Happy Birthday to Stan Lee!

That is all...

Texas Goodbyes and Stereotypes

I know I've been gone again.  But I really have been working.  Just too busy to post anything.

So at the day job we lost another cashier.  Sad, because she was a wonderful employee and the only one who talked sports with me!  A true loss for the museum.  But, her husband (a pilot) was transferred to Dallas and her family is from Texas so I can't be TOO bummed out by it.  Good for them!

And as a Texas girl she is a graduate and die-hard supporter of Baylor University.  She even got me rooting for them!  So I came up with a card for her to wish her well.

And this week I have been watching the WNFR (Wrangler National Finals Rodeo).  I figured what a great link.  Even though the finals are held in Las Vegas, most people think "rodeo" when they think Texas so there you go.  Here's my sketches from late at night...

I've got more things in the works right now but I really can't show them until after Christmas.  (Surprises for people, you know!)

Little Boys With Too Much Time...

So the Braves are apparently moving to Cobb County.  The  lease is up on their decrepit old stadium and they are not going to spend one more red cent to pay for the upkeep on that battered old eyesore.  And apparently something they started using in 1997 is like, SUPER old.

Here is my take on the Atlanta sports mentality...

Yep, just a bunch of whiny babies.

But that's not what angers me about this story.  I honestly don't even care if the Braves move out there.  It's not unprecedented in the annals of sport.  The Cowboys play in Arlington, Texas and still refer to themselves as "Dallas".  That would be like a team playing in Macon calling themselves "Atlanta".  (Okay, maybe that's a BIT of a stretch but not by much.  It is a LONG way to Arlington from downtown Dallas.)

Also, I don't go to the games either, really.  It IS a giant headache to go down there.  And the majority of people who buy tickets are from the Cobb area.  So if they want to go...that's fine.

No, what angers me is they are getting over 450 MILLION dollars in revenue from Cobb County.  the same Cobb County that THIS year cut almost 200 teachers from the payroll so they could cut budget gaps.

If I were a parent in Cobb County...I would be PISSED.

Savannah Sketching

The wife and I went down to Savannah this week for a little vacation.  (This is why there was no Tuesday Toonsday this week.  Sorry!)  We ate a lot of seafood and walked around enjoying the town.  And I mean WALKING.  So much walking.  Take our advice.  Don't walk that much.  Jump on one of those trolley tours.  Hijack it if you have to.

We started out by walking down to River street and checking out some shops.  At the end of the street we took a rest and I sketched the waving girl for a few minutes.

We got some tips about stuff to see from my friend Robby.  As the wife and I love old cemeteries, Bonaventure seemed a wonderful place to go.

Tattnall Way running down the length of the cemetery draped on both sides by live oaks and moss...

And here is one of the better carvings on one of the graves...

This week was a big learning experience for me in regards to creating art in the wild.  You might notice that both of these sketches seem a little hurried and unfinished.  This is because...THEY...found me.  "They" are these little insects.  Not the mosquitos.  Those I could tell because they were as big as fruit bats.  No..."they" were these tiny little bugs which took a chunk out of you like a bear trap.  So on both occasions I started working and the little beggars found me and I got up and ran away.

I also learned in Bonaventure that I need to cut down the size of my painting gear when walking around that much.  It gets HEAVY.

And my last sketch is of our hotel, the Thunderbird Inn.

This one got hurried a little, as well.  The sky was a lovely blue when I started but in the course of about 20 minutes started getting more and more grey.  I had to run back into the room before everything got rained on.

We had a fantastic time and absolutely will be going back.  There's just too much down there to see.

I Got the Politicals!!!

(God, I hope a topical ointment will contain it.)

So yes, the current Washington idiot carnival that's going on has inspired me to once again show my cynicism and disgust with all politicians and their ilk.

However, it did get two toons out of me for this week's political edition of Tuesday Toonsday, so I guess it does have SOME benefit.

Number 1:

(Seriously...I just don't believe ANY of them...)

Number 2 came from listening to this more and more over the week and it just kind of started sounding like a hostage negotiation and I was the one wrapped up in an extension cord and gagged with a dirty pillowcase lying on the floor listening to them list the demands over the phone.

So yeah...I pretty much hate all politicians.

Have a great week!!!

No Politics...Yet

I know all everyone is thinking about is the government shutdown and the loss of such wonderful things as national parks, Mars rovers, and panda-cams.  But I am here on the job with today's Tuesday Toonsday to brighten your spirit!

Today's toon comes from when I spend too much time over-analyzing and becoming annoyed by certain commercials while spending the day watching football.

Another benefit to watching football is that sometimes you see that someone has taken one of your labors of love and blown it up and is waving it around on national television.

So no political cartoons to remind you of the current state of affairs...but the week's not over.

Time Constraints

Sometimes your life just gets in the way of doing all the stuff you want to do...like making cartoons with substance.  So you end up feeling (and making things) like this...

And just to show you I'm not COMPLETELY falling down on the job, here is the inked phase of a project I am doing for my alma mater...



So I guess technically this is a very successful Tuesday Toonsday.

The Paintmonkey's Greatest Fear!

And here it is...



Seriously...I've had nightmares about being accidentally shaved.  I just don't like the way I look with no facial hair.

Hope and Joy

I went to Young Harris today.  It was a complete coincidence that I had today off.  But once I realized what day it WAS...I wanted to do something positive.  I wanted to do something to make me and other people happy.  So I packed up the painting gear and headed out.

I got to the campus about noon and set up.  I worked for about 2 hours and in that time several of the beautiful, curious children stopped to talk to me about painting and the school.  (I am not using the term "children" in a condescending manner.  Quite the opposite.  I use it in the manner of wide-eyed children eager to take in everything.  They really were lovely.)  And during those conversations I realized something.  They are so proud of what they have.  They wanted to know if I liked the changes.  They were excited to talk about the changes and just as excited to hear about how it used to be.  And I told them truthfully that there were very few of us who would have gone anywhere else and we are actually a little jealous that they get to have four years there.  They seemed to appreciate that.

Then they went on to class and I finished up working on my painting.

As I left the school I realized that my day had been spent exactly the way I wanted...I went to a place that I hold very dear but it actually turned out better.  Change is inevitable.  But sometimes the best stuff stays exactly the same.

I finished my schooling at LaGrange.  I could've gone anywhere with a degree from Young Harris,  but it didn't matter where I went.  I am always a Mountain Lion at heart.

Grr!

Pomp(adour) and Circumstance

Fairly straightforward This Week in History with the Paintmonkey.

And pop culture was never the same.

A Glimmer in the Sky

Today's Tuesday Toonsday doesn't have a "funny" bit per se...only the fact that I found interesting this week.  I'm playing more with the size of the work and what I can get away with inside the confines of each of those different dimensions.  For instance, this week I wanted to put a powdered wig on the Paintmonkey.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the room for it after getting all the information in.  It's a work in progress...

And without further adieu...

I had fun drawing Halley though.  Just seems like an uncomfortable way to dress for science.

Game Day Saturday in the South

There are holidays that MUST be acknowledged.  Christmas, Thanksgiving, Arbor Day.  (Seriously, you don't like Arbor Day?  Quit breathing.  That air belongs to the people who care about Arbor Day!)

But here in the South there is a day that combines the excitement of all of those with the summer gluttony of eating wings and for some, drinking copious amounts of beer.

This...

Other parts of the country may celebrate it as much as we do, but I am not from those places.  I am from the South and this is what I know.  Happy Game Day, boys!

Twister Toon

Just thought this was interesting...

I am having fun looking through all the websites with facts on them.  If I do this long enough I will be a bar trivia GOD!

Fact Toons!

I told you I'm going to be more positive with my Tuesday Toonsdays and I meant it.

But first a re-introduction.  I am the Paintmonkey.  This is me...

...pretty much.

So as the helmsman of this venture, I introduce to you:

This Week In History With The Paintmonkey!!!  I will choose a day of the upcoming week and find a fact that I want to illustrate and present it to you.  I will also make cameos.

I chose this week's date because I just really wanted to draw Babe Ruth's tubby self smacking a home-run.  (Seriously, my sketch of this had the ol' Babe looking like Chris Farley was playing him in the movie.)   HOWEVER...just 42 years after that momentous feat, the Paintmonkey's little brother was born!  Coincidence?!?!  Well..of course.  But still, it leads into me telling my little brother happy birthday!  (See what I did there?)

Enjoy knowledge!  Brain stuff is fun.

Paintmonkey Podcasting!

The day is here!  The Paintmonkey is now in the realm of internet podcast lore!  I told you a couple of weeks ago about the Jack Davis event I attended.  This is the last part of that evening.

After the art opening Robby and I headed over to the restaurant where our friend from school, Jeff,  was at a trivia contest.  It was being hosted by fellow geek, Scott.  Scott is actually a talk radio personality.  He has a good voice for it as evidenced by the fact that he is the main guy in just about every radio commercial in the greater Brunswick area.  More on this later.

The podcast is called Dinner 4 Geeks.  I've discussed them before but this was the first time I had gotten to meet the other three.  We met Ryan at the Jack Davis event.  He had to run by his office before the podcast and when he got there we found out why.  Ryan makes his own action figures.  As a gift to Robby and I, he had made us a zombie head and one of the chilled monkey brain entrees from "Temple of Doom"!

Pretty sweet, huh?  I can swap out the head of a Han Solo Kenner figure and make him an extra on "The Walking Dead"!

So then we started the podcast.  You can either download it at iTunes or listen to it here on Libsyn.  Ours is Episode 31.  I apologize if I babble a bit.  I didn't actually find out what the homework was until right before the recording but I stand by my statement (for the most part) that I can find something amazing about any of the artists put forth.  And I did.  Even Ryan's really obscure ones.

But here are the gifts I gave them.

For Scott (who I still can't believe could tell what year this outfit was from)...

For Ryan...

 
For Ron...

And finally, for Jeff...

Again, it was a fantastic evening, and I had a ball.  Now through all of this, I knew Robby and I were pinko liberals walking into a hotbed of conservatism.  Ron is (or used to be) the head of the local GOP and Scott's DJing gig is on...*shudder*...FOX!  I listened to his show that morning and I actually quite enjoyed it.  I don't agree with everything he was saying but I did think he was quite reasonable.  (He thought it was funny that I said that.)  Even our friend Jeff is pretty much on the right hand side of the political spectrum.  Ryan is...well, I'm not sure about Ryan.  Ryan just...is.

But this got me thinking.  We are all going to disagree about things.  But if we shun the other side we will never find common ground.  We will never truly understand what the other side thinks.  We all need to talk about the stuff that makes us the same.  I had a wonderful time discussing artists and pop culture and geek matters with these guys.  And not once did they hiss at me or call me some derogatory term for liberal.  Maybe the way to healing the country is through Geekdom.  And that night we found that one thing that can bring us together as a nation.

Rob Liefeld is just awful .

It's Tuesday...Again!?!?!

Seriously...wasn't it just Tuesday last week?  Anyways, this week's Tuesday Toonsday is another from my "Creatures I Have Seen" line.  I know it's a been a little negative (most stories from the world o' retail are.)  So in an effort to be better, I am working on something new and positive for next week.  That's not to say negative won't slip back in.  Far from it.  I still find horrible things funny so in they will go.  But I will TRY to be more positive.

This week's entry:

Now I am not saying that single dads who go out with their kids are awful.  I know many single dads who are incredible parents and love their children very much.  I am pointing and laughing at the ones who pay NO attention to their offspring and then throw a credit card at them in order to maintain the familial "love".

BONUS!
I am throwing in the mountain lion mascot I've been working with.  I did this sketch a while back.

And then I finished it up as this...

Worked out okay...

Jekyll Toonsday

This continues my coastal Georgia adventures and carries it into this week's Tuesday Toonsday.

On Saturday, I decided I would drive over to Jekyll Island and see if I remembered anything from when I was a kid.  I did not.  A lot more "resort-ey" than I remembered.  Oh well.  However, this was my main takeaway of the island...

Sorry it's not in color.  Next week I will be back to normal "tooning" schedule.

St. Simons Island Trip (cont...)

There actually was much more to the evening AFTER the Jack Davis event.  Robby and I were guest "geeks" on a podcast I have mentioned here before called Dinner 4 Geeks.  We had a ball doing it but it deserves it's own blog post so I will get to that later.  I think the episode will air somewhere around August 18th.

The next day, the art gallery was having a slide presentation about Jack Davis which I tried to RSVP to, but I did it too late.  I went over just on the off chance I could sneak in but at worst I got to see the Jack Davis drawings again in a much less crowded atmosphere.  Again...if you have the chance to ever see his work in person, just go.  His sense of humor is contagious and you can NOT leave without a smile on your face.

HOWEVER...I had waited too long so the presentation was full.  But I did get to see Mr. Davis again.  So I looked around a little more and then headed out to paint.

I literally just walked across the parking lot to the St. Simons Island lighthouse area and set up my little rig.  I got my little portable folding chair and set up my paints.

I actually had my first people come up and see what I was doing.  It wasn't nearly as weird or uncomfortable as I thought it would be.

So I got this one done and I wanted to paint a little more.  So I started wandering around the area.  There was a nice road scene that had live oaks forming an interlacing canopy which I really liked.  However, I kind of had to sit in the road and then the mosquitoes showed up.  Nope.

Back to the pier in front of the lighthouse.  There was a cluster of trees and there was this one beautiful REALLY old live oak off by itself.

I was fighting this one originally.  I drew it out in pencil and then started the watercolors.  It wasn't working.  It irritated me to the point that I just grabbed an ink pen and started scribbling over it.  And then magically it got better.  Once that happened, I put more watercolor on and it felt much better to me.

I was really pleased at how well my little painting rig worked and it was pretty light to carry around and I felt comfortable working on it.  I look forward to doing more.

Heroes and Friends* Revisited

*Now that Randy Travis is safely out of the hospital, I can use his line without fear of seeming insensitive.

This past week I went down to Saint Simon's Island.  A fellow alumni of Young Harris who lives in the Brunswick area had let me know about a retrospective being put on by the Glynn County Art Association.  The artist: why, none other than St. Simon's resident Mr. Jack Davis!  (Who, as you may recall...I am semi-obsessed with.)

Now unfortunately, my wife couldn't make it down on this trip.  I was forced to doing my secretive "meal drawings" alone.

I thought he was praying over his little continental breakfast for what seemed like a REALLY long time...just head down and not moving.  Then I noticed his phone behind the cup of juice.

Since the wife couldn't go, I had an extra ticket to the art opening and the accompanying panel discussion.  But I knew another of my fellow YHC alumna lives just north of the island in Savannah.  Robby was more than happy to take me up on the offer and Thursday night he headed down.  If you want to read some good stuff, be sure to check out Robby's blog Ramblings From the Tide.  He and his wife are both excellent writers.

Once Robby arrived, we headed over to the panel discussion.  Mr. Davis and his family were in attendance as well as many locals who obviously thought the world of him.

The panel was moderated by Nick Meglin, who used to be a writer and editor of MAD magazine.  Great stories and hugely entertaining, Mr. Meglin was actually interviewed with Robby beforehand by a local television station/internet pornographer/we're not really sure what they were.  If we get our hands on the footage I will be sure to post it.  It was really great.

The other two people on the panel were Mr. Jack Pittman, former president of the southeastern chapter of the National Cartoonists Society...

...and Mr. Tom Richmond, who is a current artist at MAD and is the new caricature hired gun now.  He is also extremely wiggly...

.

...and so he ended up looking like Nicolas Cage in my sketchbook.  (He does NOT look like Nicolas Cage.)

They all talked about Jack's influence and what he meant to each of them personally.  At the end of the discussion, Mr. Pittman presented a beautifully bound art notebook filled with cartoons from many of today's comic artists expressing their appreciation for Jack Davis.  The cover had an image of a self portrait that Jack had done, and they ran it through a 3-D printer to make a plaque for the cover.  Very cool.

We walked back across the street to the Glynn County Art Association.  I highly recommend if you have the chance to go see this exhibit.  Jack Davis drawings are amazing in print.  In person, they defy description.  Just go.  Thank me later.

Robby and I went up to Jack and his grand-daughter was kind of wrangling him and keeping the flow going.  She asked me if I had something I wanted him to sign and I replied "no actually...I have a gift".  I gave him a copy of one of my Bulldog calendars that I had written "thank you" on and signed.  He smiled warmly and seemed genuinely excited as he looked at it.  When everyone refers to him as a "true southern gentleman"...THAT is what they are talking about.  I will carry the image of Jack Davis smiling at my drawing for a VERY long time.

At the end of the evening, Robby got an old Bulldog clipping he had signed and we got our picture made with the man himself.  It was a wonderful evening.

...and it wasn't quite over yet.  More on that tomorrow.

True Story...

Full disclosure:  This week's Tuesday Toonsday is NOT something I have actually seen with my own two eyes.  It IS something one of my co-workers sees at least once a week.  He steps out of his office (which is hidden away in one of the permanent exhibits) and catches them doing this.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.

Seriously.  Riding the damned thing.

Patience is a Virtue...

...but some days it is darned hard to maintain.  This is the next in my Tuesday Toonsday line of museum cartoons:

Creatures I Have Seen

Seriously...they just stomp on stuff that's on the floor.

Tuesday Toonsday! (For now...)

I'm gonna try this to make myself do something that will keep up the interest of YOU, the reader, on at least a weekly basis.  I am going to try to give you a new cartoon every Tuesday.  Hence Tuesday Toonsday. 

There has a been a vigorous (and sometimes anarchic) debate on the Facebook about what it should be called.  I wanted alliterative.  I wanted to let people know it was on Tuesday.  And about 'toons.  Lots of opinions but for now we are going with Tuesday Toonsday.  Although I did hit on "Paintmonkey Toon Sessions" which is about as rock n' roll a thing as ever I've done, so maybe I will re-visit soon.

Much thanks to my buddy Jeff, of Dinner 4 Geeks fame for his tweaking of the name.  (If you like Geek culture, go give the boys a listen.  You won't be disappointed!)

On to the toons!

I have worked in the museum world for over 13 years now.  I love it very much and is quite a rewarding way to make a living but you see...things.  The other day I came across some old sketches that I had done in the wild.  With that in mind, I introduce:

I have many more of these planned.

And as a bonus for my first Tuesday Toonsday, I share a quick thing I did last night.  The Best Western Denver Southwest facebook page.  They are turning their hotel into a dinosaur themed world o'fun.  And it was a fun idea.  Draw a dinosaur as an old timey gentleman (or lady).

I think he's fun.

I hope you've enjoyed your first Tuesday Toonsday and come back for more!  Tell your friends!

Plein Air Practice

I've been working more on my plein air painting/sketching. For those that don't know that term, it means "paintin' outside". Which is usually what I call it. Anyhoo...

So I had today off as a co-worker is having her wisdom teeth out this week and I'm working the weekend for her. I thought I would take advantage of being off on a day I normally am not and try to go outside on one of the (semi) drier days we've had in a while. (As I type this the thunder is rolling in followed by what I presume to be another 8-10 inches of dampness.)

So I have seen this section of shops every day as I go to work and one day a few months ago, I thought to myself "you should paint those". So today I did.

As I sat there ALMOST done, A Clarkston police officer pulled a woman over for running a red light. Naturally she pulled over right in front of me so the police car was directly in front of what I was working on.

This next one is from last week. We took my Dad to dinner (belatedly) for his birthday. As we waited I got out the kit and the wife waited in the car, every now and then telling me I was going to get sun poisoning because I forgot a hat. (I didn't.) Here's what I got out of that one.

I'm still getting used to painting on my lap and the general hotness of it. I can't just confine my painting to those four days a year where the weather is perfect. But it's getting there.

Life and Loss

I'm going chronologically with this week's entry.

I have been lucky enough to have two women in my life who know WAY more about computers than I ever will and are both nice enough not to yell at me TOO much about my computer related catastrophes.  One is my beautiful wife and the other is our IT wizard at work.  A month or two back, my co-worker came to me and asked if I would do a cartoon portrait of her and her newly grown family.  I said sure and got all the needed pictures and reference materials.  A couple of weeks after that she announced that she would be leaving in July for San Francisco where her husband had gotten a job in software or something (seriously, I truly don't get computers).  And she wanted the drawing done for his first Father's day as a father.

I liked it and she did, too.  So happy (late) father's day!  All of us at work will miss you guys!

Secondly, my grandmother passed away last week.  I won't dwell on it except to say that it actually led to a nice day overall (all things considered).  My wife and I got to hang out with my family and I forget how much I like seeing them.  We went back to my aunt and uncle's house afterwards and while the kids ran around, and the adults talked about old times and new, and we all ate our fill of fine Southern grief-food, I sat out back and drew my uncle's dog Luger.  Luger was a hyperactive pointer who was just SO happy to see everyone.  And sniff them.  And point his large squarish head between your legs, genital comfort be damned!

I managed (quickly) to sketch this one while he momentarily took a break from running around and checking out everything.  There's about five other beginning sketches underneath this one.  He was a sweet dog though and actually pointed at a rabbit in the yard!

Appreciate the things you care about while you can!