Mammalthon 2 Is Coming!

My amazing, talented wife Jennifer -- the force behind The Daily Mammal -- is launching Mammalthon 2 next week. Here's an excerpt from her post about it:


Last December, 36 beautiful, generous, animal-loving art aficionados participated in the first Daily Mammal 24-Hour Mammal Marathon. I stayed up for 24 hours straight and drew a mammal an hour (almost). People who donated to Defenders of Wildlife got to request a mammal, see it appear during the 24-hour mammalthon, and then receive the original drawing in the mail. It was unbelievably fun, and we raised more than $800 for Defenders.

It's time for Mammalthon 2! This time, the contributions will be going to The Wildlife Center, a wonderful wildlife rehabilitation hospital in northern New Mexico. Spring means baby season and hundreds of injured and orphaned baby animals that need a place to recuperate and some help getting back into the wild. Your participation in Mammalthon 2 will help make sure these babies, and all the other animals The Wildlife Center rehabilitates, get the care they need.

* * *

Go to her web site to learn how you can get a beautiful, original drawing of the mammal of your choosing and be part of a great cause all at the same time! If nothing else, stop by on the 19th and cheer her on! See you there!

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Monday Morning Marty -- February 4, 2008

(Click on image for larger version)

This week I continue on the theme of simplification.

These gesture sketches of Marty (and one of Minnie -- can you guess which one?) show the value of simplification. The idea is to get the gesture, the movement of the dog, not to dwell on details like fur markings or shading. This is a good technique to help learn anatomy and proportion.

I recently learned that some people don't know they can get a larger, more detailed version of the images here by clicking on them. If you don't know that -- you do now!

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Monday Morning Marty -- 1-21-08

For this week's Monday Morning Marty I decided, still thinking of my recent post about details, to try and draw a simpler Marty.

In future entries I'll go simpler still, and see how basic I can make an image that still captures the essence of my dogs. Most people think that drawing with more detail is more difficult, but just the opposite is true; finding a way to distill the essential elements of a likeness in as few strokes as possible cuts to the very core of what is most important in an image.

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One New Year's Resolution: Watch The Hills!

I usually don't make big New Year's Resolutions (with the big "R"), as such. I'm more the type to make little resolutions (with a small "r") throughout the year, as the ideas come to me. So this resolution (small "r") just happens to come to me on January 2nd. Coincidence.

I'm working on some storyboards for some anti-drug ads, aimed at teenagers. So I'm drawing teenagers. I've never been too fashion-conscious, especially young women's fashion, and I know I need to do better with that. My wife Jennifer likes to point out how often my "trendy" young people tend to look more like they're following the trends of the 1980s. Oops.

So my resolution is to observe current fashions more and try to note them whenever possible, so that I'll be more familiar with what the kids today are wearing and not have to go look up reference all the time. Specifically, I'm going to watch The Hills.

For those of you who are like me, and who otherwise wouldn't know, The Hills is a so-called "reality show" following a group of young women in L.A. and watching their terrible tastes in young men. My wife likes to watch it -- it's one of her few "mindless" programs, what she calls "comfort TV." I'm not a fan, but I'll sometimes watch it with her because she likes it, and I like her.

But now my resolution is to watch it carefully, noticing the fashions and talking to my wife about them. She has her finger of the pulse of current pop culture, and will be able to tell me which outfits are the most popular, which are no their way out, or not appropriate, or whatever. I may even do some sketching while I'm watching. But either way, I'll make fashion awareness a major reason to watch.

Well that, and to see if Heidi finally dumps that Spencer dude once and for all...!

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24 Mammals in 24 Hours!

On December 22, Storyteller's Workshop illustrator (and my wife) Jennifer Rae Atkins is having a unique event over at her site, The Daily Mammal: 24 Mammals in 24 Hours.

To quote from her site:

"On Saturday, December 22, I will be drawing a mammal every hour. That's right, I'll stay up all night, draw and scan like crazy, and post the mammals here for you to see.

"I'm not just doing this because it will be fun, though. It's for a special cause: Defenders of Wildlife, a 60-year-old nonprofit organization operating nationally, that works to protect wild animals and their habitats. For more information about what they do, visit their website. If you have questions about how and why I chose them, post 'em here.

"Now, here's where it gets fun for you, too. If you make a donation of at least $25 (using the DONATE button on the right-hand side of this website), you get to request a mammal. I'll draw it on December 22, then I'll send you the original art! Each mammal drawing is about 5" by 8". I draw on tracing paper (but I don't trace!) with markers, pens, and colored pencils. I'll send your original art along with a gray piece of cardstock, like the ones I use when I scan my drawings, to provide the perfect background for framing your mammal. I will send all the mammals out on Monday, December 24.

"Tell me your favorite mammal (or, if you don't have one, let me choose one for you) and donate at least $25. You'll help animals and get a lovely piece of original art. The button's just right over there! And please stop by throughout the day on Saturday, December 22, to give me some moral support!"

Jennifer is a talented artist and a real lover of animals. Your support, financial and otherwise, will mean a lot to her, and to me. Make a donation, request a mammal and watch the fun all day and night on December 22. I'll be supplying the coffee.

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NaNoWrimo and Suzi Romaine: Follow-Up

I did it!

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NaNoWriMo and Suzi Romaine!

This year I'm participating, once again, in National Novel Writing Month -- also known as NaNoWriMo. The idea is very simple: write a novel in a month.

Well, they do specify the parameters a bit. Write a 50,000-word first draft of a novel in the 30 days of November. That amounts to 1,667 words a day. Doesn't sound quite so difficult now, does it?

For the past two years I did my novels completely improvised; I'd taken improv classes with my wife a few years ago, and have recently gotten back into performing. One of the formats for long-form improv is called the Harold. It involves setting up three totally separate storylines with three separate sets of characters, then finding some ways to make connections between them, so that hopefully everything ties up -- or nearly so -- by the end. It was a great way to write a novel quickly, because there were no outlines to follow, or expectations to meet. (In NaNoWriMo you're allowed to write up outlines, plot synopses, character dossiers -- anything that won't end up in the actual text of the novel -- before November 1.)

For each of the first three chapters I would ask Jennifer for a few prompts, like they do in improv: favorite color, a line from a favorite song, a strange place to take a date. Things like that. I would then use them for inspiration for that chapter.

This year I started that format again, but I wasn't happy with how it was going. Perhaps I just needed a change from this format, or needed to push myself to do something more. That's when I remembered Suzi Romaine.

Suzi Romaine was a character I'd created way back in the mid 1990s. She was a sort of Ayn Rand-inspired heroine, with a flair for pirates and historic costuming and a love for vintage Beetles. So, kind of an idealised female me. Except her personality is very different from mine. Anyway, I'd made hundreds of sketches of the characters, written up a plot outline for a five-issue miniseries/graphic novel, and even created three eight-page short stories of her to get used to drawing her. I even drew a couple pages of the first issue. But it was too daunting a task at the time, and I never got around to drawing the project. There it sat in my file cabinet, waiting to be realized. And waiting...

So when November 2nd or 3rd rolled around, and I realized I wasn't at all happy with the way my improvised novel had started, I remembered all the preparation I'd done for a Suzi Romaine graphic novel and realized it would make a great prose novel! So I've started on Suzi Romaine: A Girl, Her Beetle and Her Empire. I'm a little bit behind in the word count, but I'm catching up. I haven't even needed to look at my reference from fifteen years ago, I know the work so well.

It is more challenging writing something you care so much about -- the choices you make seem more important -- but so far I'm happy with how it's going. I'll let you know my progress. In the meantime, if any of you are also NaNoWriMoing, feel free to share your stories about your stories here!

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Monday Morning Marty -- Marty Deco!

This week's Monday Morning Marty is an Art Deco-inspired poster of our favorite pup. I wanted to get in some practice of my Pueblo Deco style, and I wanted specifically to recreate the look of the WPA posters of the thirties for our beautiful National Parks. Those posters are characterized by colorful, simple backgrounds, solid blocks of color making stylized subject imagery of animals or whatever.

I'm not sure of these colors for the final piece -- I just made this Sunday night, and may want to look at it again in a couple of days and refine it. And I'm not entirely sure of the drawing itself -- a couple of the legs are worrying me. But it's a good, solid start, and with a little tweaking should make a fine addition to my portfolio.

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Another Key to Success: Ideas!

Last week I saw an item online about a certain historic theater here in New Mexico celebrating its 80th anniversary. (I'm leaving out the theater's name, because no deals have been signed, but anyone in Albuquerque can probably guess the theater in question.) I immediately thought of the Pueblo Deco, World's-Fair-style tricentennial posters I did for the City of Albuquerque last year, and realized that this theater -- a Pueblo Deco landmark -- needed a poster like them for its own. (Now the rest of you in New Mexico have figured out the theater.)

So I emailed the theater manager and told him that if we worked quickly, we could have Anniversary posters printed up in time for the Holiday shopping season. He wrote back saying they weren't interested in anniversary posters, since they'd become dated quickly, but were interested in putting together a new poster for the theater. We're now in the midst of working out the details.

See how easy that was? This could be a big project for me, and all it took was for me to see an opportunity and make an inquiring email. Email! I didn't even have to send a letter or -- yikes! -- make a phone call!

In a profession like mine, it's easy to get passive, to wait for the work to come to you and then get it done. Even with aggressive self-promotion, the focus is usually that I'm available, that I can do what you need getting done. I sit back and hope for a big break. And big breaks do come -- occasionally. But in order to get further in your career you have to make those breaks. You have to go out and do more than say "I can do whatever you want." You have to say "This is what you want."

The biggest break in my career was probably the Albuquerque Tricentennial posters, but that didn't exactly fall in my lap. I was hired by Rick Johnson & Company to draw up sketches of what the posters would look like, to sell the concept to the Tricentennial Committee. They hadn't picked an artist for the final work yet, but were looking at some guy in Toronto, I think. I told them I could do the job, and they were wary. I hadn't done anything of that scale before. So when I did the sketch, I made it very, very tight, to show them I could do this. That, my enthusiasm, plus the good PR they'd get for hiring a local boy (doesn't hurt!) got me the job.

That's a great story, but the fact is I should have been pitching ideas to companies for years now. I'm very slow at learning this business, but I am learning. I need to do this more often -- go out and look for possibilities. Since that theater anecdote, I've sent similar proposals to two other organizations -- this time by mail, to make things a little more formal. That and I couldn't find an email address for one of them.

Whatever your field, if you're not where you want to be, you need to go out and make it happen. You can't wait for a big break to fall in your lap. If you want to work on more important projects at your job, tell your boss that. If you want your writing hobby to become a business, find someone who could hire you to write and then convince them. You can't afford to be passive, to hope that someone else can see how you could help them in some way. You need to come up with the ideas, and then show them. Sometimes that's all it takes. Even if they don't like the idea you're pitching, they'll see that you do have ideas.

Just don't be pushy. People hate that.

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Monday Morning Marty 8-6-07 -- Fur

Here's a little portrait of Marty to start your week.

When you're drawing a furry creature, like Puppy here, your pencil strokes can do more than just follow the contour of the general shape -- they can take on the qualities of the fur itself. If you notice, very few of the actual lines in this drawing follow the edge of Marty's head -- they follow the direction and the length of the fur, and the succession of these lines creates the contour. This lets me convey not just the shape of the head, but the direction of the fur, the thickness, and in some places helps suggest the cheekbone and other structure beneath. It's important to be economical in your drawing, and to let every stroke, every line contribute as much as possible to communicating your subject.

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Monday Morning Marty -- 7-30-07

For today's Monday Morning Marty, instead of a single image, I decided on a series of quick gesture drawings. I'd said last week that I wanted to keep the Marty drawings loose and fun, to make them more of a series of studies than worry about perfect image-making or slick, polished illustration. So this week I'm pushing that to its ultimate.

Quick gestures like these make great warm-ups before going into more detailed illustration, and they make excellent study and learning guides for getting familiar with a subjects proportions, mannerisms or expressions. But they're also great drawings in and of themselves, as they capture a quick snapshot of a moment. In the fact that the strokes and lines are quick, unpolished and unrefined, they can reveal as much about the artist as about the subject.

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Inspiration: Joseph Lorusso

Yesterday I went up to Santa Fe -- about an hour or so's drive from Albuquerque -- to visit with some agencies there and show my work. While up there I sent some time with my lovely wife Jennifer. In addition to her Daily Mammal and Atkins Institute blogs, she also works full-time with a museum exhibit design firm up there.

While up there, Maggie -- our friend and Jennifer's coworker -- told us about her brother-in-law painter. His name is Joseph Lorusso, and he's having an opening this Friday in Santa Fe.

I was floored by his work. Here's a guy who can paint. His work really hearkens back to the Golden Age of illustrators -- few painters today have that style or, frankly, the ability. But Joseph Lorusso's got it!

Check out his work, and if you're in the Santa Fe area on Friday, come out to the opening. He's showing in other galleries across the country, for the rest of you.

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Inspiration: Otto Soglow

Goofbutton.com has posted a great collection of single-panel cartoons and sequences of Otto Soglow.

Soglow's one of those artists whose work you've probably seen, but didn't know who did it. I've seen his work in countless old books and magazines growing up. His little king character might seem familiar. Enjoy!

Thanks to Drawn: The Illustration and Cartooning Blog for letting me know about this post.

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Monday Morning Marty -- July 23, 2007

Here's my contribution to the Monday Morning Marty catalogue for this week. It was drawn from a live model, not from a photograph. I have no problem with drawing from photos -- most of my work uses photo reference, including several of my Marty drawings. But one of the reasons for taking on the weekly Marty drawing series was to get back to drawing for the sake of drawing, and drawing from live models, and drawing just for the fun of it.

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Frank E. Schoonover

Yet another link to Golden Age Comics Book Stories. But this one is a good'n. It's a look at the beautiful work of Frank E. Schoonover. Notice how his paintings look so polished and refined from a distance, but when you click on the image and get up close, you see the individual brush strokes and Impressionistic approach. Really nice.

We're in the midst of our big move to New Mexico, so there's been no time to sketch or anything. I want to make sketching Marty a regular feature here -- after we settle in.

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ANOTHER Great Vintage Illustration -- and One of Mine

I know, I know -- another link to Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog. Maybe you should all just subscribe to them instead. (Or better yet, subscribe to us both!) But I can't get enough of these beautiful illustrations. And this first picture -- by Mead Schaeffer for The Black Buccaneer (1920) was just too gorgeous for me not to pass along. And it's by no means the only amazing painting that Door Tree (what can I do -- that's what he calls himself) just posted tonight.

I'm going to have to try and recreate this style digitally. I've done some acrylic painting in this vein, though nothing close to this kind of quality. But I've done some digital work for a real estate developer where I took photographs and altered them in Photoshop to look like paintings around this vintage. (See second picture.) I think I could push that style further and maybe do something in this spirit.

Of course, even if I could recreate the brushwork and the texture of these classic illustrations, that'll still leave the composition, lighting, pace, mood, period detail -- there will be loads of challenges in trying to match the impact and the flavor of these amazing paintings.

Sounds like fun, huh?

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More Gorgeous Old Covers

Golden Age Comic Book Stories is fast becoming my favorite blog. They've got another winner posted on there -- more beautiful pulp magazine and book covers, like this cover for Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back. Not only does it use color beautifully and have a dynamic composition, but I'm a sucker for a good detective story! There's also a great cover for an issue of The Virginian, which not only sports a great Old West image, but has a beautifully slick Art Deco style logotype. Check out these gorgeous covers!

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