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Last night was Dune Mini Comics Night at Hugo House again and this time I illustrated a text exchange between me and my wife Sarah from yesterday morning. I'm kicking myself for not drawing in a sad face emoji at the bottom of the text in panel two. It would have also fit at the end of "Aw, poor Baby Bat". But it will be printed in DUNE 87 as is. Oh well. When I get the art back I can insert it then.  
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Here is my final piece, for session 3, after deciding on which text to pair with which image and coloring a separate blueline and then layering them together in GIMP. Again, the text blocks are lines from Death Of A Salesman, selected completely randomly while flipping through an actors' edition of the play.  Here are some photos of the process from an exercise during this evening's class. The images were drawn based on prompts and the text blocks are sentences chosen randomly from Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller (except for the pancakes one. That one was me). The text blocks and images were shuffled about for humorous or otherwise interesting results.   Tonight I attended DUNE, in its return after a hiatus, to live, in person group form. It was held at The Hugo House in Capitol Hill and I am very glad I went. I believe this was the 86th Dune meetup and with me being graduating class of 1986 I guess it's some sort of kismet? Attendees were given four hours to create a piece of artwork and while I was at work today, I pondered what I might do. I had a rough idea but on the lightrail train to the event, I realized that it was pretty awful and wound up walking in to the Hugo House with no plan. It was cold today and once I got inside and seated, the warmth inside and the comfort of my chair after a busy day on my feet made me feel pretty sleepy. I sat staring at my paper for several minutes and then the idea popped into my head:  Well, I'm doing it. I'm heading back to the gallery classroom at Willard (formerly Tsuga) for another round of beginning cartooning sessions. I'm pumped! I'm also going to be on ZOOM on Wednesdays now that I have a laptop with enough juice to do it. I'm live on Zoom every Wednesday at 5:00pm, with my friend Jay. We chat and draw and try to complete at least one drawing each, per session. Here's what I drew tonight. It measures 24" X 32".  Some tools I've enjoyed using lately are two technical pens, sizes .5 and .35.
I had all but given up on tech pens but gave them another chance this time because dammit, I enjoy drawing with them...WHEN they don't clog up. I'm trying Noodlers' Ink and it's working pretty well. It doesn't dry and set as fast as inks I'd used previously so it's a longer wait time before erasing pencil lines. I've been drawing on Canson XL Mix Media paper only because it was already sitting on my desk. Yes, I can be THAT lazy. But the paper takes a fine ink line pretty well, so I continue using it. It does break down and start to clog the pen tip with paper fibers if I work it too much. If I know I am not going to get around to using a pen for at least four or five days or longer, I empty the ink out, clean it with 99% isopropyl alcohol, then fill the pen with roughly 80% distilled water + 20% isopropyl alcohol. Stuck inside because you're snowed in? Make Valentines! We got just under a foot of snow over the last two days and I drew this Valentine for my wife. In an interview, Joseph Mugnaini once said a technique is a manner in which one takes advantage of his propensities and avoids his liabilities.
I am finding that simple comment very helpful lately as I struggle to finish artwork and avoid slowing down by going with what I'm good at and not trying to force myself at things I am not. Here's to doing some house cleaning and getting back on track!  |
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