Barack's Balancing Act

Over-exposure. That's what Barack Obama risks if he continues to push his agenda over the airwaves. He's got a delicate balancing act going on; where he doesn't want to spend all of his populace capital, but at the same time he has to use it in order to reassure the American public that everything is going to be OK.

Thanks Rube!

I love drawing gadgets, and I really enjoy inventing hypothetical gadgets. The more Rube Goldberg-like they are, the better. If you don't know who Rube Goldberg is, Google him - you'll enjoy what you find - I promise.

Anyway, I liked the idea of this machine, and even though it started out as a local idea, I think that this could play in any municipality across the nation right now. Enjoy.

A local cartoon

This cartoon was sparked by a controversy that's going on inside the St. Johns County Commission right now. Seems there's been some petty bickering going on, and suggestions that the Chairwoman should step down. She's been accused of lobbying, which she says is not true. At any rate, these are our local representatives, and they should be governing instead of sniping. Jus' sayin'.

I like the caricature of the pillars. I think that this might be the first time I've ever drawn animated cartoon character columns.

Enjoy.

-Ed

The Pontiff Condom

When one of my cartoons makes it past my first editor (my wife) I usually know it's got kick. This one was no exception. At first she looked startled, then she laughed, and then she grimaced a little - the perfect reaction; although she's now saying that she's not going to be standing next to me in any lightning storms. The incredibly narrow thinking of the Vatican has always infuriated me. And the Pope's latest "No Condoms In Africa Tour" has been particularly maddening. And don't get me started on the whole priests not being allowed to marry thing. That's for another post - and another cartoon.

Sunday Sketch - 3/22

I sketched digitally again this week. Starting to really enjoy that now that I have the software bugs worked out of Photoshop CS3. I also worked on a couple of these in Photoshop after I got them home; but mostly these are straight from the figure on the Wacom Tablet. I'll post (3) gestures first, and then the longer poses. I'm pretty happy with the drawings I did today. People are starting to mention that these are a nice blend of traditional figure drawing, and new age digital media; difficult to define or describe, but definitely different. Further comments welcome. BTW, I'm in the market for a Tablet PC now (the next logical step). Any suggestions as to which tablet might be best suited to a digital artist would be greatly appreciated. It would need to have pressure sensitivity in the screen, be fast, and of course play well with Photoshop.

PS - I'm a PC guy, so the ModBook is out.

Thanks in advance & cheers,

Ed

Messin' around

I decided to take one of my digital gesture drawings from last week, and sketch it up in Photoshop. Just a little practice at stylizing the figure. Here's the gesture (which I flipped).

And here's the new drawing. I changed the pose a bit, dropping the arm, and adjusting the legs. I also added some background noise to see how that would look.

Local cartoon for Friday

This cartoon will run Friday in one of our local papers. I hope it gets letters, because this problem needs to be brought to light. It seems that there's a new trend of parents organizing so-called "House Parties" for their kids and their friends. These are parties held at the parent's home, where alcohol is sometimes served to minors (already trouble - not to mention illegal). These ain't no slumber parties.

Now, I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and assume that they are only doing this because they'd rather them be drinking at home, than out on their own, doing who-knows-what. That's fine - if it's only your kid. You can do whatever you want with your own children within the confines of your home. The trouble is the other kids that might be going to these parties without the consent of their parents - or without said parent's knowledge of the goings on at these parties. It all smells bad, and any adult in their right mind, should know that this kind of behavior is just wrong. The Sherriff's office seems to agree, and has stepped in to put the hammer down (up to a year in jail and a fine for hosting one of these get-togethers). I say - good - it's about time.

More cartoons!

Every year around this time, I try to come up with something on March Madness. This year, with all of the layoffs, this one seemed pretty obvious to me. It came to me in one of those "ah-ha" moments. I'll have another one to post shortly.

Stay tooned.

-Ed

Monday's syndicate cartoon

Here's a cartoon that I did over the weekend, and uploaded to my syndicate this morning. Originally I wanted this to be about the oppression of women in Afghanistan (by the Taliban), but mid-cartoon, I realized that they are oppressing the entire country; which, by the way, makes it exceedingly difficult for the US to make any headway there.

I should have much more to post this week.

Stay tooned.

-Ed

Sunday Digital Sketches

I worked digitally today, so uploading was a snap. Oh, and our model just happened to be 6 months pregnant, so that was kinda cool. We once followed a model from the beginning of her pregnancy through the birth of her child. Well, we weren't in the delivery room sketching, but we did draw her right up to a couple of days before the little guy was born. Hope you enjoy these. As usual, I'll post the gestures first, then the 20 minute sketches, followed by the long pose (my favorite drawing today, which is an anomaly). Let me hear from you.

I'll post the initial sketch for the long pose first so you can see where it started, and where it finally ended up. As I said before I rarely like the longer drawings because they feel over-worked, but this time I think I was able to time it out better - and know when to stop.

Cheers,

Ed

More Cartoons!

Hello everyone. I've got some more local and national content to post, so here goes. The first one is another Govt. in The Sunshine Cartoon for Sunshine Week. The theme this year is Digital Records, so I wanted to do something in keeping with that. You can view all of the submissions here (I've got two posted).

This next one is a State issue cartoon concerning (what else?) our crumbling educational resources. I thought that playing off of the whole Apple for The Teacher thing was kinda cool - as usual, the kids get the pits.

This next cartoon was for my National Syndicate, and it is concerned with the flow of weapons and drugs back and forth across the Mexican Border. I heard that something like two thousand assault weapons PER DAY are making their way into Mexico. At that rate, the Mexican Govt. will surely be out-gunned very soon. Scary.Finally, I'm going to post a re-issue of a cartoon I did a few weeks ago. I wanted to do it in color for another publication, so here it is. I'm really starting to like drawing Barack Obama. He has flexible limbs that remind me of my old Gumby Doll. They're lanky, and pliable, and you can bend them into any position you'd like.

Enjoy.

-Ed

Taliban Diplomacy

I'm afraid Mr. Obama is being a little naive if he thinks he's going to be able to "reach out" to the Taliban. Surely he knows that he's not dealing with a faction living with a 21st Century mentality here, right?

Here's the original rough. I changed the composition a bit, but the message is the same.

Figure Drawing Exhibit - Opening

We had our Sunday sketch class figure drawing opening last night. It was held at the Art Center Coop in downtown Jacksonville. There was a good crowd on hand to view works from 35 artists. The juror was Lynn Lewis, Gallery Coordinator for the Florida Community College at Jacksonville (FCCJ). Here's a few of her comments on the show:

One of the true pleasures this exhibit offers the viewer is the opportunity to see the complexity and variety of ways that artists recreate the most universal of forms. The drawn body can be an expression of pure physicality, of movement, of personality and emotion, of power and provocation, and a myriad of other feelings and human perspectives.

There was also a model on hand at the opening, and several people sketched as the event was going on.

Here's me with event coordinator and all-around great guy Vin Dolan. He pushed hard for me to get my Sanzoku in this show, and for that I am indebted to him. Here's another photo of some people checking out my piece. I had the digital drawing printed on a large flag, and also had a digital picture frame running next to the draped piece showing the process used to create these images (you can see it there behind Vinnie's head).

Finally, here's Emmy in front of one of her drawings (she got two in the exhibit!). Her figure drawings and way of seeing the figure is really starting to come into it's own now, and I couldn't be more proud of her.

Final cartoon for the week

Another Rush Limbaugh cartoon. His comments do nothing to help the Republican Party. If anything they hold them back from real fiscal progress. Obama'a gonna get what he wants. He's got too much public support. Best to work with the Democrats rather than wish them to fail.

I've been fighting a nasty cold all week (can you tell?). And I thought I had it whipped until I woke up this morning. At any rate, I'm gonna try to haul my snotty ass over to an opening tonight. I've got some work in the show, so I'll try to take some photos and post them over the weekend.

Sniffle, sniff, snort!

-Ed

Cartoons!

It's been a while since I posted cartoons, and seeing as I finished them up early this week, I'll go ahead and do that now. We've got an art opening on Friday, so I'll probably post photos from that event next.

This first one is my Govt. in The Sunshine cartoon submission for this year. If you'd like to know more about that you can go here or here, but basically it's a week where open Government is celebrated and encouraged.

This next cartoon is in response to the recent idiotic statements made by Rush Limbaugh. I'm sure there are at least a couple of my conservative friends who will want to call me to the canvas on this one, but I don't really care. I'm ready for them. The real tyrannical and unpatriotic one is he who wants Obama to fail. Follow him if you want. Oh, and by the way, the accepted translation from Latin is "as always with tyrants."

This last cartoon is for one of my local papers, but it can also be viewed as a national issue. We've got so many projects here in Jacksonville, that have been shelved because of the economy. Now the wait for stimulus money is making for a nervous County Commission. We'll see how long it takes for it to show up in the coffers. I've got a cold today, and I'm feeling particularly snarky. Can you tell?

Sunday Sketch!

Hopefully we're back on our regular schedule for Sunday sketch again. After a couple of week hiatus, we started back yesterday. I'll post these in no particular order. A few of them I worked back into with Photoshop and manipulated the angle when I photographed them. I did sit below the figure for (2) of the drawings, and stood on a stool above her for another one. I used to tell my students not to let the pose dictate your drawing - you can move yourself, and change your position/perspective in relationship to the model. This makes for much more dynamic and interesting drawings.

I saved my favorite of the day for last. I like the way I manipulated the camera angle to emphasize an already dramatic view (below) the figure. I also worked on this one in Photoshop to give a little punch of color.

Enjoy.

-Ed