My Wife and Her Day at the Ney

Turns out, yesterday was the last Saturday for free drawing classes at the Elisabet Ney Museum in Austin until February!  It was my wife's turn.  Let's see what she did!

Selah worked with grey paper, and had both black and white pencils.  First she made a page of drawings that she only gave herself 10 minutes to work on, each.  (Those are on the lower of the two pages below.)  Then, she cut that time limit in half and did a page of 5 minute pieces.




Marvelous!

Come Drawing at the Elisabet Ney Museum!

This time of year, the Elisabet Ney Museum in the Hyde Park area of Austin offers free drawing classes.  They provide paper, pencils, folding chairs, and boards, and let you go anywhere in the building and basically get free, frozen life-models to pose for you via Elisabet Ney's perfectly realistic scupltures.  

Here's the sculpture I drew last Saturday:

And here's my version:

Check the Elisabet Ney Museum's Facebook page for updates each week (sometimes they have to cancel these things) and come by!  10am until noon, Saturday mornings.  I believe it only goes on for a couple of months, wrapping up in October.

Geekfest 2015: The Hulk Files

No sooner had I hung my shingle in the Killeen Geekfest Artists' Alley than a man stopped by asking if I did sketches, and if so, what would one cost.

Sketches?  Sketches where?  Like on a piece of paper?

The man helpfully elaborated: Would I draw him a picture of the Hulk for his sketchbook?  He handed me the large volume, and as I flipped through, I realized it was not a sketchbook of his OWN drawings, but rather the drawings of many different artists whom he would ask for Hulk art.

"It doesn't have to be the Hulk himself!  It can be any of his villains, or cast.  Whatever YOU want!  How much would you charge for that?"

"Gosh..."  I was more worried about messing up his sketchbook.  "Let's just say $10."

"That's not enough.  I'll give you $20."

"Okay, but that's my final offer!"

"No rush!  I'll come by around the end of the night, and see if you've had time to work on it."

Flipping through his sketchbook, this is what I saw:

What a jolly lot of fun!

Intimidated by some of these, I went ahead anyway, and came up with this for my contribution:

It's Hulk archvillain the Leader, driven to distraction by the glorious giant brain of the very first Hulk bad guy, the Gargoyle!

Well, maybe only a so-so drawing, really....  But, my customer was delighted, and gave me a rousing, "Perfect! Perfect!" when he returned.

He assured me that the drawings in the book that had been more technically executed were generally the ones he had obtained via mailing the book around the country to cartoonists willing to take the job on at their studios.  He brought four or five such sketchbooks to every convention he attended (the other three had been worked on by other artists present at Geekfest that day), and already had at least four completely filled up and sitting on his shelves at home.  And he began the whole project back in 1992!

Hats off, Hulk-o-Maniac!  Thanks for letting me be a small part of it all!

Geekfest Dawn

Going to Geekfest in Killeen, to host a three-day log Comic Jam!  Photos and samples soon!

My Family Re-Imagined as Transformers

During the Memorial Day storm of 2015, we hunkered down in Condescending Manor and came up with Transformer characters for Selah and the kids!

Lunch Drawings for Dorothy: Kindergarten, Set 8

Day 151: Wanda Grieg, from the McGurk Mysteries
(Dorothy dressed like Wanda for "Dress Like Your Favorite Character Day")

Day 152: Ub Iwerks scariness

Day 153: Tim Boo Ba

Day 154: The Crazy Gang's Knave

Day 155: The Crazy Gang's Clown

Day 156: The Crazy Gang's Red Queen





Day 157: The Black Panther





Day 158: Jonny Quest





Day 159: Silverplate (Transformer based on Dorothy)





Day 160: Alicorn (Transformer based on Selah)





Day 161: Catwoman, classic costume





Day 162: The Shobijin

Day 163: Gidorah





Day 164: Swashbuckling Nightcrawler





Day 165: Mothra

Lunch Drawings for Dorothy: Kindergarten, Set 7

Then, for one month, I only gave her characters with Spanish names...

Day 113: El Zorro

Day 114: Marvel Comics' version of Zorro... El Aguila

Day 115: La Arana

Day 116: I was sick, so Selah drew Frida Kahlo

Day 117: Don Quixote y Rocinante

Day 118: La Espirita, from the West Coast Avengers

Day 119: The original Human Torch's sidekick, Toro

Day 120: Lobo

Day 121: Mas y Menos

Day 122: El Dorado of the Super Friends

Day 123: El Gato, from Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes' Omega the Unknown

Day 124: El Gaucho, of the Batmen of All Nations

That was it for Spanish Month, due to several sick days for Dorothy, a couple of sick days for me, and an ice day or two.

Day 125: April Fools' Day Bat-Mite

Day 126: Diamondback

Day 127: Zaran

Day 128: D.W.

Day 129: Steve Ditko's Squirrel Girl

Day 130: Steve Ditko's Mr. A

Day 131: Steve Ditko's Spider-Man

Day 132: Steve Ditko's Leader

Day 133: Steve Ditko's Dr. Strange

Day 134: Joe Simon's Captain America

Day 135: Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby's Woblina Strangelegs

Day 136: Pablo, the Penguin who Hated the Cold

Day 137: Lockjaw

Day 138: Tacky

Day 139: The Glorkian Warrior

Day 140: Ladybug Girl

Day 141: The Incredible Hulk

Day 142: Mangog

Day 143: The Odinsleep

Day 144: Jeffrey Brown's Princess Leia

Day 145: The Red Ghost's Super-Apes

Day 146: Airazor, from Transformers: Beast Wars

Day 147: Power Pack's Mom

Day 148: Little Peewee

Day 149: Jack P. McGurk

Day 150: Rattrap, from Transformers: Beast Wars