As you can probably tell by my recent, infrequent posts, I’ve been quite busy of late. I’ve just had the chance to realize that it’s been a bit over a year since I started this haven for my scribbles.
I started off with beards and I’m finishing the year with some moustaches. Here’s one that is looking with great expectations on the coming years additions.
Well, get on with it . . . draw something new!
We live on a heavily travelled road so we keep our cats indoors. Tea Leaf doesn’t mind, even if we do let her out in the yard she never goes beyond the perimeter. Stanley on the other hand, disappears the instant he’s outside. But it’s Tea Leaf that caught a bird . . . indoors! I came home to find a pile of feathers in the living room. It looked as if a bird had had a panic attack and all it’s feathers popped off, but with no bird to be found.
It wasn't me!
The Berndt Toast Gang had a “Spooky Drawing” drawing at our last meeting. Everyone brings in a “spooky” drawing and gets to trade for someone else’s.
Here’s mine (click for a larger version):
It seems that any time I try and bend the rules, there will be someone there to catch me out. Some people seem to be able to get away with sneaking down a one-way street the wrong way, moving to a better seat at a concert, or just cutting a line. Not me, I don’t even try anymore. It’s the Irish complexion, people know right away your fibbing because your face turns bright red.
I'm telling!
It happens to all of us. Those snappy comebacks we needed at that crucial moment never appear in our brains until hours later. By then it’s too late to call up the offending person and share the brilliance of your razor sharp, if somewhat tardy, wit. Now to savor real snappy answers, you’ll need to see the Al Jaffee exhibition at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art.
Now that's one for the Al Jaffee Exhibit!
In the US, it’s mustache and the UK, moustache. It can also be used to describe just one half of the typical moustache. I was rereading an Agatha Christie Poirot mystery and Poirot mentions the “moustaches” meaning the complete hairy upper lip. Mine has never quite assumed the proportions of the fellow below. Good thing, too, or I’d find my face accidentally attached to the most recent part of the house or car I’ve been fixing.
I'm trying for the world's record but it has to grow another 11 feet.
If you came by this weekend this is all that you would have seen of me. The hot water line from our boiler decided to get two separate leaks. It took a couple of days for the true effects to make themselves visible. That unusual “dripping” turned out to be a wall full of water. So there I was, with my head hidden between the joists, replacing long sections of piping.
Is it raining?
You know it’s time to clean the studio when you start to stick to the floor.
What's the difference between Bill Gates and a cartoonist? I'll bet Bill doesn't have to mop his office floor himself.
These days it seems that you have to treat everything with a cynical eye. There always appears to be someone that will benefit financially from most actions, philanthropic or otherwise. O.K., even though I’ve become more and more cynical as the years pass, I know there are countless groups doing fantastic work. But there’s one group that I am involved with, The Inkwell Foundation, that exists only to bring smiles to children facing serious medical issues . Go visit the website for photos from recent events and more information. Then buy a t-shirt to help this group of volunteer cartoonists and animators visit more children’s hospitals.
Is that gray t-shirt really gray? (Yes, it is).
I was helping frame some art for a fellow cartoonist for her upcoming show (more on this soon) and ended up with a stack of black paper. It’s too large to waste and too small to use for framing, so I thought I’d try sketching from black to white instead of the usual.
This was similar to how some of the Old Masters worked, Rembrandt being one. In a very simplified explanation, they tinted their canvases with Burnt Umber and then picked out the highlights. I was at a lecture by Marshall Arisman, who uses this method to create his paintings which have graced the pages of almost every major magazine.
Why is it so dark in here?