Roof-Top Garden

I got a new pen and had to test it out so I did this at Drink and Draw. This is Nadine and Cob in the roof-top garden.
I was also inspired by the inking class I had recently taken where the instructor handed out some samples of the original Alice in Wonderland illustrations. The new pen is a Noodlers pen. I like it a lot. It is a fountain pen and is really simple to refill. You just stick the nib in the ink and pull the plunger! I got beautiful blue-black ink.

More Thanksgiving Drawings…

Here's my drawings from the Thanksgiving Day prompts. We were so porked on turkey that day. Wow. All I wanted to do was sit and stare into space. Angela kept saying, "So let's draw something." I kept saying, "Okay." Then she'd ask, "What should we draw?" I would think about it and stare off into space. Then we'd do a rerun. That's about right, isn't it, Angela? Finally, she asked Abe for a prompt.

Duck with Funny Hat, brushed by Anita

 When we started to draw, I didn't have my pen, and was going to use a ballpoint. Angela let me try her portable brush. Normally, I don't use a brush for this sort of drawing. I use a Rapidograph. I like them. Brushes are a different experience. But I did use the brush for the duck and the badger. Obviously, I should use a brush more often, so I can draw exactly what's in my head, and do a bit better job at it.

The Knickered Badger, brushed by Anita

 The title of this drawing sounds like it might be some kind of a clothing store, maybe one that sells lingerie, one that rivals Victoria's Secret perhaps, even. That brush though. I wish I had a pen in hand. I do watercolor with a brush, even detailed watercolor, but for these drawings I would prefer a #0 Rapidograph for most of the work.

When Turtles Fly, penned by Anita

So I would quit my whining, Angela loaned me her brand new Rapidograph pen. Mine are maybe 20 years old. I loved them then and I love them now. I even like cleaning them, except for when I have to meet with a client within two days of that. The ink is not too hard to clean off your hands, but the stuff under the fingernails gets a little embarrassing after a few days. If I wore those thin rubber gloves, my hands would stay clean. There's a box of them in my work closet, but I rarely remember to wear them until after I'm finished cleaning. I did quit whining though, and drew the flying turtle. I'll probably put a background on it later. 

Thanksgiving drawings

At Thanksgiving, Anita and I took some time to draw suggestions from Abe, Jim, and Isaac. In no particular order we have:

Badger in Knickers, as suggested by Abe.

 Duck in a hat, as suggested by Abe.

 Turtle with wings, as suggested by Jim (I think).

Ink Tub: The Show and the Workshop

This is your opportunity to be at the first Ink Tub art show in the history of the world. Also, if you have any inklings at all about making comics, or collaborating with another artist or writer, you might seriously consider taking Sunday's workshop, which will be a thrilling hands-on experience with each participant walking away with their own original mini-comic. 

Join the artists for a few minutes or stay for the entire six hours. Come see the artworks. Seattle-based artist Angela Boyle and her mother, Bellingham artist Anita K. Boyle, have been doing quick drawings in ink for the Ink Tub blog, and decided to show some of them and more during this all inclusive show of their work. In addition to the ink drawings, you'll see everything from mini-comics and watercolor illustrations to prints, photos and much more. Angela is a full-time technical writer, and a full-time freelance comic illustrator. Anita is a graphic designer, poet and artist. 

Mini-Comic Book Workshop: 

Super Collaborators: The Making of Comics

DATE: Sunday, November 18, 2012

TIME: 10am to 3pm

COST: $35 

INSTRUCTORS: Angela Boyle and Abe Olson

TO REGISTER: Please call Angela Boyle or Abe Olson at 425-773-3099, or Anita at 360-398-7870.

Collaboration is a huge challenge, but unavoidable in today’s comics industry. Seattle comic book collaborators Angela Boyle and Abe Olson will talk about their experiences working together as writer, artist, and publisher on over fourteen comics and a web comic through their Flying Dodo Publications enterprise. During this fun workshop, you will learn techniques for collaborating with other artists and writers, and will leave with your own brand new, original, mini-comic book, ready to make more. 

Late Night Sketches

These are two quick sketches I made last night, late, just before I went to sleep. They took less than fifteen minutes, I think, and were made using a couple ball point pens, and maybe a pencil. The pens run out of ink. I grab another one. We have enough ball point pens in the house to last us the rest of our lives. Jim picked a lot of them up on campus, and brought them home, one at a time. But a pencil is always good, right down to the nubs. If the tip breaks and I don't have a sharpener near, the wood can always be peeled back to expose some more graphite. Whatever works.

Hands Down

The first drawing is of the type that just falls out of my head while listening to the sound of pen against paper. Who knows where they come from or where they'll go. The little rabbits? I guess they are rough character sketches for a story I might do. The story has them scared quite often, which is normal for a rabbit, I'd guess.

Scared Rabbits

After I finished these two drawings, I fell asleep. They are like bedtime stories, but different. I can see that they could use some work on a couple of things, though I know I could do much worse if I put my mind to it.

---Anita

Nadine Watercolor Test

A test painting I did of Nadine for Cob. I love everything but the dress. She looks a bit like a line backer. Back to the dress drawing board.

Cob

Some practice heads for a comic I am working on. These are the main characters, Nadine and Cob. This is one of my longer stories, working title Cob. I will feature sketches for the story here.
Cob heads - probably sticking with the first one.

 Nadine practice heads - trying to pick a hair style. Probably going with the one on the right of the second row.

Art Show and Workshop at Egress Studio in Bellingham

The first, possibly annual, show of art work by 

Angela Boyle & Anita K. Boyle

in ink, paint and more at Egress Studio.

If you can't read the flyer, here's what it says:

It’s Open Studio Day at 

— Egress Studio —

5581 Noon Road, Bellingham WA

Saturday, November 17^th from 1pm to 7pm

& a Workshop—Super Collaborators: the Making of Comics

Sunday, November 18, 10am to 3pm, $35

For more information, call 360-398-7870 or 425-773-3099

We hope you will be there!

Jackalopes

Some jackalopes fighting over a lady jackalope. This took about and hour and a half. With my new Rapidograph pens, which I am loving.

Little Jack Rabbit and Uncle John Hare

There's a picture book series by a guy named David Cory titled Little Jack Rabbit and Uncle John Hare. It was written in 1922, when things were pretty and you could escape from bad things without too much trouble, though sometimes a sprinkle of something enchanting was necessary. I suppose this drawing could be called fan art.

Uncle John Hare begins a journey with Little Jack Rabbit in the magic auto.

I drew this last night in the dark. There was a little lamp beside me. Curry, our twenty pound calico, was sitting on my laptop next to me, and Blue, our clown dog, kept running upstairs to go to bed, and then running back down to see why we hadn't gone up there yet. Well, Jim wasn't home, so we just don't sleep then. Blue will figure it out. She's no dummy, but she thinks very differently than the rest of us.

Wario Away!

Current theme is Vehicles. I always picked Wario when we played Mario Kart on the N64 when I was little.

Wedding Celebration Draw Offs

Here's my contribution to the Draw Offs from Anita's wedding celebration. These were seriously so much fun.

A quote from work: "Butterflies are the badgers of the sky."

Elephant on a unicycle

Epic Unicorns

Platypus the size of Godzilla destroying a city

 

Rabid caterpillar attacking puppies (Note that I told them they might hate me after this drawing.)

T-Rex in the rain

Fireside Sketches

Saturday, we went to Anita's to get some prints of a comic and bind a different comic. But the printer was not working so we didn't get to do any of that. So after a delicious BBQ chicken dinner, we had Abe and Jim give us drawing suggestions while we sat at a fire outside. So here's what we did. I used a brush pen and did not pencil first! That's very rare for me. I pencil before everything. But this was a really fun exercise.

Top is Despair and Golfing. From Abe. Then a creature coming out of fruit. Jim's idea, I think.

Then Abe suggested a platypus playing a sport. I could only think of cricket. That's the only sport a platypus would play, right? I have a pretty good memory of what a platypus looks like because Abe asks me to draw them all the time. Then Anita suggested their dog, Blue. She was staring at our dogs in our car.

Then I couldn't come up with anything. So Abe suggested a monster using the space needle as a tooth pick.
I am pleased with all of these.

Maurice Sendak

Took a while, but I finally drew Maurice Sendak. I think we were both influenced by his amazing books, so this week we are going to try to post drawings of the late, great Sendak. If Anita's is better than this, I will have to do another.

Maurice Sendak, a Quick Note

One of the most inspiring children's book illustrators is Maurice Sendak.

Maurice Sendak enjoyed large dogs.

It's always sad to hear of passing of a person whose work is influential to so many people, especially someone like Mr. Sendak. So, here's to you, Maurice: last night's 30-minutes-or-less drawing. 

--Anita

Special Technique for Painting on Wrinkled Paper

Here are two paintings I've made during 2012 using crumpled masa paper, watercolor and sumi ink. The artist and poet Sheila Sondik teaches workshops for this technique. (See sheilasondik.com to see more of her work.)

Dawn Over the Lake

Where Good Swimmers Drown

This year, I've made five or six paintings using this technique. Angela also did a crumpled masa paper and ink painting or two this year. Maybe she'll put hers up. These are approximately 14 by 17 inches. I may post a few more of my paintings here later. If you have any questions about the technique, Angela, Sheila or I can probably answer them. 

---Anita

Hedgehog and Rabbit

Anita and I had an art week recently. We had intended to post a doodle every day, but that obviously didn't happen. However, we did make a comic together. I am still in the process of inking it, but I came up with the story and layout based on a type of book binding Anita showed me. Then Anita did the pencils.

A finished panel. That's actually 2 pages. It will be cropped closer in the final.

And a half finished one. Really it just needs the grass added, but I will double check as I go along.
More as new projects come up. I should have this done in the next day or two. It's pretty short.

More Boynton!

There's really a lot of these. This isn't the last of them.

 This is mine. Pretty fun with a brush.

 You might recognize this one. I posted just the inks earlier.

 An adorable cat! Well done Anita.

And a beautiful one by Anita.

More Boynton

More Boynton images

 Here's one I did. Mountains. Specifically, the Cascades.

 Beautiful one by Anita. Just gorgeous.

 How can someone make slugs look great? Anita does it.

Another by me. Next year I am totally going back to the nib with hatching instead of the brush pen. Brush pen will remain for quick silly comics and sketches.
I hope you are enjoying these.

Boynton Poetry Contest Illustrations

Anita and I did the illustrations for the broadsides of the winners of the Boynton Poetry Contest. So here are some! That is the secret project I posted about (on the wrong site and linked to). These were really fun, but the turn around time was crazy. Especially with our characters. So to make up for the lack of posts, here's a bunch, and I will post more later. Click any of the images to see them bigger.

 I drew the Ballad of the Bed Head.

My mom drew for Indian Plum and it is so amazing! This is one of my favorites.

 I also drew this one. It was pretty fun.

And The Engorged Heron was illustrated by Anita. This is another of my favorites. I absolutely love these colors.

Whoops

I accidentally posted the images I meant to post here on my other blog: http://inkyphalangies.blogspot.com/2012/05/surprise.html Go look!

He's My Dog

Today, right after lunch, I sat down with a drawing pad, a pen and a timer. Thirty minutes to scribble this out. 

That Charlie. He's my dog.

That's it for last week's drawing theme. Now onward for this week. And it's only Thursday.

Charlie Chaplin

Doesn't do him justice. I remember watching lots of Charlie Chaplin, Three Stooges, and Laurel and Hardy in grade school.

Buff Hare ll

Here's my rendition of the buff hare theme. What could be mightier than the Great Sphinx? I mean besides the sword and the pen.

The Great Sphinx Hare 

Onward to this week's theme. Angela will probably have eighteen of them drawn already, and will post immediately. I actually begged her not to post again until I did, and I'm glad she didn't. I got married last week and so maybe I have an excuse. Anyway, don't expect another post from me until Monday (or later).

—Anita

He-Hare, the buffest hare

This week is buff hares and who is buffer than He-Man! This was really fun. I drew it at drink and draw.

If you don't mind a bit of self-promo, I have two things:

1. You can see my first guest comic on Marlowe the Monster. It's a great comic so you should just take the little bit of time to read it from the beginning.
2. I wrote a blog post on Flying Dodo Publications about all the cool things Abe has made at school so far.

Tapir with Apple, a Still Life

Here is my tapir drawing. It was drawn last night in front of the Column of Modern Modular Ruins*. … In the dark, except for firelight. At the start, the final trailings of light from a sun that had gone down, and down some more, helped just a little. So, I suppose I have to actually say that that is an apple on the end of her nose. It was dark, I tell ya. I thought it would be fun to show how a tapir might use its mini-elephantine or gargantuan-pig nose. So … the "apple." It was an interesting experiment to draw in front of a fire. You need to turn your back on it, so the page can get some light. A lot of turning and twisting went on while the drawing took place.

My Pet Tapir: Sweet-Ums

I would have put this image up sooner today, but my computer was having internet connection problems, and we all know what goes on after that. Finally, it's up, and it's still Monday, so I'm even officially on time.

Well, that's it.

---Anita

* The Column of Modern Modular Ruins still stands. It was made in 1997 or 8 from the two-holed bricks that hoist our single-wide mobile home aloft during those heavy windstorms of the early nineties. It's about eight to ten feet tall and circular in height. Dedicated to Trajan's Column of Roman times. I made it with the help of my two kids, Angela and Isaac. Toward the top, I was up on a ladder, and they were passing me these heavy builders' bricks. Hardly anyone got hurt during the process. From that time onward, we light fires beside the structure and burn branches that fall from the trees during the year. We can pretend we are truly ancient during those times.

Tapirs

So you can click the image to see a bigger copy if you need one you can actually read.

This was so much fun. It took about 2 hours though, instead of 30 minutes. Tapirs are crazy weird. I kind of want one for a pet, but they are huge! The woodland park zoo has a pair of them (Malayan). I could ride them around. I think they are bigger than my pony Firefly from when I was little.