Op Ed Madness

Just got a new batch of cartoons done today for this weeks Stoutonia. The opinions editor asked me to do two cartoons, one about the resurgence of 80's fashion, and one about mothers being on Facebook- two articles that I'm sure are representative of the Stoutonia's highbrow op ed section. As far as the piggy flu cartoon goes, I was trying to figure out a more interesting way to utilize the symbol of the pig, but nothing was coming to me. Tragic, I know.
I'm getting sick of hearing about the swine flu. I have a feeling (and I pray that I'm right about this) that the seriousness of the swine flu is being over-exaggerated by the media. That being said, the death toll in Mexico being attributed to the swine flu rose yesterday from 20 in the morning to almost 150 by noon. Swine flu, drugs, drug runners, lots of guns.... why the hell would anyone vacation in Mexico. I for one will not be visiting there any time soon.

Mid-day update!!

So I did a little more work on Clinton, and I thought I would snap another picture. The colors turned out much better in this photo (except for a lot of the shadows which caught some glair off the flash) so I thought I would post it.

In Progress Paintings

Obama being creepy as hell with no eyes! The first time I learned about using an underpainting two years ago, it absolutely blew my mind. I do it with every painting now, even if its supposed to be a quick "ala prima" painting. It just adds so much, especially since I tend to paint pretty thin.


My camera washed out a lot of the colors in this one. I'm none too pleased about that, but not concerned enough to photoshop fix it.


Somehow this is my first attempt to caricature Bill Clinton. It hasn't been quite as much fun as I thought it would be. I guess I've seen way to many Clinton caricatures to try and be original.


In my painting class, I've been doing a lot of pen and ink and watercolor stuff lately. The last couple weeks, however, I've longed for the days that I used strictly cheap Walmart acrylics and somehow made it work. And so I picked up my palette knife and paints and went to work. Right now I've got these two Presidential caricature paintings in the works. If time permits, I hope to do a larger Palin pinup painting as well, but we'll see. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how these are going. I get pretty anal about acrylics sometimes. And that sucks because I also get really impatient (the reason I started a second painting before I finished the Obama one.) As a general rule and means of motivation to finish, I try not to work on more than one painting at a time. But with these two, I'm enjoying switching back and forth between them. It keeps my eye fresh and keen. Not to mention I don't get bored as easily.

Oh, the sound of music!

So I've been attempting to write some songs over the last year or so with limited success. By no means would I consider myself a writer, and even worse a singer. But never-the-less, I felt compelled to try my hand at recording a few songs. They're all rather silly and should not be taken seriously. So everyone go check em out right now!!

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=446743588
On a side note, when creating the Myspace music account, I had to come up with a band name. Rather than doing the boring "Marc Anderson" type of thing, I opted for the name "Stealing Duffer" which was a name that a few of my friends and I came up with in high school. It was a fake band that we said we were in to impress all the ladies. Needless to say, it did not work. We were dumb and horny. That will happen I guess.

Sketch Dumperoo

Obama-Hulk MAAAAD!!!





I've been neglecting my sketchbook a lot this semester. I wouldn't say that I haven't been sketching at all, but I've been doing a lot less exploration and doodling, which I don't like in the least. However, the last week or so, I've gotten a chance to sit down and just burn through page after page and it felt great. Above are a few new sketches as well as some old.

My mother took a trip to Puerto Rico this past winter, and took upwards of 700 photo's. I don't blame her, I'm sure it was beautiful. Never-the-less, I got to snag them off her camera the last time I was home to use as potential reference photo's someday. I came across a picture of one of her fellow travelers with an extremely grotesque scared look on her face and of course that was the first of the photos I would use. It was just a great expression revealing a lot of anatomy in the face that I had not had the opportunity to draw. Then I drew a crab. Not quite as exciting.

Also there are some sketches/studies to be used for editorial cartoons. My personal favorite is the angry Obama sketch. It's so out of character for him and I think thats why I like it so much.

What I wouldn't do to snuggle up on that chair...

So the next page for the book of satire that my good buddy Kyle and I are creating is on the wonderfully charismatic hotness that is Sarah Palin. I was brainstorming on how exactly I should depict her, and thought up the idea of a pin-up poster, and just had to run with it. I'm working on 11x14 bristol, which limited the amount of photo-realism and detail that I could attain. Never-the-less, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Some of the proportions are off a little bit, but I'll get over it. The piece was done in pen and ink and watercolor. (I think I'm starting to get a better hold on my watercolors lately. Im pretty stoked!)

Toons

The Stoutonia took almost a month off, skipping an issue over our spring break. So, with today being the deadline for all material to be in, I naturally put off any drawing until this morning. The smoking/angry mob cartoon and the rainy parking lot sign were done for two articles, and the other two are just by themselves. I really liked how the Mexican drug fist thingy turned out. It was fun to draw, but I wish I would have made it more gritty and shocking to drive home the point of "martial law" and the drug war.