Category Archives: art

Random Party Snippet

By | | , , , ,
Comments Off on Random Party Snippet

Got a bit of work done on The Project yesterday. Some pencilling, inking and coloring – all on one busy page. I don’t want to show you the whole thing, so here is a corner of one large panel (click for larger view).

There’s a party going on…

It is an interesting process, designing backgrounds… So here I’m thinking of what everyone is wearing, how to place them in the field of view, what colours they are wearing and so forth so as not to distract from the principals, how the wait staff might be dressed, what drinks they might be carrying, and so on and on.
[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Obliging

By | | , , , ,
Comments Off on Obliging

On the Gold line from Pasadena to downtown on Saturday I was looking to relax a bit after a long morning of work over a meeting I had with some colleagues. I got out my pencil and notepad and was happy to find that just over the way at the perfect distance (not to close, not too far) was a fellow who was looking out of the window and obligingly keeping his head more or less in the same orientation, or bringing it back to a similar position if he looked away from time to time. So I got some good looks and built the drawing on the right, over 20 minutes or so. As a bonus, […] Click to continue reading this post →

Trumpet Solo

By | | , , , ,
2 Comments

20120217-160909.jpgThis is a snap of a sketch I started while sitting in the Village Vanguard (New York) the other night while listening to the Mark Turner (ts) quartet play. On trumpet was Avishai Cohen, who was really excellent. This quick sketch, very incomplete, was assembled from several glimpses of him when he’d return to this pose, or more or less… Anyway, it was a fun exercise (I’d started another larger sketch of the whole band, but decided it went off balance after a while and so did not complete it). […] Click to continue reading this post →

Incomplete Subtractions

By | | , , , , ,
6 Comments

Well, it has been well over two months since I popped into the studio I sometimes visit to to a “drop in and draw” session. (I’ve spoken about the value of such practice here before.) Although I’ve been drawing a bit here and there on the bus and subway to keep practicing, and also doing some work on some pages of The Project (actually, some pretty detailed finish work on a few pages I’m quite happy with), I was not sure whether I’d have the right chops to do a good job at the session, and expected that if I went I’d have a frustrating -but of course valuable- evening of knocking off some rust and oiling the wheels again. So I went along yesterday.

Strangely, it felt like it was going to be a good session as I approached, and as I settled down and began to try to capture the 2 minute poses, and then the 5 minute poses, I felt like I was flowing along pretty well. It helped that the model on duty is […] Click to continue reading this post →

Pen Faces

By | | , , , ,
1 Comment

Well, it has been a while since I’ve posted any sketches, but that does not mean that I’ve not been doing any. I’ve had a visitor and have not been on my usual routine, and so I’ve got a bit out of practice for not doing so many, but I still snatch the opportunity to sketch when I can. Here are a few faces and fragments of faces I grabbed on the bus and subway in recent weeks. (Click for a larger view.) I just used a ballpoint pen, and a sideways glance or few…

I’m trying to decide whether […] Click to continue reading this post →

At the Breakfast Bar

By | | , ,
7 Comments

This weekend I stayed over at the house of some dear friends, spending a bit of time out of town. I was up early this morning, and while I waited for everyone to get into full gear, I had a bit of time on my own to do a sketch of what was sitting in front of me after I finished my coffee and toast. (Click for larger view.)

I got my sketchpad and pencil first, and then decided that it was a while since I’d done anything directly on the iPad, and not since I’d got the new iFaraday stylus I got […] Click to continue reading this post →

Happy New Year!

By | | , , , ,
6 Comments

Well everyone, 2011 is drawing to an end, so I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! for 2012. All the very best, and thanks for reading. See you for more next year.

As my New Year’s greeting image, I give you the results of yesterday’s work on The Project. It is the opening panel for the dialogue/story that I started ink work on.

I sat in the sun with ink pens, brush, and ink, and happily brought to life the panel I’d envisioned for some time. I like the results, even though it is not quite […] Click to continue reading this post →

Inks in Sun

By | | , , ,
1 Comment

I’ve been working when I can on the layouts of the first several pages of one of the stories I wrote in the Summer for The Project, and today I finally decided to do some inking on page one, sitting in the lovely sunshine we’ve been having. I am way behind, but struggle on. Lots of different things I’ve been experimenting with […] Click to continue reading this post →

Science Comics and Branded Content

By | | , , , , , , ,
2 Comments

People often point to certain “science comics” as examples when I explain to them what The Project is about. In turn, I explain that while both things have science in them, and both things use sequential art, they’re not really the same. Not everyone gets it, but that’s ok. (If it helps, ask yourself if you would assume that I was writing a bodice-ripper for Mills and Boon or Harlequin if I said I were writing a novel in which there are elements of love, relationships, romance, etc., in it*.) There’s room for more than the “hey kids! science is awesome!” model, as fine a model as it is.

Since the confusion with that genre is so easily made I confess that I find myself reluctant to discuss it much here, lest I compound the confusion. That might be silly. Anyway, as an exception, I thought I’d point to a little collection of comic covers (and an extract from an interior) that the Washington Post has on its Innovations site as a piece about the movement in the fifties to get kids interested in science, through the big popular culture medium of the time – comics!

I wonder how much it worked, as compared to other efforts at the time. Is it even measurable? (For example, I think that the stuff I do in science outreach helps the cause of strengthening science (and its understanding) in […] Click to continue reading this post →

A Splash of Colour

By | | , , ,
2 Comments

As compensation for the rather incomplete and patchy sketch of the last post, here’s a sketch that’s at least more uniformly incomplete (!) that you might recognize from a while back. The difference here is that this is an early experiment with applying splashes of (mostly flat) colour directly to my pencil sketches digitally, as an alternative approach to half tone, etc. I did this back in May.

In fact, you’ve seen several better examples since (for example here, here (well, not all flats there), and here (also […] Click to continue reading this post →

What Goes Around…

By | | , , , ,
1 Comment

So you probably heard about the remarkable wind storm in the region that hit last Wednesday night. It was quite the storm indeed. I was out in it almost at its peak, and so was reminded of just how devastating concentrated gusts of wind can be, even for a short while. Strangely, while houses on several neighbouring streets had lost electricity, and even some on my street, I’d managed to not have any extended electricity outage (although I think something did take place in that regard while I was sleeping). Several friends and colleagues had no electricity for days after, so I’ve been wondering what I did to dodge that bullet.

Well, as though not to leave me out, last night I came home to find that it was my turn to have a disruption, although it was rather an odd one… some systems in the house had electricity, and some did not… The few things that did were some lights that came on about 1/4 the brightness they normally would. Various other systems were unable to deal with this sort of meagre supply and either were complaining or just refusing to operate. Strange.

Anyway, it made me glad that I had gone out, since I’d have been all frustrated had I intended to do a lot of work indoors. I’d gone out to sit in a studio and do a bit of drawing from a live model, for practice. It has been a while since I’ve been to a “drop […]

Anyway, it made me glad that I had gone out, since I’d have been all frustrated had I intended to do a lot of work indoors. I’d gone out to sit in a studio and do a bit of drawing from a live model, for practice. It has been a while since I’ve been to a “drop […] Click to continue reading this post →

Nostalgia Furniture

By | | , , , , ,
3 Comments

New acquisitions. I’ve been a fan of the work of Marcel Breuer for many years now, going back to my first postdoc in the early 90s, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. There, I lived (over three years) in some lovely 1957 apartments designed by him, with furniture of his design in them too. (It’s a bit different now, I understand.) The Wassily (or, Model B3) chair is one of my favourites of his, and two days ago, when I got an email from a friend I’d not heard from in a while that she was getting rid of a leather-finished pair of them, I went to see them as soon as I could (especially when I heard of their colour, which I’d decided would match my floors rather well). I came back from the visit with (after some negotiations and handing over of payment) the pair and set them up.

Yes, they are just as wonderful as I recall (and this set is particularly well made – very good reproductions), beautiful, very comfortable, and a good fit for my living room… […] Click to continue reading this post →

Hanging Out at the Paramour

By | | , , , ,
5 Comments

Now that we’ve finished the shoot, I’ll tell you that we were shooting at The Paramour, a wonderful old house in one of the Silver Lake hills of some renown. It is part of the Canfield-Moreno estate, famous for being a mansion built for a silent movie star and his bride. It has recording studio facilities used by lots of musicians of all sorts (you’re maybe heard recordings that were done there), and it is used a lot for filming. You can read more about it here.

The above sketch is one I did there yesterday while waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for the various scenes I was to appear in. I chose this part of the house because that’s where craft services was and it was one of the places people were allowed to congregate when not involved in shooting. There are more beautiful parts, but then… you see those in photos all the time anyway. It’s time this side got some attention. I did 90% of the pencil work on the spot, and finished it up and splashed some (digital) paint on it in the early hours of this morning (Inexplicably, I got up at 4:30am and have been up for four hours now… I think I am going to try to have a nap before going off shopping). I was also going to share with you some sketches of people playing a dice game (karaki? I did not know it before) that we used to pass some of the time, but I didn’t finish any of them, sadly…

The rest of the shoot? Yes, it went well. I brought an extra layer of clothing against the cold, but it was still very cold, especially since this time most of the filming was outside. The afternoon was ok, as there was a bit of sun, and, helpfully, a pig was roasting, so we could stand near the heat from that. Yes, you read me right… there was indeed a pig being roasted. It was for a scene involving a picnic, followed by revelry later (hired revelers were bussed in for the night-time craziness), with several of us standing round talking about random topics as the film crew wove in and out of our groups, catching snippets of conversation. Lunch later on involved eating the pig (not on camera). I had a monologue coming up later on in the day, and so I memorized it in the […] Click to continue reading this post →

Pythagasaurus

By | | , ,
1 Comment

Strikingly beautiful, deliciously odd, and a little dark. Pythagasaurus is an animated short written and directed by Peter Peake and animated by Pascale Bories. Great voice work by Bill Bailey, Martin Trenaman and Simon Greenall. It’s about “the Mighty Pythagasaurus, the fabled tyrannosaurus practiced in the skills of trigonometry and long division”. […] Click to continue reading this post →

Rough Pages

By | | , , , , , ,
2 Comments

Well, it’s a time-consuming process (continuing the new work on The Project mentioned in a recent post), especially when you put in more detail than really needed on what is supposed to be a rough layout. Sigh… Anyway, I’m several pages along in layouts for a story I wrote a while back, and I’m flipping ahead from time to time and wondering how long this beast is going to end up being! In any case, it’s a fun topic (or topics) being explored in this one. I’m wondering if I should try to find a way of splitting it into two stories or perhaps […] Click to continue reading this post →