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

taking a break

An early Buster Keaton feature on TCM

I'm very busy on the HP tablet at the moment and took a break just now as there's this mystery film with (I think) Gilbert Roland and some wonderfully marcelled actress on. This has got to be circa 1930 or '31 but no later.

EDITED TO ADD: Aha! The sudden appearance of Buster Keaton in the mix tells me it's "The Passionate Plumber"--with the marceled dark girl and a blonde I don't know. Here's my doodle of the blonde:


Poor Buster was probably drunk for the filming of this turkey...he's not up to form but who would be paired with Durante. Gawd!

Santa Paws

It's him again

dux

My friend Paul showed me a scene he did today. There was a great duck in it. Ducks just always slay me.
When I was a kid my family's dearest friends had a duck; they also always had about seven beautiful cats, a horse, an airedale named Wilbur and for a long time this white duck, Sunny, who was a unusually personable character. Anyway, this is just an excuse to post more doodles of something tonight-I'm really on a posting jag.

playing with my Disneykins in the dirt

One of those memories from four or so.

advert

dollface

Note

warming up on the cintiq (again)

my 2 dogs

laptop again

I was fooling around last week(and I mean real, desultory, aimless doodling), browsing the internet and looking at some photos online simultaneously. I spied a friend's photo of his wife, which was a very nice snap, and grabbing some printer paper, drew her in a sort of reverse-tablet scenario. Pretty crummy--so I flipped the paper over and, not looking at the photo but instead at the faint bleed through of the Copic marker, drew a flopped one. Not much better, but I still think it has personality(and that's not a compliment to me, but to the original photograph and of course, the original person).

Then I got annoyed as yet another Copic marker was fizzling out on me...so as it lay dying I drew this other thing with both barely-there ends.
I sure do love these markers, but I make a mess of refilling them so they don't last long for me.


Here's another tablet/alias doodle of the same girl-my impression of her,that is.

Alias sketchbook thing on an HP tablet

When I was five

I too was a child, once. Here's proof.
Everyone in the class had to contribute to a book the teacher mimeographed. One girl was an especially gifted artist--her drawing was as developed as a 12 year old's--a good twelve year old. She was a big inspiration to me. She certainly would have been an artist, I think(she took it very seriously--not surprising given her talent), but she died shortly after this in a swimming accident.

This is but the top half of the page; the bottom picture that accompanies the lower "story" (of the girl who believes her family consists of sky, flowers and clouds--including my almost-perfect spelling of colors on a lot of large house paint cans)was too messed up to post--even worse than what's here.

Um, busted!

This was taken when I wasn't looking yesterday in life drawing...damn cel phones! I'll get him back when he least expects it, wait and see.

This was not the model, btw...

Alias doodles

Believe it or not, this is a life drawing of a doll. A japanese doll.

..and these are just doodles, drawn nearly flat in my back at 1 am, using this HP tablet sketchbook. They aren't the greatest, but it's late and they reflect my mood...also I haven't posted anything much in a while. ; )