Zombie Shakespeare on The Bard's Day

April 23rd.  This is the day The Bard was made, let us rejoice and be glad!

Sumi ink with brush on brisol board

This is also the day The Bard died, and on the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures.  And thus, he became, ZOMBIE SHAKESPEARE!


A color version of this and more is still to come, but I wanted to get this scanned and posted before April 23rd was gone.  I will have more on what Shakespeare portrait I based this on.  Also, I will update this post on the difficulty I had when I chose to go from what I thought would be a pencil drawing to an inked drawing.

The Devil

So, since I drew Gandhi, I thought I would draw Satan as well.

Oil pastel on bristol board

Since oil pastels never really dry fully, I dared not place this on my scanner, so I took of photo of it and did some minor histogram adjustments to make the white places more accurately reflect the color white.  I started off with whites, pinks, oranges and reds, then moved in with darker reds and finally blacks and yellow and whites to use as shadow and highlights, respectively.

I started adding some orange to be used as a midtone between the darker reds and red, and the orange was pulling up the underlying color.  The edge of the pastel was too pointy.  I had to use the flat edge instead.  In this way, not too much orange is laid down.  It smears and pushes around the other colors and some orange remains, but if you are patient, I think this is the way to go.  Subtly adding layers and color, some smudging, some pushing and blending of the other colors.

I only used a little bit of turpentine on a blending stick.  I have used turpentine more liberally in the past on a paintbrush, but this was on bristol board, not a heavier watercolor paper or canvas. I kind of like how this turned out.  I like being able to see some of the underlying paper shining through.  Not everything has to be black ink on white paper with digitally added colors.  Although it would be outrageously painstaking, I am thinking doing an all oil pastel comic strip, even if it is very brief would be a good idea.  See the idea through to the end.  Never give up, you know?  Just like my man, Satan!

Why I Draw Gandhi

Why does Gandhi appear on this blog so often?  Even when he does not appear, he still gets mentioned, why is that?

In a way, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a.k.a. "The Mahatma," is the twentieth-century geek hero.  He was super smart, wore geeky glasses, wore clothes that were not deemed "cool," and yet he is one of the most idolized humans of the 20th century.  He transformed governments and individual lives.  He was a mover and a shaker.  I took a semester long course in leadership my junior year at college.  It was part of the Honors Program curriculum.  As part of this course, we read texts by leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi. These are figures that are bigger-than-life.  Countless books and movies are made about these people.  There is a reverence that is observed, and they have become part of our vernacular in terms of personalities that mean specific things.  In terms of non-violent protest, you can start with people like Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," which supposedly inspired people like Gandhi and King, but I think when most people think non-violent protest, they think Gandhi.

From an artistic standpoint, he lends himself to caricaturization.  He is bald, he wears round glasses, he has an awesome mustache, he wears homespun cotton Indian garb.  I should start working in his walking stick.  I think he used a walking stick.  He is fun to draw.  He can be heavily cartoonized and yet instantly recognizable because of the visual cues of glasses, stache, baldhead, etc.

So, that explains some of the reasons why my depiction of Gandhi shows up so often.  He is an admirable man.  A personal hero, you might say.  Why pair him with the Devil?  It's funny.  I like the fact that many people may think that Satan would be perfect as a lawyer, but Gandhi was the lawyer.  He had a life before he became the hunger-striking, salt march leading man he became later in life.  And since he was a real man who took moral stands, I think he makes the perfect foil for the fictional character of Satan.

Gandhi did stuff.  He took his decisions to their full conclusions. In conclusion, Gandhi was a petite Indian lawyer who had King Kong sized balls.  You have to admire that.

Cranked this one out tonight. Pencil on bristol board.

So, there you have it.  Gandhi is pretty awesome. I enjoy drawing various interpretations of him, and he will continue to appear on this blog.