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Admonition from Vonnegut
“If you want to really hurt your parents and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts.” Kurt Vonnegut From A Man Without a Country: A Memoir Of Life In George W. Bush’s America (2005) (Originally appeared in Sketchbob Sketchblog on May 20, 2010)
Anatomy of a Page, Step Three: Finishing
At this final stage an important transition takes place: conscious decision making is allowed in, as long as it stays on its best behavior and promises to leave some life in the piece. The foundation was set in the last phase, so now it’s OK to view it with a critical eye and plan to ...
Anatomy of a Page, Step Two: Blocking In and Getting Blocked In
The intimidating spell of the blank page has been broken. Images and words surface. The page spread is beginning to come alive. Now it’s time to begin blocking in the whole composition. This stage is always one of the trickier ones. As the piece evolves, there are times when the composition seems to work and ...
Anatomy of a Page, Step One: Breaking the Voodoo*
Blank sketchbook pages and freshly gessoed canvases; I love them and I hate them. Every time I look at such pristine white surfaces I’m intimidated by their beauty and am overwhelmed by possibilities. There is also the fear of screwing up a perfectly good book spread or canvas with badly done work. No wonder the ...
Anatomy of a Page: Deciding to be Intuitive
Unlike some of the other art students in undergraduate school, I was conscious and deliberate in developing my creative process. I grilled professors and fellow students about where they got ideas, how they developed their ideas into bodies of work, and the materials and techniques they used. I emulated their processes, used the techniques the ...
Anatomy of a Page: Introduction
For one of my student sketchbook workshops a few years ago, I presented images of a typical sketchbook page at various stages of completion. For the participating students, it was a guided tour of my creative process: where my ideas come from, how I create images, my favorite materials and techniques, and the ways in ...
A Most Unusual Commission
Hanuman Much to my surprise and delight, I was recently asked to do my first piece of tattoo flash art. My good friend and fellow artist Richard Russell, who is already significantly illustrated, approached me to design a tattoo for him. He wants a drawing of the Hindu deity Hanuman. He will be holding up a symbol ...
New York, Noo Yawk Part I: Tim Burton Exhibition
Photo courtesy of MOMA website This weekend I had the good fortune to see the Tim Burton retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The galleries were packed with people trying to squeeze in a visit on the last weekend of the show. A little background blurb from the MOMA website: This ...
Question Number One: Photocopy Transfers
The thing I’m most frequently asked has nothing to do with the deeper meaning of my artwork. Rather, people want to know how I transfer images and text from photocopies and printouts into my books. There’s not much of a wizard behind that curtain; it’s the easiest process in the world. All you’ll need is ...
The Arting Crusaders
In March I spent a day working with art students at my Alma Mater, Moeller High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was the second time in three years I’d been asked by Art Department Chairman Greg Stanforth to hold a seminar on sketchbooks and the creative process. The art program at Moeller was outstanding when I ...
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