Cartooning class concludes

Another cartooning class at ACAD wraps up. It was such a great group this semester and I'm really proud of all the hard work they put in. I am always a bit sad to see the flock leave and hopefully they got a lot out of the sessions we spent together. I brought my good camera to photo all the pieces but then the battery died so I just snapped a few with my iPhone while the students inked their final assignments.

 Here are a bit of my tools for finishing my drawings.  The basket at the top goes on my bike, the priority being to carry as many drawing tools as I can on a ride. On the back rat trap I have a cooler. to the lower left my travel size Sakura watercolour set. A large set of copies, which I can't say enough good things about them, though I'm finally finding ones that need refilling. Blue photo pencils, inks, brushes and opaque white to fix mistakes.

 This class was full of quiet, studious hard working students, at times it made me a bit nervous and caused me to fill the air with the sound of my voice telling silly stories from my life and cheesy uncle jokes to help break the icy silence.

 I hope some go on to finish the pieces they began and further develop their ideas into a finished comic book. Some will visit my booth at this years comic expo and hopefully i can inspire them to take the leap and join artist alley in future years.

 I think this one is like a children's book gone wrong, I mean check out that owl, he's gonna cut you up, I think he's the ring leader and the one to really watch out for.

Benjamin here really surpassed his own expectations, initially claiming he couldn't draw people, but he really succeeded with his Dark Heart cover! He said he has some 40 chapters plus written for this epic, I hope he puts pen to paper and tackles his self inflicted challenge some day.

I am now busy working on the Blackfoot Graphic Novel project as we only have a month and a bit to get it done and ready to publish. The plates are full and spinning quickly. I'm helping Martinho on the mural until April 6th as well and finishing up a few evening classes and working on some commissions. Keeping busy and happy that spring has sprung. I planted about 150 seedlings in our indoor set up, things are on the up and up :D

Many jobs, many hats, it's monday mish mash

In an effort to save up for my trip to Italy and keep productive and out of the house, I've been working triples. Wake up early, get home late. I taught after effects all last week to grade 9's at one of the CBE art schools. I hd 6 lasses of 30 or more, it was brutal but the impossible was accomplished. I am also teaching all my regular classes as well as working on a mural with Martinho plus I have some commissions on the go see a sneak peek below.

My kitchen table has become a make shift studio once more until I figure out an alternative space.

I do love painting anatomical hearts this way.  I have also keep up a very fulfilling and busy regiment by teaching on my only free day off at Swinton's. Alas, there won't be another for a few weeks but I do love the samplers.

I paint neon pink on all my sampler supplies in the case somebody gets into my stuff. I do a big into at the start and then we mix colours to see how the pigments behave.

I love colour so much and I am always amazed at the colours the participants choose to create during this part of the session.

 We then select an image to pant and go about blocking in the large areas of colour. I love it when the background colour shies through. This landscape is very enticing to me.

 Here is one more refined, all the leaves etc were done with the tip of a palette knife, I really like this artists style and choice of colours.

 Here is this lady's first sunflower painting, she brought her mom who also made a nice piece that day.

 In our cartooning things got wiggy by the end as I crammed tons of perspective drawing techniques and exercises into my 3 hour tour.

hat was really hard but I always aim to please. I hope to deliver the most amount of education I can so that artists walk away having learned so much they can keep running on the fumes for a while and what they learn they can carry with them as important techniques and tools for their artistic success. When I get another break there will be more to come. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. But not me,  I'm not sure I'll ever be dull.