This cartoon is based on a doodle I did along time ago that I tucked away in my files.
UPDATE: I found the original concept. I like the rooster in this one better, and I’m not hot on the look of penguin character. I do however, like that he is holding his stomach as if to barf. It just isn’t playing well in the image.
If I decide to draw this over. I will either drop that action for him or “push it” in a better way.
This is a good lesson for my wife. Honey, are you awake? This is why I hold onto my little scraps of papers with my doodles. I did this 2 yrs ago while I was taking minutes for a meeting at work. 2 yrs later this concept is revisited for an Illustration Friday submission. Was there any financial compensation for holding onto this piece of paper for two years? No! But, who knows what the future holds and for that reason alone it is important to keep good records. Just in case.
Now, get off my back about the paper. Kidding, I love you sweetie.
For my birthday my in-laws gave me Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson. I normally have trouble with how-to books. They typically don’t inspire me to act. This book however starts off with doodling and contains over 35 exercises for the reader to do while reading along.
What I like about this book so far (I’m on exercise 3) is how much it has loosened me up. I use Illustration Friday as a prompt to exercise my creativity. I start with a concept based on the word of the week and then put the idea to paper.
I’ve forgotten how much fun it is to let things emerge from the line, the squiggle, or the shape without any preconceived ideas. This book has reminded me of letting go and drawing just to draw. It is a welcomed break from what I’ve been doing lately. 
These images were done with a magic marker and a ball point pen. The figures in the foreground of each panel were the initial drawings. I then added random lines here and there to fill them in.
The man with the machinery is my favorite because of all the various mechanisms in the background. I didn’t care if the machinery was logical in any capacity or served any particular function. I just put marks down on paper and that was very liberating for me.
I turned 32 a few weeks ago. People have told me that their thirties were their best years, better than their twenties anyway. My twenties were filled with many events, some epically wonderful, some dreadfully tragic and many that fall in the- I know I did something yesterday but I really can’t remember what category, like the day I made toast, nothing much to report about there.
Lately things have been such a blur that if I ever get called as an eyewitness for something that happened more than an hour ago someone is going to jail, they may possibly die.
I enjoyed my twenties, for the most part, and so far my thirties seem to be just as enjoyable. However, I feel like my attitude towards where I am in my life has changed for the better and I feel less pressure to meet some unrealistic insane ideal of how or who I should be. I’m more comfortable with how my life is unfolding than ever and I’m coming to the slow realization that some things are out of my control and not worth worrying about, just see what happens and deal with the results. That’s the best I can come up with anyway.
Well, this weekend I got to go home to see a few friends with my wife and daughter by my side. My friend and blood brother, Josh, was visiting from Florida and my buddy, Charles, was turning 32. We ate and talked for several hours. Our conversations centered around politics, relationships and babies. We huddled around the grill cooking meat and offering our opinions on the state of Ohio and our nation as a whole, party politics, and the lack of attention given to our aging and outdated infrastructure. Very macho.
What struck me as odd was not the topics we discussed but our physical forms. Some of us have wrinkles, some have lost some weight while others have gained it, and hair seems to be vanishing from some parts of the body only to be found elsewhere in less flattering areas. No one ever says, gosh you have such beautiful ear hair. I wish my ear hair was that curly and thick.
I think when people say their thirties are better than their twenties, they are not referring to the physical aging process but the mental and emotional maturity that comes to us with age. I’m tired of being tired and sore for two days after any strenuous activity. I’d like to see my waist size match or be below my age. I’d like those young kids to stay off my lawn. That last part is me just complaining.
Happy birthday Charles.
I love this week’s topic for Illustration Friday – Shadows. As an adult shadows no longer carry such fright as they did when I was a child. The topic flooded my brain with memories of childhood. My siblings, our neighbor Lindsay, and I would spend our summer vacation nights playing hide-n-go seek. I’d use the shadows to hide from whoever was “it”.
In my grandmother’s basement we’d play games leery of the corner with the Halloween candles of skeletons, witches, and black cats on the shelves because there was an old shower stall that held a silhouette of someone lurking behind the green corrugated plastic wall. In reality the shadow was just more of her junk, but to us the initial fear of that shadow stripped us of any rational thought and even though we knew, deep down, there was no one there, at first glance something sinister seemed to wait for us in that corner and we dared not go near it.
However, the place that I feared the most was the trestle on the railroad tracks that ran over the creek. During the day this was were we played, fought and used as our meeting place before setting off on our adventures. These tracks were the fastest route from my house to the neighborhood where my friends lived.
As young children we were forbidden from walking down the tracks unsupervised because that is where the bums, drunks and kidnappers lurked. But, as tweeners and teenagers this was our portage and when it was time to go home for dinner or to go to bed we’d have to walk the tracks in the dark.
Under moonlight, surrounded by trees I’d walk quickly over the trestle opting for the walkway and hand rail over the oddly spaced railroad ties to walk across the creek that ran twenty or so feet below. Now, under this small bridge there were four ledges. One side of the trestle was favored over the other due to accessibility and lack of visibility.
During the day we’d find old beer bottles that someone had left from the night before so we knew we were not the only ones who used or frequented this area (although we felt as if it was ours and ours alone). At night this was the most intimidating part, not looking or acting frightened if you were with someone, and you usually were not because there was comfort in numbers, but you’d anticipate someone grabbing your leg through the space between the ties or the fear of someone hiding underneath on the ledge like a troll waiting to grab you and kill you.
On one particularly dark night when the moon was absent or shrouded in clouds, I walked alone towards home on the wooden planks of the walkway, my footsteps made loud, dull thumps in the eerily quiet darkness. As I came to the end of the trestle underneath me, on the ledge, I heard someone’s quick, startled movements, the clanking of beer bottles, and the familiar sound of gravel and rock grinding under their feet. I did not hesitate for one moment. I ran as fast as I could back home. Fearful of tripping on the rocks and the uneven ties it felt like my feet never touched the ground. I dared not look back I just ran till I was safe at home.
Above this rant are some random thumbnail sketches of the topic.
