





Comics and Projects
It is a grey and rainy day (in Vancouver?!) and I should go outside. And instead of doing the things I should (should should should) I drew this road going through the trees. It is from a photo by Matt Emmett. It turns out I have done at least one other drawing from one of his photos. The damnable website pinterest often makes it difficult to figure out where photos came from, what they are exactly and so on.
Working backwards, almost a month ago I did a drawing of an abandoned Japanese train track. I have been teaching at Langara, and it is just one class but it seems to use up all my time.
Going further back in time, after the Dark Mega-j drawing in the previous post, I was inspired to do a couple more in that vein. Just this week I was pondering Halloween and thought maybe a return to Mega-j might be in order. Maybe a beaten to crap Dark Mega-j.
That sketchbook took an unusual amount of time to finish. From July 2018 to September 2019. But it was a pretty turbulent period, so I guess that is not surprising.
My traditional final sketchbook drawing self portrait. I should press harder with my pencil crayons, as the actual drawing is a lot lighter than this pumped up scan.
One of my last drawings in the sketchbook was this ridiculous Dark Knight Returns Mega-j. But it seemed relevant.
As I try to get myself rolling on my next comic projects, I look for stuff to draw, so I am in drawing mode. I always enjoy drawing rickety, run down, overgrown buildings, and found a few photos to draw from.
After drawing all those old white guys, I thought for a change of pace I should draw some women artists and came across some great photos of Aboriginal Australian women artists.
After getting three comics together for VanCAF, I am left feeling very Between Projects. So I was looking for something to draw and came across a photo of Joseph and Eva Beuys. That led me to other photos of old artists and writers. Some great faces out there. Like most of these drawings I do from photos, all of these were done straight to ink, so if they come out a little off, so be it.
I have finally been drawing this week, after one of my worst dry spells in a long long time. Now if I could just get going on some comic drawing.
I started teaching a class, Drawing for Comics, and I usually do some drawing myself as the class is drawing. So I did this quick little comic in pencil while I had them doing the same.
This ink wash drawing was done from a photo (maybe from pinterest?). I started it in the class and then went back and took my time to do it up right.
This is a drawing I did to try to capture something I saw.
I found a set of creepy Halloween costumes from the first half of the 1900s, over at my go-to spot Vintage Everyday.
A scene from Victorian England, from a photo (probably pinterest again).
Last week there was an article being shared everywhere about scientists laying out how completely screwed we are regarding the climate. UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That. The same day I read that I happened to start reading a comic that was about post-apocalyptic scavengers, Land of the Sons by Gipi. And also the same day I started reading a book about post-apocalyptic scavengers, Borne by Jeff VanderMeer. So that inspired me to draw a forest fire.
And other climate change enhanced disasters, like Typhoon Mangkhut.
We seemed to go right from hot sweaty weather to heavy smoke from all the forest fires. This is the state of summer in this era I guess. Oops am I getting dark right out of the gate? Well then appropriately, I drew this after writing a letter when I was tired and crabby.
And this, looking at the state of the smoke the other day.
I have been a bit in the doldrums, not getting anywhere with comics. To mellow out, I draw stuff from the internet and listen to podcasts. This cowgirl was probably from Vintage Everyday, an old faded photo which is why I made it greenish.
Also from Vintage Everyday, some World War 2 Greek freedom fighters. Gotta keep those Nazis away.
And some early 20th century women with wavey hairstyles.
I was listening to a WTF podcast with Peter Fonda as the guest, so I thought I would draw some Easy Riders, from Film Grab.
Some people doing the tango. I think this was from pinterest, though I find I have less luck finding things to draw there. There is something just base level annoying about it.
A swiss cabin on the side of a mountain, from Cabin Porn. I love when they have a cabin situated in some kind of big landscape.
I often find myself looking at google street view for something interesting to draw. But then I just end up wandering around Malta or whatever. Here was a nice highway work scene from California. Probably I just wanted to draw all those pylons.
Listening to an Ultraculture podcast about Jack Parsons, so I decided to draw him and some of the other characters around him. I’m curious how that Strange Angel show is, haven’t seen it yet.
I finally finished a sketchbook. Those last few pages always seem to take forever. I did my traditional self-portrait as the last drawing in the book. I had to do it from a photo, as we don’t seem to have any mirrors in our place that are convenient to draw in front of.
Here are a few of the last drawings I did in that sketchbook. From a photo by Enzo de Martino “Hard Times”.
Some old time-y women from studio portrait photos, found on Vintage Everyday.
And a couple of drawings of cats. I have this project I am trying to figure out, featuring the cats that Manien and I watch from our balcony. One sketch, one ink test that I decided to colour.
I drew some comics about stuff that happened when Jesse was visiting last month.
At some point in May, Manien and I had the idea to re-watch Twin Peaks. We were recalling how pleasant it was watching the Return last year, only having one episode per week. The modern love of “binge watching” often turns shows into a bit of a blur. The weekly schedule gave us more time to savour it. So we decided to re-watch, but only one episode per week, meaning it will take the better part of year to get through everything. It also finally gave us inspiration to make a chalk board on the side of a shelving unit.
I was looking for something to draw and came across a still from a movie called Wonderwall. I have never seen it, but it seems like something I would have come across before!
I continue to be fascinated by different enviro houses. These cool looking earth houses are in Dietikon, Switzerland.