Sprout Episode Four

New Colours

Working at the art store allows me to thoughtfully choose some new colours for my pallet. I decided to try terre verte, cerulean blue, indigo as well as white acryla gouache which I've wanted to try for ages. I read once that Tony Diterlizzi uses it so of course I had to try it. The top one is cerulean and indigo. Next is terre verte which I think might be too pale next to my other colours. It's still a lovely colour. Nest is indigo with Acryla gouache. I'm quite happy with this one.And finally a colour study for Maddy Kettle, desert colours. I've used cerulean blue and burnt sienna.

Painty Thumbnail

Whoops! I was trying to white this out but somehow I had green paint on my brush and things got out of hand. I redid this thumbnail for Maddy Kettle but I quite like it so I'm publishing it here.

G20: Like A Banksy Stencil come To Life

A couple of sketches I did just before the protests got ugly and people started burning cop cars. I was at Spadina and Richmond, downtown Toronto just by happenstance. The art store I work at happened to be where the riot police chose to sit and wait people marching in protest. The G20 summit was held right downtown. My pictures are even shakier then usual because I was being chased by the police. Unnerving.

Anyway, I found the image of all the riot police gathered around the sculpture of a giant thimble really compelling. It's the fashion district, which explains the thimble. There were hundreds of cops. It was surreal. Really like something from Banksy.

A Flying Boat Bestiary: Flitterick.

I popped awake yesterday morning at 4 AM. Went downstairs and drew this guy. I needed a monster that was humongous and blotted out the sky. Instead I got an army of vicious flittericks. These dive bombing flying squirrels live all over North America and prefer tall things like trees, buildings and rocks. They almost never miss.

Fearsome Critters

I'm currently researching American monsters from folklore. Or fearsome critters as the lumberjacks say. If you know anything about these critters I'd be much obliged to know!

Evil

Maybe my favorite pop song. Great video as well.

Sprout Episode Three

Write Off

Mental health days always sneak up on. Nothing much got accomplished today. Adjusting to a part time job has sapped some energy as well as being kicked all night by Henry who climbed in bed with us at some point. Julie insists Henry only kicked my for 10 minutes but I'm certain it was all night. And the heat is oppressive. Forgive my wimpyness if you live in warmer climes but Toronto is a lot warmer for longer stretches then Halifax. After napping all afternoon it was all I could do to finish the bottle of excellent Chablis I had started yesterday.

With the Scholastic book and the Orca cover behind me I have only 2 more freelance projects left to do before I devote myself completely to my comics. They are both interesting assignments; a short kids comic for Oni Press and a cover for a science fiction magazine. Things feel really good work wise right now.

Please keep in mind that I still have a bunch of sketches for sale on Etsy. It'd be a huge help to me if you could buy one.

Also, tomorrow is another episode of Sprout, so stay tuned!

Scholastic Sandcastle

Yestewrday I sent off the last painting for the newest book I've done for Scholastic Education. This was a simple, fun book to do.

Treasure Of The Sierra Madre

In order to stave off the madness that comes with the unbearable loneliness that comes with making cartoons I turn to a friendly length of celluloid, well digital files or whatever. My point being is that I often have a film on while I work. I watch lots of movies. And I should share the ones that are the best and Treasure of the Sierra Madre is certainly one of the best. Stark, sort of funny and bleak but still hugely entertaining it's movies like this that makes me wish they still made movies like this....um... It's probably Bogarts best film, too.

My art teachers would be seething if they knew I watched movies while I work.

Imaginary Trip To Alsace

Day one of work at the art store went really well. The people there are great and it's pretty neat to be working right downtown Toronto. I step outside for lunch and the CN Tower is right there. To celebrate that and of course Julie's graduation we had a bottle of pretty unremarkable German sparkling wine and a great bottle of gewurtztraminer from Alsace. A family favorite. A bottle of wine is like a very cheap trip somewhere far away, a former employer of mine once said.

Slink!

Slink! is a comic I've been drawing between things. It's a surreal story about skeletons, cats and kids. I'll try and do a page every week or so and put something together at 60 pages or so. This is borne out of the frustration of getting lots of work but little work that's available or visible.I also wanted to try and do some really detailed or at least textured work with a simple, cartoony style and see where it went.

My first shift at the art store went well. My coworkers are great. More on that later.

Working Stiff

File this under being responsible. I start a new part time job tomorrow at Canada's biggest art store chain Deserre's. I needed to pick up some extra money while Julie isn't working. She graduated yesterday but is still taking a French course over the summer and me working on big, time consuming projects that won't really make much money until they're done it seemed the right thing to do. I am worried I'll just end up spending my whole paycheck there, though... While this feels a bit of a lateral move and a bit humiliating ( too honest?) it really will help us out and give me more time to work on  Maddy Kettle and The Situation is more important then a few bruises.

Congratulations Julie!

Congratulations Julie! My wife Julie had her graduation ceremony today in hogwartsesque University of Toronto. I've never seen anyone work so hard and she more then deserves this degree. she's going to be an excellent teacher.

In other news I've taken a part time job to carry us through the next while as Julie has no income, a few shifts a week at an art supply store.

Sprout Episode Two

Pirate Tales

Just a fun doodle. I don't know who this guy is but he really cheered me up. New Sprout episode tomorrow!

New Etsy Drawings

I've added a bunch of new drawings for sale on my Etsy shop all for great prices. Check it out here.

Slink! Slink?!

Just something I've been doodling between things. Finishing up stuff for Scholastic Education this morning, a book for little kids. Fun to do but I'm at the last stage: endless little fixes that seem to take forever and are the least motivating aspect of any project. The above comic Slink! will probably be published here and as a mini at some point.I'm playing with rich textures and detail to see if it creates a more immersive world.

From The Archives: Arctic Book Club.

Inspired By...

I never realized how much I love the art of New Yorker cartoons until I spent some time browsing the New Yorker Cartoon Bank. Check it out, hundreds of free cartoons!

Breathless

Watched Breathless yesterday to celebrate its 50th anniversary. It's still really compelling to watch. IMDB describes it as "an irresponsible sociopath and small-time thief, steals a car and impulsively murders the motorcycle policeman who pursues him, "  It's basically a French take on American film noir and it changed cinema.