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And here it is! MORTIMER MEGAZINE VOL. 2, MUSHROOMS AND FUNGI. This issue is exploding with an amazing variety of interpretations of this issue's theme, by the contributing artists. The work featured in this book might be overwhelming if ingested too quickly, in large amounts. So KNOW YOUR ART before grabbing it and consuming it! 
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 My good friend Robin Henkel composed music inspired by two of my characters, Trippy The Duck and Jen L.
Listen to the uploads on Soundcloud by clicking the links: https://soundcloud.com/robin-henkel/trippys-adventure?fbclid=IwAR1HQF9HmEov6AZ1QFi1BvqV_IO4bB0ZLmuAShbcHH7o02-dz4Dg4CefsT4 https://soundcloud.com/robin-henkel/jen-l-theme I loved listening to this. I found it inspiring and I have a feeling I will be listening to it several more times.  One of the ways I have been dealing with isolation is playing lots of YouTube videos, as background accompaniment, while drawing and painting stuff to try to sell on my Etsy page. One of my favorite YouTube channels is COMIC TROPES. This episode surprised me at several points. I noticed in this episode that, when Chris brings up the subject of Heavy Metal magazine, he states that it debuted in 1981. The magazine actually began publication in 1977. No biggie. A useful and entertaining exercise is to draw a figure without looking at one's paper. Usually, in drawing classes, the students observe a figure model and, keeping their eyes trained on the model, without looking at their newsprint pad, follow the forms of the figure model and draw them blind.
This fun photo essay from a 1947 issue of Life Magazine, demonstrates the exercise although the participants' approach was different in that they were remembering instead of observing. Try it yourself both ways! And, as practiced during observational contour drawing in classrooms, try it without lifting your pen (charcoal, pencil, etc) off of the paper! You might not capture a satisfactory likeness but you might find your results interesting otherwise. For those of you for whom I have no contact information, I am afraid I yam sick! Bleah!! So sorry and we can all discuss how to make it up to y'all next week. Feel free to get a hold of me if you need. Thanks and a thousand apologies. -Chris
I will be switching some things around, dropping some things, adding others but I will be hosting another YOU Can Cartoon! series at Tsuga Fine Art and although the details will be forthcoming what I can provide for now is the dates and times:
YOU Can Cartoon! Tuesdays March 10, 17, 24, 31, April 7, 14, 21 5:00pm - 7:00pm The horizon, where sky meets earth, will always be at the artist's eye level, regardless of how high, low, or to the left / right the artist is positioned. Most items positioned in relation to that horizon line will be in two point perspective but there can be multiple items in a picture, each with their own single point, or, set of two points. Look at the diagram below, by Ernest Norling, and notice how the lamp-like object over on the left is nearly entirely presented in ONE point perspective, while the couches and end tables are in TWO point perspective, sharing those points on the horizon line, one visible to us, on the right, and the second lying outside the picture plane, on the left. There is a figure of a person seated at a coffee table rendered in its own two point perspective position, with, finally, their stool upon which they sit rendered in one point perspective.  It can be tricky to accurately assess the horizon points which lay outside a picture plane. You may need to use various tools such as a yard stick, a pin stuck in the wall, etc.
The vertical lines have no vanishing point, they're just straight up and down. Three point perspective is not used quite as frequently but familiarize yourself with it for those sky high, bird's eye views of the city (think Iron Man flying down, looking down on New York's building roofs and the vertical lines of the buildings all converging on a single point, envisioned below the street surface) or a bug's view of a giant towering structure. There is no automatic indicator for the artist, telling them how far to the left or right to station points onto the horizon line, in two point perspective (haste in dropping in objects in perspective can cause them to appear squished or too stretched and just plain odd in relation to each other) so the beginner is advised to sketch from observed environment and employ perspective afterward, to tighten up the sketch, as an exercise. A handy way to make many images on paper look three dimensional is to imagine that they are contained within boxes. A lot of things one draws can be envisioned this way. And learning to draw a box in realistic perspective is quite easy. So imagine your subject boxed - in correct perspective (often "TWO point" but it could be one point) - in relation to your eye's horizon line. Look at your environment and try sketching it, at least the area roughly six feet in front of you and eight or ten feet to the left and right, observing the edges of tables, chairs and so forth, and notice how they all head toward a horizon line, regardless of whether you can see the horizon line. If there are other objects within this area, image them in boxes, with the boxes' edges similarly converging at their point(s) on the horizon. It appears that I will be teaching cartooning at Tsuga Fine Art again and I only have to decide on the dates for it. Wow, my humble gratitude is owed to Jay, Ken, Hannah, Tami, Betsy, Cleo, Izzy, Aria, Eligh, Thalo and Justin for being part of making YOU Can Cartoon happen at all! I am very grateful and I also plan to do some free materials demonstrations so check for those as well.
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