Blech! (Maybe...)

I finished my test drawing of the horse. I LOVE my new pen set. I am in the mood to only use these right now. But I do still love color so I got it in my head to keep on experimenting on the horse. First the finished pen drawing...



Then I thought "why not add color to the horse". Why not, indeed? So what if you haven't used watercolor in close to twenty years? So what if you weren't that good with it to begin with? WHY NOT?



Okay, well it's probably not as bad as I first thought looking at it, but it's not great. And it's certainly nowhere NEAR the quality I want to have for these types of drawings. I think I like where this is going so I'll keep practicing and we'll see what happens. (On a professional note: watercolor does NOT work well on bristol board. Lots of warping going on. But I figured that would happen.)

Back to drawing board...literally.

A Couple of New Things

Not too much today, but I wanted to put up SOMETHING. I've gotten a couple of new cartoons done. I'm not really in the mood to go all political blogg-ey, so I'll let them do the talking.

I dislike re-writing history...especially since there is no one conquered yet.



Next up, the obvious answer to everything in the United States today.



And now I just wanted to update on my Rapidograph testing...(outside of the work done on the cartoons, that is). I AM in fact, continuing to work on the horse drawing. It's just taking a bit longer since I've been trying to get the cartoons done. So, here is the next progression of horse pen and ink...



...seriously, I am LOVING my new scanner.

Irritation and Jubilation

I have a lot going on this week. The cartoons are coming as fast as I can get them down. I am perpetually irritated though. One of the unfortunate side effects of paying attention. But the jubilation comes from having a lot of new tools that REALLY make this whole process a lot easier.

My friend Denise (heretofore referred to as the Font Queen or FQ for those in the know) had an extra set of Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph pens that she was gracious enough to allow me to have. These things absolutely rock! They make lettering a MUCH less ungainly task and that while I still don't LIKE it, at least I don't break out into a sweat thinking about it.

This one was done last night after talking to my cousin through Facebook. She is a teacher and had just found out that her county was making cuts to a reading program that she considers very important. And that was enough for me. Getting angry about these things is tricky though. Really the only thing you want to do is tie the people responsible to a chair and just scream at them and call them obscene names all night. And while funny to me, it doesn't really lend itself to a fun graphic joke (okay, again, funny to ME). So while as a person you may be HUGELY irritated by something you have to find a (hopefully) productive and (even more hopefully) humorous way to get your point across. Here's what I came up with last night:



A better way of expressing my displeasure about this topic than just screaming mindless insults. And just as a side note, the writing on the signs was REALLY hard to come up with. This is because I have awesome parents, and family, and teachers who TAUGHT ME TO READ! Unfortunately for me, this makes purposefully writing things wrong extremely difficult. Oh well. So thank you to everyone who ever encouraged or inspired me to read!

And just so people don't think I've gone completely fine art-free, I did get started on this before my dander got riled up.



The other tool that is making life easier is my new scanner. Taking photos of oil paintings works pretty well, but photographing pen and ink is a GIANT pain in the keister. All in all life is pretty good on the art front.

Tea Party

I have semi kept up with the "Tea Party" national convention this weekend. Started as a backlash against what they see as wasteful government spending (oddly enough it only started AFTER Obama took over and continued Bush actions. Weird.), the "Tea Party" movement has since become a forum for the right. The FAR right. Former GOP House representative from Colorado Tom Tancredo delivered a "rousing" speech to kick off the convention. The first part of today's cartoon is an excerpt from that speech...



Yes, and in addition to this little he gem, he advocates a "civics literacy" test before being "allowed" to vote in this country. At best this speech was a horrifying echo of Strom Thurmond in the '40's and at worst (if he took a tiny little step to the right) it is a new rallying call for racists in this country. Perhaps the former representative needs a refresher course on civics himself.

(I know I've been a little 'toon heavy these days, but I've got another painting on the way. I promise.)

I Guess it's NOT So Obvious

I was perusing my various news websites this weekend when I came across several articles about the same topic: texting while driving.

Now Lady Paintmonkey and I do not "text". (I put that in quotes because "text" first and foremost, IS NOT A VERB!) As a general rule, if we want to talk to you we will call you. Or email you. Or we just don't worry about it. Whichever. I am just now becoming semi proficient as a typist for emails and putting thoughts to this site (Thank you Mrs. Herndon. I really only took your class in high school because I thought it was an easy elective. Who knew back in the Dark Ages known as "the 80's" that typing would REALLY be useful one day?). So I certainly am not interested in learning to either type using a non-"QWERTY" keyboard on an overpriced Googlypod phone or the more archaic (by today's standards) typing using the numbered keypad of a phone. I consider it the death of language and I refuse to learn all of these ridiculous acronyms and shortenings of words. Don't even get me started on emoticons.

That being said, I move on to the topic of texting while driving. Being free of the constraints of endlessly waiting on my phone to jiggle and alert me that someone has sent me a message I get to watch people with their technology obsession. I really wish there were more open manholes in this country. I wonder if that would wise people up to paying attention to where they are going. And that is while they are walking. They do the exact same thing while they are driving. Ta-da! Seems a no-brainer to me. Don't do it. You will die and take people out with you.

So of course the articles I read this weekend are nothing like that. On CNN, it was reported that studies show that states who made it illegal to text and drive didn't show any difference in accidents. No mention of whether or not people were still doing it. Just that there is no real difference in statistics. And my favorite was that the Georgia legislature needed to see more studies done on this topic before they made a decision. Which is what led me to this:



At one point when I was laboring over the wording, I thought about just having the first kid say "I didn't get your last text...". I personally think this made for a funnier cartoon but it didn't get across my main point which was that the Georgia legislators are a bunch of indecisive weenies who ignore what seems to me to be a fairly obvious decision. DO NOT LET PEOPLE TEXT AND DRIVE! They are not paying attention and they will kill you! Or maybe we just need to leave more manhole covers open.

Two-fer Saturday!

I feel good. I got the painting of the chapel done and I got another cartoon done. Since I've been promising the chapel for a while, let's start with it.



The Susan B. Harris Chapel in Young Harris, Ga. Many a convocation I sat through in that little chapel. A pair of my best friends from college got married in it. And it is one of the few structures that I don't think Young Harris College will demolish in the name of "progress". (I hope.) That being said, I'm glad I got pictures of it when I did.

Also today, I got another cartoon knocked out. The story of James O'Keefe is one that amuses me no end but also stops me in my tracks with a "REALLY?" kind of dumbfoundedness (Is that a word?). Mr. O'Keefe is the "investigative journalist" who broke the story about the non-profit ACORN providing tax evasion tips to a "pimp" (Mr. O'Keefe in hilarious '70's undercover pimp attire). Now I will give him credit for this story. If ANYONE is giving out tips about how to skirt the law, they should be punished. Period. After the election, I have not heard if there were any investigations into this or not, but I really do think of this as a problem.

Now for the opinion portion of this. I think Mr. O'Keefe fancies himself the right wing Michael Moore (although I bet he HATES that comparison). My opinion is, he seems like nothing but a spoiled little rich kid who decided very much like a child to try and bring down those who opposed daddy's interests (and eventually his inheritance). Barack Obama was connected to ACORN so why not try and find something embarrassing on them. Again, I think those who offered illegal advice should be punished. But I don't think he actually cared about the legality of the situation. Obama was connected with an organization offering advice to pimps and hookers! JACKPOT! Go straight to Fox News! Break out the champagne!

Now on to his current "situation". Mr. O'Keefe decided to "get to the bottom of why a United States senator wasn't answering her phones about healthcare". Okay. Fair enough. Why not take an investigative crew and find out what's going on? Oh, you say you're going to dress up like phone repair guys and enter a federal office building with a hidden camera and get the answers you want? GREAT IDEA!



For an "investigative journalist", you sure didn't look into consequences for certain actions, did you? ANYONE with half a brain should realize that this type of stupidity will get you neck deep in some Homeland Security. Aaah, to be young and really really dumb.

Artistically speaking, I really like the drawing part of this one. My big experiment was the lettering. I think all my characters always look like they are screaming in the word balloons so I thought I would try a smaller sizing this time. It seems to still be legible but just barely. oh well, back to the drawing board (literally). Thanks for listening!

Just A Little Filler

I am ALMOST done with two paintings that I am really happy with (so far). However, I am at the point that seems to take the longest time for me, which is the tidying up at the end. But I feel pretty good when I actually get something up on this blogosphere, so I thought I would put up the quick project I did today.

One of my coworkers put something on Facebook about planning a Easter Egg hunt at the natural history museum I work at. That made me think immediately of this image:



It only took about 15 minutes to get the idea together and then down onto some bristol board. I almost forgot the bunny ears, which is weird because I thought they were the funniest part of the whole image. And this is only a quick drawing to get the idea across to the marketing department. I don't even care if they use it or not. They've never been interested in my ideas before but I do them because they make me laugh. (Actually why I do MOST things.)

So then Lady Paintmonkey gets home (I've had the end of this week off. Trying to get rid of rollover vacation days.). She shoots the usual photos and cleans it up in the computer for me. And then we think "why not see what a little color looks like on this thing?" Keep in mind, we're not doing this on a Mac, and this is just a basic paint program. But all in all I think it gets the idea across quite well.



Hopefully this will keep everyone satisfied until I can get the last little bits of these other projects squared away.