny Nameless Punk. This is with the blessing of my sometime collaborator/inker Rick Gagnon, with whom I originated the character. Now the thing is to draw a bunch more strips, from the stories I have in my notebook.
April 25, 2012
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DC Books Launch at Blue Metropolis
By Jack Ruttan in black and white, montreal, pen and ink, sketches, women
Went to a launch, which was really a reading, of books by some friends of mine. I like to sketch during these things, but this time I found that drawing the people sitting around listening was more interesting than drawing the readers.
Once, long ago, I had decided to draw every author whose reading I had attended. That resulted in many drawings of people looking down, talking into microphones. Became a little the same after a while. Also, I haven’t been to many readings for a while, being somewhat out of that sphere as of late.
But it was pleasant catching up with some of the people I hadn’t seen for a while, and hear what they were doing.
This was at the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival, in Montreal.
April 25, 2012
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Small Cat and Food Dish
By Jack Ruttan in black and white, cats, pen and ink, sketches
April 20, 2012
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Street Painting, Sketches, Portraits
By Jack Ruttan in black and white, color, digital, dinosaurs, men, pen and ink, sketches, watercolour, women
A little of everything here. A watercolour painting up above. Coloured pic of Jean Paul Belmondo from the movie Stavisky below.
Sketches, one perhaps not so wisely coloured. I’m interested in what dinosaurs looked like, because I have the lumbering old-style beasts still stuck in my head. This Tyrannosaurus has a few feathers, which surprises his mortal enemy, the Triceratops. The cave woman is not period, however. Unless that period is the 1960s.
Then some normal, like, sketches off my balcony.
This is supposed to be Sylvain Chomet, director of the Triplets of Belleville.
Tags: digital, dinosaurs, sketches, watercolour
April 18, 2012
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Pretty Pict-chas
By Jack Ruttan in color, digital, men, paintings, sketches, watercolour, women
Here are some digital and watercolour pictures (and blends of both) that I’ve been doing today, and over the weekend. So many things to tell about these, and there are still challenges, and important things to learn. But what’s most important is that I’m feeling comfy with the tools, and having fun.
Above is using a movie poster “Another Silence” for reference. Drawn totally with the tablet.
Below, an object on the table at my friend’s, again drawn digitally, from life.
A couple of watercolours. English Bob, below, has digital enhancements (really more of an accident, and my erasing, which looked cool) in the background.
Cindy, who is a face I made up, is pure watercolour.
Hope all of you are having fun with your own experiments!
Tags: digital, men, watercolour, women
April 12, 2012
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I’m Still Figuring this Digital Thing Out!
By Jack Ruttan in black and white, color, digital, men, paintings, pencil, sketches, women
It will be nice when I can reliably produce images i’m happy with. Anyhow, it’s fun to play with, if a little time-consuming.
I’m not a portrait type (that’s why I’m working on these!), but the machine has tools (particularly Photoshop’s “Liquefy”) which allows you to make little adjustments to a picture which would otherwise take lots of uncomfortable erasing and redrawing. I think mine work best when I’m quick and loose, but this medium encourages a lot of tinkering. Certainly don’t want to do photographic likenesses, though it would be cool to have that ability. A couple of these are drawn from photographs, but not traced!
This last one was from a manipulated pencil drawing, while the others were sketched completely on the screen.
Tags: digital
April 10, 2012
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Tall and Narrow
By Jack Ruttan in sketches, watercolour, women
This is the exact format I don’t need to work on my new site. Nonetheless, a couple of miscellaneous watercolours I was doodling in my watercolour book. The woman is a Solid Gold Dancer, the height of femininity in the 1980s.
This guy was painted because I took out from the library a book of John Howe paintings for J.R.R. Tolkien stories. When it comes to drawing, I like nasty things and pretty things equally as much.
Tags: watercolor, watercolour, women
April 8, 2012
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Disgruntled Cat
By Jack Ruttan in cats, color, digital, sketches
Digital drawing of a cat, from the cover of this week’s Montreal Mirror.
April 4, 2012
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Cat Drawings
By Jack Ruttan in black and white, cats, color, pen and ink, pencil, sketches
I’m afraid I’m going for the simple SEO on the title here. If you’re not aware, that means “Search Engine Optimisation,” and is where people put words in that they think will be used in Google-type searches, to win more views for their article.
Still, cats are pretty popular on the internet (as if you hadn’t guessed!), so this post might get more than the usual number of views. It’s Mr. Boggedy, my senior cat of the three here (or, at least the largest). This is thanks to it being a sunny day the other day. Cats and I like to sit out on the balcony, and I’m with my sketching stuff.
April 2, 2012
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Relaxing
By Jack Ruttan in cats, digital, men, paintings
A couple of quick digital paintings I did on my little computer (an Asus EEE subnotebook) while chatting with a friend. This is good, because it means I’m generally getting more relaxed with it! Still so much to learn. Check this page, for instance.
I should post most of my useful digital painting training links, but everyone’s path through this is so individual. I’m jealous of a lot of the deluxe online (and in person) courses out there, but they cost a mint to attend (and I don’t have one at the moment).
March 31, 2012
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Zooey D.
By Jack Ruttan in digital, pencil, women
Trying to draw portraits. I’m cozy in pencil (not so cozy drawing likenesses!). I wonder if it’s bastardization to try and colour a drawing this way, but I’m also practicing my digital chops. Not the prettiest image, technically, but it’s part of my artistic self-education, so I’m putting it up here.
I wanted to draw a movie star, because it’s someone recognisable, and you can tell if you’ve hit a likeness or not. But I don’t like identifying them on the web, because frankly, some fans are crazy. Of course, you can’t control who visits your page (not many, I can assure you!), and you can’t even control who links to your image, and where. There are some seamy sides to the web, but I imagine you know that already.