a story artist

dogs

I've put my one remaining pup in day care today for the first time in ages--well, really decades in dog time. He's an active fellow and troublemaker by default(usually). These are quickies done off the live webcam...oh, dear: I just saw him hauled off to solitary for a spell. Oh, the shame of it!

Really, really a scribble

...and I'm not kidding. Actually I was just warming up and daydreaming and remembering this great, ubiquitous Degas statue. When I first saw it at LACMA as a 3rd grader I liked it for its personality-and, I admit, the mannequin-like quality of it too--she had real tulle on her skirt and in her hair.
I believe the Norton Simon in Pasadena also has a copy. Years later I read an article somewhere(The NY Times I think) all about these girls, how many there are aroiund the world and the unique problems involved trying to maintain a bronze with 100 year old "clothes". I could google her to see what she really looks like but I resisted the temptation-I just wanted to draw-and now I'm kind of loathe to peek and see if I got anywhere near her pose. I know she isn't anywhere near this long, that's for sure.

pixie cut

sketch redux

clickez-vous to enlarge

An old page(15 months old to be precise)-one of my early cintiq mass doodles.
Really, I have to break in the home cintiq properly. It's got some bugs to be worked out, but this weekend--watch out. I mean, truly: duck.

Pegasus

age 10

hanging

matronly

nervous time

just another doodle

this one has to be opened larger--if you want to(just click)

Inspiration

My pointer Weet. He served as the raison d'être for the contribution I made to the book I have coming out, "Scrambled Ink"(see my other blog).

I love words and have no reluctance to use them whenever possible, but for the Scrambled Ink story I wound up cutting nearly all of the text. Initially I'd planned something much more like "Eloise". Not comparing myself in any way against the brilliant Hilary Knight or Kay Thompson, mind you--I just enjoy the sorts of stories that are all too rare nowadays-ones that are a little bit more text than pictures but the pictures are many.

In the event the story I did is all pictures; I now look at it as a kind of private conversation/reminiscence between Pete and me, who had been to Paris for the first and only time not long before.

16 years old

midnight

One of my very favorite films (of all time, kids) is Mitchell Leisen's "Midnight". It's just perfection.
I've seen it many times, but I can always stop and watch it again. It's just been released on DVD and since the NY Times has seen fit to give it one of the most intelligent reviews I've seen in recent years last week it's been on my brain.

I was thinking of Midnight when I doodled this. Everyone: drawings aside--you can't go wrong with John Barrymore(Drew's grandpappy), Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche(yes, Don Ameche!), A Billy Wilder script and Paris, Paramount(as Ernst Lubistch called it). Seek it out.

just a doodle

...been a while.

The live model in front of me at the moment

ruff riding