Happy All Hallow's Eve

circa 2012

It's both Halloween and Reformation Day for some of us. Halloween's been around longer and for me the jokes are easier to think up. This toon and some others like it were drawn last year about this time. We were sitting in a coffee shop and I was wondering "would someone who isn't a friend, relative, wife, or acquaintance think my drawings are funny?" My wife talked me dissuaded me from trotting my drawings around the coffee shop and showing them to the patrons to find out. Probably wise. Instead, the idea of blogging these tunes began to form. More on that in another post.

Color My World, Homeland Security

2007

Remember those fun homeland security color coded alerts they used to blare out at the airports? Good times. Maybe not. I drew this one sitting in an airport listening to the pre-recorded announcement about the color of the day. No recollection if there were dire warnings about mixing plaids and stripes in the same outfit.

Encore! Day Two

2006-2007-My Don Martin Phase

I really love Mad Magazine and a favorite artist is Don Martin. Part of my learning and hobby has consisted of copying others' style to see if my own version might emerge. They tell me real artists way back used to apprentice under a master and served as "copyists" before they tried their own techniques and styles.

Don would have fired me. I had fun. So there.

Some days are like that

Energetic Flow on Mondays...circa 2005

I had said I might toss my old sketch books. A  couple of people including my spouse said that wasn't such a grand idea. So...if I'm not disposing, I could "recycle". Now I have a theme for the week: "Encore Presentations".

Sometimes it's the simple pleasures

Hello, friend!

Photo Op

Nap like an Egyptian*

Doxies love to burrow into blankets in any weather. Today as the clouds came and the air cooled Zoe decided to hunker in. Then, as I walked by she peeked out just in time to have a photo snapped. Doesn't the blankie look a bit like the head piece a Pharaoh would wear?

*Profuse apologies to the Bangles---(they probably aren't reading the blog today, so I'm safe)

Technically speaking,  the bosses' door IS open

Last week there was a yard sale at the church and the set required the door to my office serving as a wall against which to put 'stuff'. My little brain juked to the side and thought about "What if this arrangement were permanent? What would that say about my "approachability"? Then the pencil went to work.

We see this a lot at our house

Supper time, is it?

Zoe might be fifteen years old, but her vertical leap is still impressive. Born with a bent bone in her back leg she has scarcely been impeded in her running or jumping. When she's eagerly awaiting a meal, she still will leap up and down, occasionally landing with a foot in her water dish. The pup loves her meals, what can we say?

The first snowfall...

Somebody oughtta put a stop to this!

"Shut in from all the world about, we sat clean winged the hearth about..." (Whittier).  "When's the first bus to Phoenix?" (Me)

Some kids I know have been looking forward with glee to the first snow fall and we have it today. I too have looked forward to the first snow fall....with a sense of dread.

Easy as pie for whom?

"I wouldn't say the 'greatest of ease'..."

The thoughts I have posting today are not the thoughts I had when I drew this. I just drew. Now I'm thinking about the notion of "things coming easy" for people. What's that experience like for others? How easy is easy? Easy as pie: easy for me to eat. To make? If I were the maker, I envision epic struggles, disheveled  kitchens and gnashing of teeth.

Since Plato (likely before him) the notion of "techne" has applied to our roles in life. We find the thing(s) we are "good at" and perhaps like to do and we do them. Others remind us that there are things that need to be done. Can any of that be truly easy all the time? Maybe it only looks that way.

Friday already?

Anybody see where the week went?

They're just doodles, right?

This guy or some variant shows up a lot in the sketch books. He's just fun to draw, I guess. Jungians and perhaps others might say I'm projecting from the unconscious....or perhaps I'm working out something about archetypes....anyway.

Keeps the chill off

Zoe is styling in one of her new sweaters

This summer Zoe wore a medicated patch for pain during a bout of pancreatitis. The fur has been very slow to grow back. So my ingenious wife found second hand children's sweaters and 'felted' them and then tailored them to fit. Zoe now has a little wardrobe and she seems to enjoy her new duds. She certainly enjoys being a bit warmer as the days begin to shorten and become cooler.

Thinking of our friends whose special friend Holly has traveled to the "rainbow bridge".

Canine Social Networking--perhaps

Check out Rex's blog!

When we take Zoe for a walk we make routine stops. She's 'bookmarked a few favorites' along the way and she routinely checks them. Some she scans, others she investigates with more rigor and thoroughness. There are some sites where we have to all but drag her away so we can resume walking. Maybe she's checking on the status of posters she likes to follow. It's truly intriguing to observe what gets her attention and how she responds. Now just to keep her away from the food fragments people drop near some of the local eateries!

Lost? Found? Discovering? Something else?

Happy Thanksgiving. Or Columbus Day. Or Monday. Funny how we sometimes make things we've done by accident seem intentional. Funny how we make things we've done intentionally "an accident".

If you like the use of color I meant to do that. If you don't it was an accident. Either way I had fun.

Angst...and a sharpie

What if I'm just drawing the same thing over and over a million times
 for the last forty years????

I was wondering to myself "Why, oh why am I keeping all those old sketch books?" The initial rationale centered around ideation. Maybe something would come in handy. Maybe I could study the evolution of style and technique. Then this thought...."All this stuff kind of looks alike. Maybe I'm just drawing the same thing over and over ad infinitum." Yes, sometimes I include Latin phrases in my internal monologue to make myself feel smart.

So I'm considering two things...One: ditch the sketch books that are only collecting dust and taking up space. Two: learn (somehow or tuther) to draw other stuff too.

Yay, it's Friday

Just for laughs

I DID take notes while listening to a podcast and setting my mind to write later in the week. However, when I take notes these funny little nebbishes appear. Not completely unbidden, I suppose, these toons wind up on nearly every piece of paper I latch onto---I have to really curb the impulse on legal documents and financial stuff even though I think little toons would improve that stuffy paperwork.

The blog approaches its one year birthday and I'm wondering about directions it can or perhaps "ought" to go. Part of this deliberation will include revisiting why I started blogging in the first place. Then I can  asses outcomes I'm seeing that might connect to those reasons. Sounds pretty clinical, eh?

Leaning ?????

Now THIS is what I call 'Leaning In'!

Ol Spot could be leaning "out" of the car window or "in" to the breeze. Either way, he's liking it!

I promise not to stretch out your work hat, Dad

So there is an alternative to wearing a baseball cap sideways or backwards....the trick is in finding a cowboy hat that's about double your hat size.

Sharpie Week-Day Two

Fall will you? Not on MY watch!

I'm sooo glad summer is trying to hang on (or at least early fall) here this year. Winter came rudely at this time last year. Maybe it will stay away altogether. Wait. That can't work. This is Canada. We'll take the temperate weather while we can!

Sorry Pat, I might have bought the wrong vowel

The Cassocks are coming, the Cassocks are coming!

Angst: Mentally reviewing something one has said and fearing that it was just plain dopey. I was attempting an historical reference about Cossacks. I thought the reference might be helpful. Thinking back I may have transposed vowels in the word--did 'Cossack' become "cassock'???? "Vestments? What do vestments have to do with it????"  I'm experiencing a surplice of chagrin this morning. (insert groan here)
   Today's work was intentionally scrawled in less than a minute to see if I could 'evoke' something. That and I'm a slacker. I enjoyed using a bolder point sharpie---they do kind of bleed through anything lighter than bristol board it seems.
  Have a day.

Shutdown Throwdown...what's the lowdown?

It's in the best interest of the American people that I sleep in today

Truth: The hardest part about reading disturbing news is the profound sense of helplessness I feel. It might be wrong, but there it is. The bizarre theater going on with "the shutdown" has me thinking.
You remember the TV show Malcolm in the Middle? There was a teaser for the show that includes Lois yelling out about her family situation "What's the matter with you people?" I'd like to send Lois to Washington DC. Maybe we could just sit the politicians and lobbyists down and play that bit of video.
I think Lois' voice would be drowned out by the moneyed special interest groups calling the shots while the "elected officials" put on their Punch and Judy show as a way to pander to them. There I said it.