The Jason Turner Project – Page 2

This month in drawings,

I am just slightly starting to work on two comics, while also still trying to wrap up Vinegar 40. Mostly though I have been puttering away doing drawings of stuff.

Here is a bricky cabin I found on Cabin Porn, a site that sometimes comes through for me with a nice cabin to draw. And it has great looking cabins, anyways.

Here are a couple of old time-y girls having a mystery snack. I think I found this on a site called Old Pictures, which has quite a lot of old pictures. Also a bit of an old time-y website.

Continuing my fascination with drawing temples, I found this one on googstreets in the United Arab Emirates.

And I came across a picture of this temple in New Mexico. I drew it while listening to the lovely Sam Beam of Iron and Wine, on WTF. He has the greatest laugh.

Here is something that happened one night when I was walking four blocks home after hanging out with Doug Savage.

And here is an old time-y lumber mill. I think I found it on that Old Photos site too.

Temples and Shacks

I haven’t been making much progress on comics, though I do have issue 40 of Vinegar almost ready to go. I drew the cover the other day.

In October I had that spell of drawing old time-y stuff. I drew these old time-y women in their swimming costumes.

I was also reading a book about utopian communities in British Columbia The Promise of Paradise by Andrew Scott, and that got me thinking about the history of Vancouver. I occasionally think it would be interesting to try to do a comic set in the early days of Vancouver. Here are some squatters’ shacks in what eventually became Stanley Park.

Here is the town of Yale, British Columbia, in its early days.

Here are some men working on the street car tracks at Main and Hastings.

I was reading another book, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. Most of the book takes place in the Amazon, and part of it took place in Manaus, so I got on the old Goog Street View and found this colourful scene by a dried up river.

Once in a while if I am looking for something to draw, I will draw some tarot cards. There is a lot of crazy stuff going on in them, and it is an extra challenge when a card is upside down.

On Halloween I did not dress up as Mega-j, but I did draw this, inspired by the little pumpkin I carved.

I continue to find temples and the such enjoyable to draw, with all the crazy detail on them. I forget where this gateway was.

This is a gigantic monastery in Tibet.

One day I felt like drawing an astronaut and found this jumping chap. I thought it was from the first moon landing, but when I went to check it turned out it was from the LAST moon landing, Eugene Cernan, the last man on the moon. Kind of crazy how brief a period that all lasted. I also enjoyed how clunky and non-sleek the landing modules were.

And lastly a shack by a river in Lagos, Nigeria, with big houses across the way. Yeah it is all temples and shacks for me these days.

Things to Draw

When I don’t have an active comic project to ink away at, I will find myself looking for something to draw, to give myself something to do while I listen to a podcast. So here are some of the random things I have drawn recently.

Here is Mark Rothko. Someone posted a nice photo of him on twitter, so I tried to draw it.

Manien buzzed my hair for me again, and I was trying to think of a Halloween costume, and I thought “El, from Stranger Things!”

There is this website called Filmgrab, and its random post feature sometimes comes through for me when I am looking for something to draw. This is from Upstream Color, a movie which I might put in my top ten.

At some point this year I was looking at a photo of all the different body shapes of Olympic athletes, and I think that planted the idea that it might be interesting to draw different women athletes. I found shot putters on youtube and boy they go through a lot of postures in a single throw! And they make great faces when they are lost in that moment of throwing. Then I did some javelin and discuss throwers too.

I came across something claiming that Carl Jung was a spy in World War 2, and his codename was Agent 488. So I drew that secret agent.

After drawing lady athletes, I thought it might be fun to draw old time-y boxers for some reason. I couldn’t find much in the way of interesting photos of them though. I did find this.

A comic I’m trying to get rolling has a part involving a temple, so I drew this temple in India.

Another comic I’m developing has me looking at eco houses, including Earthships. Here is the Earthship Hive.

I was trying to find some more old time-y people to draw and eventually came across these Yukon gold rush gamblers.

Twin Peaks Roundup

Since Twin Peaks ended it is tempting to just watch/read endless interpretations of what was going on, especially the last episode. I like that the show is open and mysterious enough that people can project many different ideas onto it.

I don’t really have any profound thoughts on it all at this point, and as I heard David Lynch say in an interview, what’s important is what it means to YOU when you watch it. One thing that I read that I thought was interesting was that since it is 25 years later and the actors are all older, it gives a certain weight to it. The characters have had lives since we last saw them. Anyways, it was such a joy to have this show to watch all summer.

I have been working on material for a new issue of Vinegar. This will be issue 40! Here are a few pages I drew about my experience of watching the new Twin Peaks.

Smoke Days

I am working on a new issue of Vinegar, drawing little stories and things from the summer. Back in August there was a week where smoke from the forest fires blew over the city and I drew this comic about it. Yesterday as I worked on it, I happened to be listening to a WTF podcast where the guest was Al Gore. At one point in the conversation Marc Maron was exasperated asking what it would take for people to accept that climate change is real and we need to do something about it. Which just happened to come up in this comic, so I thought I would post it here.

I need to do a post about Twin Peaks ending, but I have a couple of other comics I need to finish first. And maybe a drawing. In the mean time, here is a comic of David Lynch, with dialogue taken from the documentary Lynch 01, made while he was working on Inland Empire.

Quiet and Walking Through Space

I drew this scene from the new Twin Peaks, because I just loved that the show could slow down and just show the sheriff’s men walking through the forest. Not just one quick shot. A series. The sounds of the birds. No talking. Also, I loved the backpacks.

I thought how it this quiet scene relates to my work. People walking through space. Moving through forests. Fir Valley. Farm School. The Adulation. Older projects. Upcoming projects.

Twin Peaks continues to be a delight. Every episode feels like a journey. I say to Manien “Wow, it felt like a lot happened in that one!” after every one. Only a few left now.

I was feeling like doing some drawings and thought to revisit David Lynch’s Interview Project from 2009. Lots of interesting regular people to draw.

Watching these interviews had me pondering David Lynch’s interest in small town America, and the darkness in it. Run down areas. Things both ugly and beautiful. Horrible yet sublime. Blue Velvet. Twin Peaks. The Straight Story.

There is also something from my previous Twin Peaks drawing that I have been thinking about a lot. The feeling of when you are deep inside something, a project, a scene, a relationship and it feels like this massive overwhelming thing to you. But from outside, it looks like… what is that person even doing? It looks like nothing. Or from a slightly different angle, I am reminded of the end of Lord of the Flies. Or one Peter Straub story the Buffalo Hunter, where a guy was quietly going crazy in his hotel room. Someone intersects with your craziness and can’t fathom how you got there. Which inspired me to draw another scene from the new Twin Peaks. Another lovely pause.

Twin Peaks and the Beach

I have been avoiding doing drawings of the new season of Twin Peaks for the sake of not spoiling it for others (because I would have to post them!). There was one scene that I did feel like drawing though, and then last night I saw a twitter user who had exactly that scene as their header image, so I did a quick drawing last night and a longer drawing today. It was hard to try to capture the dusty washed out vibe with pencil crayons.

I spent a week with my brother and his family, on Vancouver Island, Galiano, and in Vancouver. It was fun to hang out with them and to goof around with the kids. One day at the cabin on Galiano the kids were into having me draw characters they made up on the spot. Here are a couple of them…

Launch the Plank

I’m having a belated book launch for Fir Valley, at Lucky’s Comics this Wednesday July 19. Come on out and get a book, or just hang out and celebrate that I finished this book. We can hang out in the back alley.

I am also pretty much done my plank comic. It is always fun to revisit “paint” and try to figure out how that works. Next project: Painting ember logs (with a tiny astronaut) to cover our dusty nasty fake fireplace . Top panel of the plank…

Drawing and Painting

I have been noodling and doodling and gradually thinking myself towards a new comic. Here are a couple of drawings I did from photos I found on the internet, looking for overgrown things.

In the meantime, I finally got rolling on a project that originally was going to be a mural in our old place in North Vancouver. At the start of December 2014, I was planning to work on it over my Xmas break. By the time Xmas rolled around we had decided to sell our place. Recently Manien and I decided to revisit the mural idea, which I still liked. We bought a seven foot plank that I am going to paint it on. I don’t paint very often, and every time I have to figure out how it works again. But it is a fun and different process.

Summer of Twin Peaks

Happy Summer Solstice. I think it is tomorrow.

I have not updated in a while. VanCAF was ages ago! I had a really good show, possibly the best show I have ever had actually. The comic jam we had in association with the show went really well too. Lots of people came, many many pages were drawn.

I updated my store, so now you can buy Fir Valley and the most recent Vinegar issues there.

Since VanCAF I have been drawing, trying to figure out what I want to work on next. The past couple of weeks I was hanging out with Manien while she was on vacation. Relaxing on our lovely balcony, going for walks. On one particularly early walk we actually saw the beavers that live down by the Olympic Village.

Oh, and we have been watching TWIN PEAKS. I can’t tell you how happy it has been making me. Such a joy to be back in that world, with old characters and new, mysteries and histories. To have decadent hours and hours of new David Lynch. Even the novelty of having to wait for new episodes (I honestly could not tell you the last time I did that) is making me savour it all the more. Luckily Manien has been loving it too. Why, here are a couple of comics from Vinegar 39, drawn before the new show was released, one about visiting Twin Peaks, one about anticipating the show.

Manien and I went to the Island to visit her sister and family. I traditionally do a “Mission” with my niece and nephew, which is a fantasy adventure with a map and hazards and so on. This mission took place mostly in a witch’s cottage, with the heroes shrunk to mouse size. I had way too much fun naming the various creatures they encountered.

And here is the kind of thing I draw to relax while I listen to podcasts, from Google Street View.