Saturday is World Cow Chip Day!

Three of a kind.

The Douglas Boy.

2008, oil on paper, 9.5" x 12" .

My latest contribution to the "Drawer Geeks" club. The theme this time around was "triplets," implying anything coming in a set of three.

My wife gave me a long, strange look after I finished it.

I still haven't figured out how the three brains work together or against each other, but I'll let you know if I do. Right now, I figure that our young man has mostly monocular vision, like having a lazy eye, but that periodically the role of vision shifts from one brain to another, and with it goes control of his body and will. The blue eye is probably right handed, the brown one left handed, and the green ambidextrous, though I'd imagine it also represents his more sociopathic self.

He has a lot of cowlicks, and his left-eye cerebellum was slow to potty train.

Samurai.

ink and gouache, 9"x12"

When asked to join in an online club of cartoonists, illustrators and animators called "Drawer Geeks" with the promise of biweekly random assignments, how could one possibly say no? How could one resist the gleeful clicking of heels and a quick girlish squeal?

This is my first contribution, or at least the first I managed to finish on time. Knowing almost nothing about the samurai outside of video game I once played in 1988, I thought limiting my research to an hour peering at such men of mystery photographed in the 1800s would be far more honest than trying to get any of the ancient armor right. I gathered at least that they didn't smile a whole bunch, but were prone to fabulous coiffures and some very cool high domed woven hats, the sort of haberdashery I, personally, could never pull off.

It is unfortunate, however, that a sheathed pair of samurai swords from almost any angle looks like an act of sepuku.

Some three hour paintings.

oil on canvas, 12 x 16. 2008

I started taking a painting class at the Art Students' League in New York this past month; as of today, two of the paintings have even dried. I'm plugging away at a picture book deadline till May, and thought I could use a visit back to the land of fundamentals with some intense observation and improvisation thrown in for good measure. Hopefully this will help keep the studio paintings from looking too stale as I dig in further.

Daylight savings time.

pencil and gouache on paper, 12" x 14.5", 2008

Surrounded by my studio detritus,
sitting on the futon
—that particularly uncomfortable,
and maybe even evil—
futon that her sister had given us
the first month we were married,
she was kind enough to sit for a drawing.
So she sat reading
bleary eyed for close to an hour
growing perhaps
smarter with each minute,
each word,
each chapter, sub-chapter,
footnote and sidebar,
while I sat across from her
in an old office chair
wired together with a coat hanger,
face, hands and clothes
smudged with silvery graphite and overpriced paint,
squinting to find the line between
the candid light on her cheekbones
and that funny look she gets
when she's thinking,
carried off somewhere
miles from the futon
–so miserly with the comfort it lends–
and the stacks of tape,
paper,
bubble wrap,
and crinkled, forgotten photos and doodles
that adorn each horizontal surface
around her now.
Outside the wind blows loudly through our stringy maples,
the lights flicker
and a chill drifts slowly through the seams
of the old house,
the one that we never quite finished
before the boys were born.
There are two boys now, fitfully asleep,
and I really must hurry–
a few more dabs of white,
and not so pretty
that she'll become skeptical.

6 am comes early tomorrow.

The Missus.

pencil and gouache, 12" x 18", 2008

Portrait sketch...almost

I was working with a high school student on a self-portrait project and did this little drawing of her in her sketchbook, demonstrating certain landmarks of human physiology and how they can sit in perspective. It almost looked like her, which was a plus. I don't usually do demos that require this kind of accuracy, as failing miserably at them can really muddy whatever point was to be made.


I made a photocopy of it and brought it home where I produced the following small oil painting from it.

It still almost looks like her.