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.