A Busy February

So, we bid farewell to January 2012, and in comes February, and I am envisioning a lack of sleep this month.  Why, you ask?  Well, in addition to a 9-5 job, I have decided to pile on myself Herculean tasks (yes, I am being dramatic) to complete with various deadlines looming.  First, which I need to start tonight (coffee, anyone?), will be hammering out at least 1 of 10 comic strips for a contest whose deadline is this Saturday. The contest is brought to you by The Cartoonist Studio (@CartoonstStdio).

I am honestly not sure if I am going to make this one.  I gave up last week, but then I got an e-mail stating that the deadline is this Saturday, so I will see what I can get done.

The second thing I have to worry about completing is The Month of Letters Challenge.  As you may have seen from my "Delivered by Art" feature here on the blog, I love sending and receiving old-fashioned, hand-written mail, especially with artistic additions.  Since this does not require me to draw on every piece of paper or envelope (I can just write a letter), I should be able to work this one, but I would like to add art to as many posts as I can. Want to receive a letter from me, possibly with original art on it?  E-mail me your address at inkpuddle@hotmail.com.

And then there is the Narrative Magazine Winter Short Story Contest!  Why do I punish myself so?

Will I succeed?  Will I fall flat on my face?  Will this result in any good posts for Ink Puddle? Stay tuned.

Interview with Maurice Sendak

Okay, so this isn't an exclusive interview.  It's all over the Internet, but I don't see why The Ink Puddle Art Blog shouldn't get in on the action.  Because it combines two things Ink Puddle enjoys: discussions about artists and illustration as well as comedy.  So, here are the two parts of Stephen Colbert's interview with the legendary Maurice Sendak.  Enjoy!

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

And here is the second part.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Less lazy posts to follow soon.

The French Couple (Delivered by Art)

Ah, more art from James Webner, from San Francisco, sent via the U.S. Mail on a postcard.

"The French Couple," James Webner, pencil & ink on watercolor paper, 2011

And the back.

And a stamp featuring Calvin & Hobbes

Twelfth Night (Malvolio)

Trying to keep to one of my artistic New Year's resolutions, here you have my attempt to do a character illustration for Malvolio from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  Of course, I have to start off with some preliminary sketches.

Some pre-lim sketches

I knew I wanted a longish rectacular head, and hunched yet gangly body type

I wanted to backwards engineer this a bit.  Malvolio is kind of dour, stick-up-his-butt servant character who is tricked into thinking that his employer (Olivia) is in love with him.  In a falsified note he conveniently finds, Malvolio is prompted to wear yellow stockings and smile in order to please his admirer.  So, of course, prior to this Malvolio must be a frowner, and he has to already be wearing stockings of some kind.  He also goes crazy later on in the play, so I wanted pre-Malvolio to be a very stuffy, buttoned-down kind of guy: tightly tucked shirt, pomade in his hair, etc.  So, when he goes nuts, his clothes can go haywire as well as his hair and his whole demeanor.

Here is when I sketched it out in blue pencil.

and then inked.

At this point, I need to figure out whether I want to add substantially to this sketch with more solid black shadowing or if I want to use watercolors and color it in that way, or if I want to add all color with the computer.  I definitely want color, though.

New Year Resolutions

Resolutions are bunk in my opinion, but we still make them, right?  Whether we follow through with them or abandon them is up to us.  Well, here are two of mine.  Resolution Number One: to start an ongoing and regularly updated webcomic series based on my The Devil and Mr. G(andhi) comics.  It will be in full color, not like the semi-monochrome you see below, and will be in the tradition of the straightman-punchlineman and the archetype and foil tradition I have discussed in a previous posts [You can read what I am talking about here --> Indie Comics: Which Way to Go --> The Devil and Mr. Gandhi (the second direction)]

Click on the strip to see the whole comic

I already plan on cheating, but my form of cheating will require a lot of work up front.  I plan on making several "models" of the characters in various poses and expressions, scanning the sketches and full coloring them digitally.  I can then paste the figures into various backgrounds and situations and then focus on the setup and punchline.  So, the text will be new every episode, but the images will be variations of a set of figures/poses.

Resolution Number Two: Create an illustrated e-book edition of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Again, this resolution involves cheating.  I have discussed the possibility of publishing an e-book of various original content projects with the likes of fellow illustrator James Webner (you can see his postcards HERE).  However, sometimes the logistics of crafting a finely polished piece of fiction with illustrations, either alone or collaborating, can be quite daunting, and projects get thrown to the wayside. So, I am returning to my initial idea, that starting off with a public domain text that can be illustrated is the way to go.

No, I am not so lazy that I will just colorize and photoshop pre-existing images.

I figure I can add weird supplementary things like maps or potential staging designs in addition to character sketches and scene sketches, plus a cover illustration.  I figure I have to start both of these projects this month in order to ensure at least a chance of success with keeping to my resolutions.  Of course, these are artistic resolutions and have nothing to do with my own well-being.  Will I lose weight this year?  Or be a nicer person?  Don't hold your breath.

Twelfth Night

With a boss lingering at work, and a Twelfth Night feast planned for tonight, I figured I would get my blogging in during the day.  In honor of Twelfth Night, I have been re-reading Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  I have alos been testing out my new A4 size Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, too.  I did some preliminary sketches, and you can see them at http://sketches.inkpuddle.com.  I also started to do a sketch of Malvolio, and then it turned into more of a cartoonish version of a playbill.  If you've ever seen this play performed, you know that when Malvolio comes out smiling in his double-gartered yellow tights, it is one of the best over-the-top moments in Shakespeare comedy.  I made the mistake of using a yellow marker before laying down the ink, so it started to feather when touching the color.  Sir Toby Belch laughs in the background while Olivia is confused.  I kind of want to keep the foreground figures and title loose and then fill in the entire background with color, stripes, almost like a carnival tent rather than theater curtains, if that makes sense.  I also wouldn't mind doing a whole series of caricature cartoons of the whole dramatis personae.

And then I started working on a stipple-effect big-head portrait of Shakespeare.  I did this from memory, just from my own "image" of Shakespeare in my head.  It has issues, but I plan on finishing this one, and it already has me interested in doing more very fine cross-hatching and stipple-effect drawings.

More Envelope Art

Although I have been sick, I have not given up on the 12 Days of Christmas.  Today is the 10th Day of Christmas and I have for you more envelope art that I am working on at work.  I brought in some better ink and I am using a metal nib pen.

Draft #1

Again, I am manufacturing space to use as the From: and To: address fields. I am going to continue to use black ink to fill this in.  I don't think the paper is thick enough to use watercolor on it, and I must decide whether I want to use some form of marker or colored pen to fill in some color.

Draft #2

Final Draft before addresses and stamp

I think I need to start re-reading* Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for these last two days.  I would like to do some quick interpretative sketches of scenes from the play.  Anyone want to join me?  Sketch something from Twelfth Night and e-mail it to me, and we will celebrate Twelfth Night for two days (and nights?).  Jim, I am talking to you! Feel free to draw yours truly as Sir Tobey Belch.  inkpuddle@hotmail.com

*I definitely re-read things: perhaps more so things like Shakespeare plays, or poems, or philosophy (things which are meant to be re-read), but I also like to re-read favorite novels like Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  and Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev.  Visit my site on Goodreads.com to see what I am reading, and share your thoughts.  I went so far as to ask Goodreads.com to make re-reading as a standard "book shelf" listing.