Category Archives: art

piles…

i made an attempt and clutter busting this weekend… currently, i have SIX reasonably large, reasonably complex projects in addition to my daily life that wrestle for my complete attention. anyone out there that knows me will know that nothing ever really gets my FULL attention… i apologize in advance for that. but anyway…

in the midst of dancing from one project to the other… getting a little done on each…i decided to take a break (which my doctor said i NEED to do) and organize my garage…which has become a de facto depot of things i shuffle from closet, to room, to shelf, to floor etc. among the artifacts are bins of old cartoons… some of the cartoons are over a decade old… some are good, some are not so good. but, in moving those bins, those thousands of pieces of bristol board, blue pencil, white-out and india ink, i had a moment. another moment. at some point in my career, now moving into its 15th professional year, each piece of bristol in those bins was the most important thing in my life. nothing else mattered so long as the drawing in front of me got done. once it was done, it didn’t matter as much… or at all. it then became a question of where to put it… now that i had my way and was moving on. thousands of moments. thousands of moments in rubbermaid containers.

wow.

you don’t realize it when you’re working on it that you’re spending a part of your life with it. then that’s it. some of the cartoons i can’t even remember doing… and if they weren’t dated, i couldn’t remember WHEN i did it… although i could reasonably judge the date by the style.

does anyone else think about this when they clean out their garage?

Categories: art cartoon garage cleaning life memory lane...

my baby walks…

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i created bob the squirrel over 7 years ago. through thick and thin, good times and bad, the little tree rodent has always been there for me. i know it may sound bizarre to some… but if you spend as much time with your imaginary friends as i do, they become real. really real.

in all those years of drawing him, writing him, putting him in a thousand situations…(over 2500+ strips at this point) i never drew him with walking in mind. i mean, let’s face it… he’s a wise ass…the limited space you have in a daily strip doesn’t really give you much play as far as movement…you move the story along, try to be as artistic as you can and get to the next day. a daily strip is a grind that would make most mortals cry.

so, bob rarely moved. sure, he would climb trees, climb frank, chase, get chased but for the most part he was just there. he’s bob. he’s always there.

for my next semester in grad school, i’m animating.

i’ve never animated before in my life. ever. so nerves are exposed and the learning curve is steeper than well, it’s 90 degrees straight up. in talking with my artist-teacher last night, i was thrown a revelation: he’s not all that familiar with the bob character…i need to make him walk.

i knew that. if i’m going to animate he needs to walk. but frankly, i was avoiding it. maybe i was afraid that this character i spent so much time with would change once he moved. maybe he would move away from me… walk into the sunset as a chaplin silhouette.

corny and insane… i know. but like i said, i’ve spent more time with bob than almost anyone else in my life…

this morning, i did it. it took me four sheets of typing paper and a crapload of erasing, but i did it. i made bob walk.

it wasn’t as scary as i thought it would be. and after i got the one i wanted, i smiled. he was always living, but now he’s on his way to being alive.

Categories: animation art bob grad school sketchbook

back from the moon, episode 2

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so i’m back from the moon (the moon being my third MFA residency in vermont). 4 hours and 51 minutes of driving on winding roads as well as three, four and five lane highways, overpriced diet sodas from vending machines that i swear are flipping me off, bathrooms that range from the taj mahjal to the stockyard and all the piercing silence, punctuated by a newly developed rattle in the front end of my car.

this residency was great. i had a good time…let my guard down… a little.

three down and two to go with two more studio projects, a visual culture research thing and the mother of it all… the process paper— a document which sums up my experience as a grad student and forecasts the artistic road that may one day be under my size 10.5 hiking boots. (insert dramatic music here).

if i can get through last semester with most of my hair, most of my health and a third of my sanity…i got this.

for those of you out there in Never-ever land who are interested in acquiring a copy of my first graphic novel “better man” i’ve decided that i will self-publish… i am really proud of this book and want it out there now for everyone to experience. i will post details on how to get a copy next week sometime.

thanks again for keeping tuned to my exploits…. hopefully i’ll stay entertaining…

Categories: art book grad school