Slumberpups

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Sometimes I use my journal to do more involved, careful drawings. At other times, I use it to just fill in a few minutes, or to record a little factoid about my day. This spread is a good example.

Tim is such a nervous little creature that if I draw him while he’s awake, he gets very nervous that I appear to be staring him down. He can be really tough at times, joining Joe in barking at random dogs in the street, or fighting over a rawhide on the living room rug, but most of the time he lives up to his name: Timid Tim. If you met for the first time, you’d assume he’d been horribly abused as a pup, but he inherited his nerves from his mother, who is a total basket case.

I quite like this painting of Jack for the colors and the layering of paint but my unfortunate use of shading dots makes him look like he needs a good shave. Live and learn.

Backstage with the Peeps

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Jack’s band, the Peeps, continues to flourish. They are currently big fans of Tenacious D and discussing playing some of their songs at their next concert.

The lineup coninues to vary a little bit and some members are switching instruments. However, despite changing schools, Jack’s pal Max continues to be a Peep, a loyalty that bodes well.

I made up this composition as I went, beginning with Jack’s drumkit and then adding the rest of the band in a reflection in a mirror in the corner. The whole practice room is jammes with gear, wires, light and mirrrors — a challenge and a treat to draw.

Bill's conundrum

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From a recent email exchange with Bill, a reader:

Hey Danny:

I have a real conundrum.
After a few years pursuing other dreams (but still keeping my artistic feet wet). I ramped back up my freelance illustration pursuits. With my website up and loaded with samples I began sending out my promotional material. It has been a year now and I have received only a few nibbles. That being said my portrait business has really picked up.

Here is my dilemma. To me. portraits have always felt like an artistic parlor trick. Sure I can render a portrait to look like your photo but why the heck do you want me to you already own the picture. I just feel like if I let the portrait business take over I will lose my illustration goals.

My problem is I owe it to my wife and son to make more money. I know it sounds odd but my illustrations make me feel like an artist and my portraits make me feel like a whore. What should I do?

Bill

Dear Bill:

I think your issue is less about practicality and more about how you define yourself. The reality is that there are illustrators who feel like whores because they are working for big corporations and making art that will be trashed at the end of the month and wish they could do work for people who would cherish and frame their art.

Not to be harsh, but I urge you to get over your self and focus instead on being as productive as you can. It doesn’t mater if you’re an artist or an illustrator or a hack or a genius. Just take it day-by-day, make art for those who want it and keep moving. While your drawing someone’s portrait, see if you can leverage the connection and make more business for yourself. Then think of who else you can send promotional stuff to.

And think about the promotion stuff you send out. Is it really special? Is it something an art director will just toss in a drawer? Are you giving them something that’s of value and memorable? And are you …

getting back to them to remind them who you are? Is your illustration outstanding in some way? Are you targeting the right people? You seem to work mainly in pen and ink. Have you targeted newspapers? Can you get a regular gig in a local paper? Does your website showcase your work as well as possible? Did you just put it up and figure it would have to do? Do your refresh it? It seems to me that it’s a little passive and asks the visitor to do the work with tiny thumbnails. It also keeps reminding me that your work is for sale. Woo me a little first before waving the’ for sale’ sign.

You are a creative guy. Apply that creativity to leveraging every possible aspect of what you do. Forget about your own label (artists, illustrator, diaper changer, whatever) and do all you can to make other people yearn to work with you. Maybe you should do cartoons, Christmas cards, a children’s book, and give them out free to prospects.

You have a lot going for you. Don’t limit it in any way. Embrace opportunities and keep making stuff.

Hope I haven’t kicked your ass too hard but I know you can do it. I look forward to hearing how it works out.

Your pal,
Danny
Danny:

Thanks for your thoughts. I appreciate the kick in the ass…. As for my portraits, I guess I treat myself harshly in this area. My first paid illustration was a portrait and they come kinda easy to me. They just never seemed valid from a personal artistic standpoint. My portraits are oil painted or pencil and my illustrations are pen and ink. For some reason I have always felt more valid doing the pen and ink work. It’s a strange battle that I have been dealing with since high school (I am 38 now). I guess I get hung up on the fact that most people have preconceived notions of what a portrait should be. If people were willing to accept a more creative portrait like the ones you have been doing I would feel more fulfilled. I have been watching how after you went through your creative rough patch this summer you came back with both guns blazing. If I could somehow marry my two styles to a point where both of my needs were met I would feel better. …

Bill

Dear Bill:

Portraits are endlessly fascinating. These days I am looking at lots of them and drawing inspiration from : David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon. Vincent van Gogh…

I think they refute your idea that portraits are not artistically valid or that there’s any preconceived idea of what a portrait should be. If you shake your own preconception, you will grow as an artist and as a success.

And forget trying to marry styles. Try something a lot less conscious and experiment with new media and approaches. It will put fresh excitement into your work that potential customers will respond to. Or else fuck ’em.

DOG

Here and now

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One of the pleasures of carrying round a little journal is being less precious about my drawing. Insteads of sitting down in a studio with all of the materials at hand, I can just whip out my book and fill the moment with whatever’s happening right then.

There’s no such thing as wasted time when you can draw. Instead of waiting for the waiter to take our order, I can draw the salt and pepper shakers while I chat with Patti and Jack. I was trying to explain the complexity of my extended family to my boy and so, rather than just draw it on the place-mat and leave it behind, I have a permanent record of our little chat.

This pen is quite obscene, of course. I saw it in a catalog. I will hold off buying it until I can find an appropriate sketchbook; something with vellum pages hand bound in some sort of horribly endangered species’ skin.
I drew the bank on a drawing jaunt with my pal, Tom Kane. We walked too far to find something interesting to draw and I felt a little cramped and off-kilter when I drew it. More and more I am liking spontaneous, solitary drawing, rather than anything formal or planned.

Outside the Gallery

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My office is smack in the middle of the Chelsea art district and I often pop in for an art break at lunch or on the way home from work. There is such an endless variety of interesting things to see; more and more work is figurative these days, which I find is pretty helpful in sparking thoughts for the sort of drawing I’m doing. I am always interested in what gets into galleries, what’s condsidered ‘legitimate’, though I remind myself that this is not necessarily synonymous with the’ the best’. Nonetheless, much of it seems to have earned its place there and I am less mystified by what this world and this industry is really about, the more often I visit. I think my earlier resentment and incomprehension of the Art establishment has been replaced with a sense of wonder at all the ways creativity manifests and is recognized.
Drawn while sitting on my little stool, tucked in a corner, on a day when the galleries were busy with tourists and weekenders. This giant portrait ogled me from across the road. I returned the compliment.

This was drawn on the way to work, early, the sun still at an acute angle from the East. I added the colors later, trying to recapture that feeling of high contrast and harsh morning light. I continue to be intrigued by the power of compliementary colors. (“Nice orange. ” Why, thank you.”)

Fear is not very useful.

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Hey Danny,
I have loved your stuff since finding your site. I need some counsel from a fellow habitual doodler. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to do stuff with art. I even got my bachelors in fine art education, thinking I would teach. But, fearing financial failure with a new family, I went into another field, and find myself making a good living, but longing to eliminate the “what if” from my lists of regrets. Some days I wish I could just be forced to go deep into the creative side again, but I fear failure.
Any counsel and suggestions?
Thanks,
Witness

Dear Witness:
Fear is not very useful. Instead, I urge you to just start doing whatever it is you are interested in being involved with. Don’t concentrate on the $$$ aspect of things. Start making, then start sharing.
Get involved with the arts community in your area if you want to show in galleries. Contact magazines and papers if you want to illustrate. Just take the leap and avoid wrapping the whole thing up with your identity and sense of self worth.
Be as positive and outgoing and productive as possible. And consider the expansion of your creativity to be a creative effort in and of itself. Be creative in how you make art, in who you show it to, in how you support yourself emotionally as you head in this new direction.
If you approach it this way, it is impossible to fail, for even if you don’t accomplish what you initially thought you’d achieve, you will have a fine adventure, learn new things and, worse case scenario, get that creative urge out of your system once and for all.
Have fun, be brave, get going,
Your pal,
Danny

Happy Birthday, Jerry Lee!

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My colors are a little murky here. I love the vermilllion in my paintbox but it is so soft and rich, like lipstick, that it can easily overwhelm my page.

I notice the rooftop on this row of buildings on 9th Avenue when I walk to work. I like the jumble or chimneys and windows and, because the street is very wide here and the buildings are set against a large flat wall, the corner looks like a set. It reminds me of the many times we have gone to see La Bohéme at the Met.

I was invited to a taping of a concert Jerry Lee Lewis played on his birthday. I got to meet The Killer backstage beforehand. He is quite well preserved and charming and, once he got out to his flame-covered piano, seriously rocked out with Willie Nelson. As always, it was very hard for me to draw while great music was being played, particularly standing surrounded by a coterie of models in the semi-darkness. Nonetheless, I wanted to keep the memory and beavered on.

Crank up the Chroma

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I really enjoyed Ric Burns’ two-part PBS documentary on Andy Warhol. Andy’s color sense was superb and it had an immediate effect on my painting.

I love my new paints a lot and I am trying to use my colors as fresh onto the page as possible. Somehow paint dies on the palette a bit but, when I layer pure colors onto the page, they remain vibrant. Compare this painting of Joe with the one I did with my old paint set and pre-Andy.

This poor critter was waiting for me on the way to work; I have never seen such a bird, alive or otherwise, in the city before. It took me two goes to capture his lines; I also had to remember his color scheme as I only could paint him when I got home in the evening

Groceries by Harry Kalmer

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g242lHarry Kalmer of Johannesburg invited me (and lots of talented artists including EDMers Michael Nobbs, Nancy Ghandi, and Trevor Romain) to contribute illustrations for his new book, Groceries: 56 Stories Oor Huishopudelike Produkte. (If that title seems a little opaque, it’s because you don’t speak Afrikaans). I just got a copy today and it’s full of lovely drawings of food and products.

Harry asked me to a drawing of a bowl of pasta. Here’s the drawing:

A Fountain of Learning

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As my Rapidograph was still empty, I continued drawing with my green fountain pen. I drew this funny old car against the curb, managing to overcome my usual disasters with angled wheels. The ink in my fountain pen is not waterproof, so I just hit the shadows a little bit with a blue Crayola.

I change the color of the ink cartridge in my fountain pen every time one is empty so the ink is always changing hue. Right now it’s going from black to blue; next up is a vermillion cartridge, so I’ll be entering a sort of purple phase pretty soon.

Ronald Searle is my idol, my spiritual guide, my ideal. Drawing with his tool of choice, the fountain pen, made me want to look at his work again so when I got home, I filled up my Rapidograph with fresh India, opened my copies of Back to the Slaughterhouse and U.S.A. for Beginners and copied some works of the master, Then I drew my slumbering mini-pup, Tim.