notes, thoughts and events

3. Don't take drawing for granted. It's deep. It can blow your mind if you let it. Please know that I respect other approaches to drawing. I just go with what I think is best. It follows that to me, my way of drawing and thinking about drawing is the best. But that’s just me. I say that because I know I’m going to get a little heavy-handed here. Ahem. Remember that the drawing BEGINS in your mind, so don’t limit yourself at the beginning by small thinking. Drawing isn’t really about rendering something in 2 dimensions. I haven’t seen anything in the real world that is totally and completely flat (don’t argue with me here, I’m trying to make a point). Even a “flat” piece of paper becomes a dynamic form when you pick it up off the table. It bends and moves. Everything exists in some kind of space, and since the human imagination has the capacity to deconstruct and transcend what we know as “reality” we ought not limit ourselves to two dimensions-- especially this ear...

2. Get your mind blown as often as possible. I have a little bit of experience with the Suzuki teaching method. Among many of the brilliant ideas it espouses, one of them is that every musician that one actively listens to, studies and appreciates becomes one's teacher. Looking back I find that I did this HEAVILY as a teenager. My teachers were Sam Keith and Todd McFarlane mixed in with a generous amount of Bill Watterson. After I got into college, my scope widened. I accepted the angularity of Mike Mignola's work and was able to see him for the genius he was (and is). I got into George Herriman's Krazy Kat big time. Winsor McCay too. After I graduated college, I picked up a couple of Benito Jacovitti's books. Add to that guys like William Heath Robinson , Robert Wilson , Sergio Topp i, Jeff Smith , Honore Daumier , Lionel Feininger and Heinrich Kley and you get a fair picture of my post college aesthetic. Each artist that you appreciate and study is lik...

A few weeks from now, I'm going to be teaching a comics class in my home town of Iola, KS. I was excited initially, but soon excitement gave way to a little bit (JUST a little bit) of apprehension as the time to do the class drew nearer. It's not that I'm not confident in what I'm doing as a cartoonist. It's the teaching part. I've taught drawing and painting classes in the past with considerable success, but not cartooning. Not yet. At first I thought that I should follow classes that other people had taught. What book did I need to find that could be "the text". Surely there has to be some outline out there that tells me more or less what a class like this should look like. I don't know if it's laziness or gut instinct, but I've determined that what I'll do is outline my own process and see how that works. I'm going to attempt to go step by step through the development of a comic strip the way that I figured out how to d...

The News... Crap is there anything going on? Yeah. Moving into the summertime proper now, and I'm trying to make the best use of my time. I worked up a print for this weekend's Chamber of Commerce golf tournament here in Hiawatha. It was really fun to do-- the print. I like getting in there and slinging the old brush around. I've also been working up my website (which you may currently be viewing). I'm a total newbie at this, so let me know if any of you have any suggestions or things you'd like to see happen with the site that you're not currently. I'll try to keep updates rolling and make them worth keeping up with. Cheers, Stephen