A Rainy Knife in Abcolab...

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I didn't want to write captions 'cause I's going for visual effect, but still want to say stuff, so down here.

The top pic is from a poster for one of Rob Zombie's Halloween flics, drawn with Uniball pens, and 90% without looking on the lines of the figure. Sort of a slightly modified eye/hand coordination exercise where you put your drawing under the table and try to imagine your pen point going where your eyes go on the copy. I looked for the shading though.

Next is a panel I drew for an abstract comics "Laboratory" where every panel was drawn by a different person. I wonder if I still have a copy of the whole strip somewhere...

Third is a cover I drew for a DVD of Cloverfield I borrowed from my step-son, that didn't already have a cover. I thought it needed one. This is the cropped version.

Lastly is a view from some mountain in Japan that I found on Princess Haiku's blog. In pencil. It's only 4x6 inches.

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Sans-Pentimenti Rear View Cartoon

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Next page in the new 5.5x8.5" sketchbook, after Underhedge; without guide-line pencil this time and the result looks kinda cartoony to me, but that's ok. Mainly, I learned something: If I want it to look like I want it to look, I better use the pencil undersketch. Or else be ready to explore sans-pentimenti, that is, without any chance for corrections. Could be interesting...
Meanwhile, this is both an entry in a long standing personal tradition (more of which has been posted   HERE   ), and a bit of a break from same, in that previous "rear-views" have always been from life whereas this one is from a photo. Well, I was sitting at an intersection --busy, I should say-- waiting on the light to change.

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Moon Baby

Underhedge

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No, it's not a Hobbit. It's where the Fairy Folk play--well, one place they play--although I didn't see any, I could feel them watching me, laughing derisively 'cause instead of staying and playing, I was 'busy' making pictures...

My new 5.5x8.5" sketchbook with one of the photos I used. Just getting started with the pencil "underpainting"; guidlines, you might say, for the ink to come...

The finished sketch-in...

And my first hour long inking session. At least an hour...

More, maybe two hours...

From here on the "sessions" get hazy. I'm working on it every time I turn around...

Til finally:   Underhedge
5.5x8.5" sketchbook page, various technical pens over pencil, from photos I took in the back yard. I learned a lesson from this project: Don't mix brands of pen! Unless you do it uniformly I guess, with the different types of ink all over the page, but in sections the variations in ink quality can really show up. I was able to save this piece by going back over everything, almost, with one type of ink and re-establishing some uniformity, but it really shook me up about three quarters of the way through, when I realized Eberhard-Faber Uniball ink is warmer and shinier than Pilot Precise V5 ink. My terror was relieved by going back over the disparate areas with Pigma Micron, my drawing pen of choice from now on.
Oh, in case anyone wonders, 'cause it's a common question, "How long did it take you?" there were about six sessions of at least an hour each, and more like two or three hrs.+ on two or three of them. I finally called it quits about 1:00am this morning...

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Burning Fields Walk

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First page in a new 3.5x5" sketchbook, with a Pigma Micron 005. Really fine lines gave me a good chance but smoke is hard with pen. Pencil would have been easier. Fun trying though.

I also had a little camera along...

This was my first clue that fields were burning on down 8th Ave. You can see the haze in the distance, where the grass meets the trees.

It was really rolling across here, back by the horses. By their whinnies and snorts I don't think they liked it.

Finally on the scene. As evinced by the truck pulling tanks, there were plenty of people around keeping an eye on things.

Like fog in a horror movie...

Humans weren't the only ones around though. This little gal tagged along for a while.

 Outta control! But all it's heading for is a ditch full of water.

Not sure what that's bales of but...it ain't no more. Held the picture down well for the smoke rolling across in the background, I reckon.

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Then and Now

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8.5x11 pencil drawing of a warehouse I did one evening back in 1980, I believe. So. 3rd Ave. and East Court in Paragould. It was still in use back then...

Not so anymore. This is a snap I took of the same place just the other day.

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Sidewalk World

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16x20" oil on canvas, 1996. Done from a photo I took with my first SLR camera back in the 80's, of a section of sidewalk next to my Mom's house. (Now that I think of it, this scene is on the same side of the house as the previous post, same vacant lot in the background.)
I think I finished this in about three hours one afternoon.
It got Honorable Mention in a local art show one time, for being such an unexpected subject, something like that.
And if memory serves, I used Copal painting medium on this one.
I like how the grass growing up through the crack looks like a miniature tree line.

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