Category Archives: drawing

Writing the Unthinkable Part II – Blind Contour Drawings

cartooning, drawing, Visual Assignments

These were the first drawings we made in the Writing the Unthinkable Workshop with Lynda Barry on November 23, 2019 in Evansville, Wisconsin. We started by drawing a full breakfast table setting with bacon eggs, and a cup of coffee… with our eyes closed. I forget the time we had to do these drawings, around one or two minutes, I think. I first heard about doing blind contour drawings from Betty Edwards’ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book.

The next thing to draw is a giraffe.

Followed by a mermaid.

The Statue of Liberty.

A skeleton.

Drawing blind is a great way to free up the mind. We were drawing in $1.00 composition books, the kind with the marbled black covers, which Lynda explained is useful for drawing because they are so inexpensive you don’t worry at all about messing up something expensive and nice. If you mess up, you can keep going. The thing about drawing with your eyes closed is that there is absolutely no wrong way to do it. You just use your mind’s eye and go for it!

Thomas Pandolfi Pianist

cartooning, drawing, storytelling

Last night Emily invited me to go along with her and her friend Haley to attend a piano concert at the Brown grand in concordia. The pianist was Thomas Pandolfi from Washington DC and he performed works by various composers from America in honor of the Veterans Day holiday.  He began and ended with Gershwin. I think he adores Gershwin. I would not know Gershwin except for the fact that we sang Gershwin’s summer time in high school chorus. I have to hand it to my public school music educators. They did exposes to some of the greats. New line

He began and ended with Gershwin. I think he adores Gershwin. I would not know Gershwin except for the fact that we sang Gershwin’s summer time in high school chorus. I have to hand it to my public school music educators. They did expose us to some of the greats. New line

He was very eloquent and theatrical. He strolled out onto the stage and mesmerized us with  his virtuosity. He had an error about him that he plan to bring culture to the backward people of the heartland. Emily giggled uncontrollably at first but I made her quit. She was making me laugh too.

These are some sketches I made.  I forgot to bring my usual small sketchbook along with me to this concert but I had a small folded piece of paper in my wallet to make the sketches on. It was the hunting license I had printed out just the day before. I can print another one.

 

Thomas Pandolfi in concert

Brown grand theater

Concordia Kansas

November 11, 2019

Anna and her daughter

cartooning, creativity, drawing

Watercolor painting of two women standing in the road in front of trees

Getting into watercolor again. It is a tricky medium. Hard to control, it goes where it is not expected to and so forth. There are some technical things I would like to improve with this. One thing is the proportions of the two women are not quite right. Also, the girl on the left has a random dark mark on her chin I didn’t intend. There’s not much you can do about that after it has dried. I’m not really satisfied with the way that face turned out and prefer the one on the right better. I think the trees have too much going on and it is pretty muddy in the background. It might be better to use less paint and more suggestion there.

The picture is only 3.5″ square, so the area for the faces is pretty tiny to begin with. It is difficult to get any details that look good at that scale and with the brushes I have. My eyesight is getting pretty bad and I might need to invest in a magnifying glass if I keep working on things like this.

I would say my favorite things with this piece that turned out reasonably well are the women’s trousers, especially the darker one on the left. Also the woman’s hair on the right. It is a good first effort and I may try to re-do this scene at some point.

Cartoon Drummer Drawings

cartooning, drawing

I found this assignment from Lynda Barry about drawing a puppet in motion from this video:

She said to choose one of the band members, divide a page into four quadrants then make four different drawings in different poses of the same character while watching the video in motion without stopping it. She said to set a timer for 2:00 minutes in which to make each drawing. It is a challenge, but it is supposed to be a cartoon so it could be more interpretive rather than a fully rendered work of art.

Here is what I came up with…

four drawings of a cartoon drummer

I like how I picked up on specific elements to feature in each drawing. Like the bottom left one, I noticed his head was thrown way back so you couldn’t see the top of his head at all, only his nose sticking way up in the air. I think my drawings became progressively more successful as I became more at ease with trying to draw a moving subject.

Early Billgx Drawings

drawing, storytelling

In a box of family treasures I recently inherited, I found this homemade birthday card I created for my grandfather Art Genereux. I’m guessing I made it during my middle-school years, around age 11 or 12.

Homemade birthday card with picture of fire truck and a cake with many candles.

I don’t think my usual drawing ability has advanced much beyond when I was 12. I know how to draw in a more detailed style, but I still prefer the cartoony look above all else, mostly because of the time involved in making drawings.

Hand written golf jokes

I can remember from early on not enjoying the process of writing words on paper. I always pressed too hard with the pen or pencil and my hand got tired. I’m quite surprised to see all of these anecdotes written out. But I loved my Grandfather very much.

After he retired from farming, he took up golfing, which came as a surprise to everyone who knew him. It was great fun to go golfing with grandpa. He had a golf cart and we would put around in what was essentially a cow pasture with sand greens. You had to drag the sand with a tool that made a smooth path for you to put on. When you were done, you raked the sand so there were no tracks left behind for the next golfer.