Stuff. (I'm not deep, yo.)

Hey all,

Been awhile and for that I apologize. I’m much better at keeping up with my Twitter account. I guess short comments are more my speed Anyhow, just finished this beauty and wanted to share her as much as possible.

Me? Oh busy. That’s the norm though and it’s all a good busy.  Convention season was nuts and almost feels like it ended before we’ve begun planning for 2010. Things are much better spread out through the year next season, which will hopefully make the summer months much easier on everyone.  The buffers are slowly being rebuilt and I’m even finding time to relax and do fun things like this pin up.

So no matter what holiday you may choose to celebrate during this cold season, I hope it is among the warmth of friends and family.  Later

Hey all,

Once again it’s that time of the week where I like to hop online for the evening on Ustream TV to (hopefully) entertain you all with my art on my weekly broadcast, Lartist At Work. (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lartist-at-work)

I really enjoy these weekly streams and if the metrics are to be believed, there’s a lot of you who are turning up each week to enjoy them too.  However, there’s been a few issues of recent that have cropped up that I’d just like to go over, to make sure we all enjoy things.

Just like the forums, the chatroom in ‘Lartist at Work’ is moderated.

And generally moderated by the same folks who help us out in the forums at leasticoulddo.com and lfgcomic.com.  Why them and not you? Because I know them, and they know me.  They are friends and co workers and are around to assist that things keep running smoothly.  The mods also know how to change the title of the chat room and will keep you apprised of links and situations you might be interested in.

Why does the chatroom need moderation? The primary reason is spammers.  The ‘bots find us and that gets unpleasant really fast.  For that same reason we ask that if you wish to participate in a chat, you register a nickname and log in.  It’s free and only takes a minute.

In addition, the chats have been averaging in the hundreds of users and as much as I try, I can’t keep up with all the conversations and questions that are flying by.  A moderator is able to be another pair of dedicated eyes to keep us on an even keel.  A couple of tools they can use are built in options for Ustream. “Bad” language is automatically censored as is the excessive use of CAPITAL LETTERS.  Too much of either will see you booted temporarily.  This is my choice.  I know, I do swear from time to time, but deal with it.  It’s a double standard.

“What for was I kicked?! I didn’t do nuthin’!”
If you haven’t been swearing, USING ALL CAPS, or pestering people, chances are good that Ustream just hiccuped.  The technology is still pretty new and there are times it’s taken me ages to get online and broadcasting.  There are times I’ve gotten disconnected. There are times *everyone* has been dropped from Ustream.  Don’t panic. Just log back in.

“Where did Lar go!? Is it over already?!”
Unless otherwise stated, the Ustreams run till midnight or so (EST). If the broadcast has cut off abruptly and I’m in midsentence, it can take me a minute to even realize I’m off air. I’m just that long winded.  Once again, don’t panic. Don’t spam the chatroom. Just hit F5 to refresh your screen and wait for me to get my act together and get the broadcast restarted.

So now that you’ve struggled through this post, why not join me and the rest of us for the evening stream?  Bring a friend! Bring several! And I hope to ’see’ you there

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lartist-at-work – most every Friday evening beginning at 7pm EST till midnight-ish.

Later!

Hey folks,

Kinda short notice to drop this on you but for anyone in the Kingston Ontario area this weekend, the fine fellows at 4Color/8Bit, the comic shop where Sohmer and I passed 24 Hour Comic Day back in October, have invited me to have a show of my art in their shop.  There is an evening reception this coming Saturday from 7pm till 10pm.  It’s invitation only but that just means you need to either swing by the shop to get one, or at least give them a call so they know to expect you.  It’s just a numbers thing.  They also have a Facebook page with all the info available there:

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=1089997123319#/event.php?eid=75084772426&ref=mf

Sohmer and Nick have promised to make an appearance Saturday as well, so there’s even more reasons to drop by and say hi!

The art will all be for sale, and will hang through July so if you can’t make it out to meet us in person, you can at least check out the store and see my stuff at your leisure.

Later!

Let’s face it. Wolvie is everywhere, in every damned comic and in every crossover.  With his movie about to release, the hype is huge.  I was getting sick of being sick of seeing him so I’m turning it around as a meme challenge to artists.  If he’s gonna be everywhere then let’s put him everywhere!!  Wolverine selling Land o’ Lakes margarine! Wolverine for the ShamWow! Wolverine in DC’s Trinity!  Smurf Wolverine!  Just pick something and add Wolverine to it to make it an instant hit!

Britain thinks it’s got talent? It’s got more than that!  It’s got WOLVERINE!

Go! Do your own! Post it high and low! Wolverine makes everything better!

Later

Hey folks,

For those who may not already know it, I have been hosting a live, interactive show on Friday evenings on Ustream.tv.  This week I’m planning on doing some art lessons, and that’s where you come in.  I’d like to focus on the ‘how to draw’ aspect of things but I’m open to suggestions.  If you’ve got a specific art question you’d like me to try to tackle, please email before Friday’s stream at lar@leasticoulddo.com with the subject line “Ustream Art Question”.

The show can be found at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lartist-at-work and I try to get rolling around 7pm EST and usually run till just after midnight.  There are clips from previous shows available there now if you’d like to check them out.

Hope to ’see’ you there   Later!

Lar

So, we’ve all done it but for an artist, procrastination often seems like an habit that just can’t be beat.  As they said in art school, “God didn’t create the world in seven days… he slacked off for six and then pulled an all-nighter.”  And admittedly there is a truth to it.  The adrenaline rush of a looming deadline does seem to get juices unblocked and flowing for many artists.

Now I’ve never been much of one to hold with the excuse that ‘my muse just wasn’t into it’ because deadlines are deadlines and never to be missed.  However, for those ’soft’ deadlines or the “whenever you have time” requests… yeah. Make yourself comfortable because it’s gonna be awhile.  But not because I don’t want to do it, but because I have enough hard deadlines to fill up my days!  That’s not procrastination, that’s just too few hours between awake and asleep.

But having put the coat of procrastination on so many times, I think I’ve come to recognize a few things to help me through it and maybe these thoughts can help you too.

Admittedly, that whole ‘muse’ thing isn’t entirely wrong.  I’ve learned for myself that while I may not be in the “mood” to do one project, it’s only because my brain is still percolating on it.  It’s not ‘mood’, that’s emotional.  It’s intellect and problem solving of the creative sort.  Your muse isn’t ready because you haven’t figured out how to turn the objective on it’s head and take ownership of it.  To really make it an enjoyable endeavour and not just another job to crank out.

The way I’ve found to speed the process up is to continue to work on other creative exercises.  Sometimes that means switching media entirely and maybe busting out the brushes to work in traditional media or cracking open some origami books to play with paper for a bit.  The important thing is to keep it in the back of my mind and not be in denial over a project.  Continuing with other creative exercises keeps my mind open and refreshed so that I can ponder the problem.  Often this leads to a burst of insight such that I’ve already planned and discarded a bunch of options before I ever draw that first line, making the time I do finally spend on something much more efficient and productive.  Many artists litter their workspaces with small toys and knick knacks not just because they are fun, but because it’s that added stimulation to the imagination.  

As a professional artist I ‘play’ for a living.  I get to draw and paint and colour.  Basic, primal, childrens activities.  A lifetime of it has allowed me to problem solve in different ways and gifted me with an ‘honesty’ towards myself, if not the world.  Just don’t be passive, that’s gonna dull your mind.  Keep thinking even when you’re playing with your action figures (be honest) and you’ll quickly find your muse ready to tackle more and more interesting projects with less and less effort and dread.

Later!

I often get asked what other webcomics I read. Not many, I’ll admit that. Why? A couple of reasons. First off, lack of time. There are a zillion and a half webcomics out there and trying to keep up with them all is a job in itself. Secondly, most of them are…… well,… let’s generously say I’m not in their target demographic.

But there’s another reason – I have nothing to learn from them.

Learn from them you ask? But they are comics! Enjoyment! Escapism! Right? Not entirely.

This past weekend in NYCC I heard from several fans, artist wannabees and fledgling creators about how they like to check out other webcomics to see ‘what they are doing’.

Looking at other webcomics is like looking sideways not forward. I need to look at art that challenges me to understand how things are accomplished. I see other disciplines at work to solve visual problems I may never encounter, but in imagining them I exercise my imagination and the skill of the critique. When I turn that back on my own art, it keeps the bar raised ever higher and encourages me to strive for improvement. In striving, I search for newer artistic venues, and artists, to inspire and challenge me. The end result of all this is that I, hopefully, improve as an artist and continue to enjoy what I do.

Any artist worth their ink learns the difficult skill of the critique. More specifically, this is constructive criticism not bad-mouthed opinionated whining. In learning to crtique we most especially learn to edit our own work with honesty. The best way to do this is look at everything you like or dislike with a discerning eye. In that observation you can understand why you think the way you do. By understanding that, you then can learn from it.

For example, I may like a Picasso. I seriously doubt I’ll ever paint like him, but in critiquing it I can understand what it is that makes me like it. Perhaps it’s the colour or composition. I might want to borrow the palette for something of my own. I might want to remember the vigour of his strokes to create textures or the balance of values. I might just want to remember that it’s a picture that makes me happy for no reason and I can look at it when I need the escapism. That’s okay. After all and it’s why most people look at art.

But I am not most people. I draw comics.

Let’s redefine things a moment. Unless you are truly taking advantage of the infinite canvas possibilities of a webpage, you are just drawing a comic. I draw two. They happen to be on the web, but they are formatted in a traditional print manner. I draw comics.

See what I did there? I just stripped away a bit of the fiction that those of us who publish ‘online’ are somehow special. We are cartoonists, illustrators, writers and storytellers. The medium of our choosing isn’t anymore different than a painter using oils vs one that uses watercolours. I’m not a ‘webcartoonist’, I’m a cartoonist with work on the web. I’m not a ‘digital illustrator’, I’m an illustrator who works in Photoshop. I’m not a ‘manga-ka’, ’cause that’s pretentious and just fucking stoopid. I draw comics.

It’s so much fun that at times I wonder how it can be legal. I never ever want to be bored by it or bore my readers with my work either.

I recently wrote Tom Richmond of Mad Magazine fame a brief note, to which he replied very promptly.  I read Tom’s blog pretty regularly and the man writes almost as beautifully as he draws.  I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Tom a couple of times at past NCN conventions and he’s a great teacher and advocate of cartoonists and caricaturists.

Another person I’ve been reading recently is Steve Silver over on Facebook.  Steve is a lead character designer in today’s animation field and recently started an artist’s group on Facebook where he posts motivational points on working as a creative individual.

Then there’s Sean ‘Cheeks’ Galloway, a comic artist and character designer who posts sketches and in progress designs, blogs, animates, and even though I’ve met him only briefly never forgets my face when we bump into each other at a convention.

Do you spot a trend yet?  Successful, hard working artists, with families and jobs and probably even busier than I am in my own little world yet they still find time to blog and encourage and correspond with people on a regular basis. Whereas I find difficulty returning most emails within a three month period.  It struck me that I should stop envying them this ability and do something about it.

As I look at the disorder that is my studio, I realized what I’m doing wrong is a question of discipline.  Sure, I have discipline.  I couldn’t put out nine comics a week without it, not to mention merchandise designs and other odds and sods of art.  In the meantime though, the paperwork piles up, correspondence goes unanswered and the dustbunnies form warring societies behind the cpu like something out of an old EC comic.  What I need to do is take that same energy and occasionally point it in another direction for an hour or two to get other things done and done well, so I don’t have to call 9-1-1 when a pile of old comics collapses upon me, pinning me to the linoleum as the cats pine for attention.

It’s not so much a question of priorities.  I think I have those ducks well lined up.  It’s the sundry activities in life that I make excuses about, that really would only take a few minutes of my attention to set mundanities right, instead of neglecting them until they become monsters I can’t ignore.

When someone asks me about being an artist, I always tell them there’s no shortcut for practice practice and MORE PRACTICE.  There are no shortcuts. I think I may have just figured out there are no shortcuts for the rest of life either and I better start lifting my ponderous butt out of this chair a little more often to deal with it.

Later!

So apparently it’s not so much that I never have anything to post about but that I never have time to post after the fact!  The past couple months certainly have been very full.  Back in October I not only got to enjoy Manitoba Comic Con but also participated in the 24 hour Comic Challenge under the fine care of Nick and Adam of 8Bit-4Colour, Kingston’s premiere comic shop.  I got to attend a metal concert backstage and caricature the band.  November of course, was all about my creative partner, Ryan Sohmer, getting married.  The bachelor weekend was held in New York City, where a dozen of us gathered to fete him with overpriced drinks and Broadway tunes.  This past weekend was the actual wedding and was a beautiful ceremony (my first Jewish wedding) and a gathering of friends and  family to start the couple off on their new life. 

Sometimes you get to attend a wedding where everyone is checking their watches, not because it’s late but because they are counting down the minutes to the divorce.  Sometimes you get to attend a wedding where everyone is sighing because the couple has long delayed the move of solemnizing their relationship.  And sometimes you attend a wedding all pissed off because it’s a cash bar.

This weekend was none of those. 

This past Saturday night, I was proud to stand among the friends and family to witness Sohmer marry the love of his life, Sue.  A surprise?  No.  The man has never been happier than when he’s with her.  Risky?  Hardly – the two of them are incredibly self-sufficient while also being hugely supportive of one another.  There may be more confident people out there, but I’m not sure I’ve met them.  You know how people say a bride is ‘radiant’?  There were times I could barely look at Sue as she was as a white flame, a blazing column of feminine strength and love that filled the synagogue with her love.  The extended family represented three generations of people who were intelligent, good humoured and so filled with love for the new couple.  It was a marvelous gathering.

What’s that you ask?  Cash bar? Please!!  Sohmer knows how to throw a party.

Not since my own wedding do I think I’ve enjoyed myself more.

We’ve got a week to get through before Sohmer returns and the hectic Christmas season steals the focus but if you have a minute this week, do yourself a favour and pause in your day.  In that moment, let a warm feeling of love creep into your psyche and know that it’s from the reality that there’s a new soul made of two people now living as one. That love is spilling out to include us all.

Later!