Reworking the coloring process again. Actually I redrew this owl from an old pencil sketch today. The line art took 5 minutes. The digital coloring 2 hours –but I did learn a few things. If this were a painting, I would need a few more hours. But seeing as this is an exercise in the process of combining words with pictures at somewhat of a relative speed, I’m on the right track. Keep going little munchkin. You will make it to the finish line if the finish line doesn’t get you first. I will do it again. Here is the pencil sketch from a few years ago…
Once again I find myself working with the alphabet. I think it’s my destiny. I have closed my office door because the cats have captured some poor critter under my rolling tool cabinet. I never thought living in this sweet place would yield me so much wildlife havoc with my loving, merciless cats. Lately they are constant hunters. I don’t mind as they have caught quite a few mice and a couple of rats and a hefty squirrel. sigh So back to the design of the day. I’ve been working on coloring my line art. This is a png file slightly reworked. View the collection on my products. It’s kind of hard to jump around the world marketplace especially with so many venues and so many millions of designers. I have added another POD site which is very useful as it gives me additional perspective. Consider that people seem to care only for trends and that is now the name of the game. Overwhelming. Redbubble has six million views a month and I think Amazon merch has over 20 million a month. That is more than my little brain can absorb. So I press on because I am doing what I really enjoy so that’s what I’m doing during the pandemic. I do what I can with what I have. I think that’s a line from “The Aristocats” movie, somewhere in the ’70. Maurice Chevalier and Za Za Gabor voice overs. delightful music I remember.
This little puppy is a quick and fun sketch of a kid who has good and bad qualities as well as big and wild dreams. I’ve been playing around with png files and ha ha trying to stay on the right layer when drawing. Nah, it’s not that bad but sometimes it gets kind of hairy. I have been trying out Teepublic and enjoying it. check it out if you have a minute.
Once upon a time in a city or state I was living in that I can’t remember, there was an exhibit of many original drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec. I had always admired his work but really never known much about his life. The exhibit was downstairs in a kind of basement setting. I remember it was very dimly lit down there to prevent light damage to the art. All the works were small and intimate. This was fascinating as most of us know he painted very large paintings and posters, depicting Paris life and the can can as we know it. This was because he was not just a painter but an illustrator and just as importantly, a caricaturist. The exhibit feature many caricatures of the everyday people in his life.
The drawings seemed to jump off the paper and hit me hard. They hit me in my head, in my stomach and I immediately loved him. I stayed for a very long time, reveling in the idea that when you die, you will not be dead. I had just met a truly great man. The idea grew in my head that If you were born to connect with the history of the world, you would leave something behind. Here in front of me was a little miracle of sorts. This tiny man with his mangled body and his ill fate somehow managed to make his whole life a statement. Tragic though it was, he somehow turned this disabilities into something wonderful people could use as an inspiration. It left a mark on history. He left a permanent mark on me. I hope he will never be forgotten .
This little drawing was actually two that I put together. I was just learning photoshop and combined the Paris background with the pen and ink. It was a lot of fun to do. I don’t know why but I ran across it in my files and it brought back memories.
It got me to wondering that if you were born with the stack of cards this man was dealt, would you do as well in history or would you be as forgotten as the tiny spec of sand on an ocean shore? Is the world the same now or is it completely different: more cruel, more hostile? Is there more hate and bigotry or is it more exposed? I think it’s the world is the same but the language of survival is different.
Painting Mexico 
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