Loving others makes you beautiful.
Category Archives: illustrations
What Makes a Child Beautiful?
Filed under artwork, Celebration, humor, illustrations, kids, Paffooney
Story Illustrations on Art Day
One of the things I am increasingly doing is illustrating my novels and essays in the pages of books published on Amazon.
More from the work-in-progress, The Necromancer‘s Apprentice;
What follows are published illustrations;
Recipes for Gingerbread Children
One of the glorious things about ebooks is the fact that they allow colored illustrations which will print as black and white in the paperback version.
These, of course, are only a small sampling of the many illustrations in my books, especially the more recent books.
Filed under artwork, humor, illustrations, Paffooney
Portraits of Norwall Kids
Today’s Art-Day Saturday post is about the pictures I have drawn to establish in my mind the characters that make up the fictional world of Norwall, Iowa. Specifically, the kids in my YA novels.
I do manage character development and detailed descriptions by creating early on a picture of what the character looks like for me.
Filed under artwork, characters, humor, illustrations, kids, novel writing, Paffooney, Pirates
The Latest Character Portrait
Yes, I drew Blueberry Bates one more time.
I drew her as an illustration for the novella I am currently working on, Horatio T. Dogg, Super Sleuth.
The original is in pen and ink, shaded on the Microsoft paint program that came with the computer.
She is not a main character in this story. But she is a key character in the plot.
The essential details about the character Blueberry Bates include the fact that she was named by her older sisters. She was born a blue baby, her Infant Methemoglobinemia (Blue Baby Syndrome) was caused by too little oxygen in her blood. Her mother died during childbirth. Her father never quite recovered from the loss, leading her sisters and her aunt to raise her as a girl even though she was born with a penis. When x-rayed as a young child, she was found to have internal female organs, including ovaries and uterus. Blueberry is highly imaginative, loves to draw with colored pencils, and pursued Mike Murphy to be her boyfriend until he finally gave in and fell hopelessly in love with her at the edge of ten and a half. She is based on two different real transgender students I encountered as a teacher.
Here is the final, color version of the new portrait.
Filed under characters, illustrations, Paffooney, pen and ink
Portraying Key Characters
Since I have written my Hometown Novels as a series with certain recurring characters, it becomes important that I know what they look like in my own stupid head. So, I draw them. Mike Murphy and his girlfriend Blueberry Bates are good examples. They appear in The Bicycle-Wheel Genius, Magical Miss Morgan, and Catch a Falling Star.
Valerie Clarke is a main character in When the Captain Came Calling, Snow Babies, Sing Sad Songs, and He Rose on a Golden Wing.
Farbick the pilot and Davalon the tadpole are main characters in Catch a Falling Star, Stardusters and Space Lizards, and both appear in The Bicycle-Wheel Genius.
Sherry Cobble and her twin sister Shelly, both dedicated nudists, appear in Superchicken, Recipes for Gingerbread Children, The Baby Werewolf, The Boy… Forever, and Sherry by herself appears in A Field Guide to Fauns with her own twin daughters, Mandy and Tandy Clarke.
Brent Clarke is the leader of the Norwall Pirates in Superchicken, The Baby Werewolf, The Boy… Forever, and he appears as an adult in A Field Guide to Fauns, and The Wizard in his Keep.
Milt Morgan, from boyhood onward, is a wizard. He appears in Superchicken, The Baby Werewolf, The Boy… Forever, and he is an adult character in The Wizard in his Keep.
Torrie Brownfield is not actually a werewolf. He suffers from a genetic hair disorder called hypertrichosis. He appears in Recipes for Gingerbread Children and The Baby Werewolf.
Some characters have a single starring role, as Francois Martin does in Sing Sad Songs.
And Devon Martinez does in A Field Guide to Fauns.
I can always tell a better story when I know exactly what a character looks like. And I do that by drawing a picture.
Filed under artwork, characters, illustrations, Paffooney
The Ultra-Mad Madness of Don Martin
Born in 1931 and lasting in this crazy, mixed-up world until the year 2000, Don Martin was a mixy, crazed-up cartoonist for Mad Magazine who would come to be billed as “Mad Magazine’s Maddest Artist.” His greatest work was done during his Mad years, from 1956 (the year I was born… not a coincidence, I firmly believe) until his retirement in 1988. And I learned a lot from him by reading his trippy toons in Mad from my childhood until my early teacher-hood.
His style is uniquely recognizable and easily identifiable. Nobody cartoons a Foon-man like Don Martin.
The googly eyes are always popped in surprise. The tongue is often out and twirling. Knees and elbows always have amazingly knobbly knobs. Feet have an extra hinge in them that God never thought of when he had Adam on the drawing board.
And then there is the way that Martin uses sound effects. Yes, cartoons in print don’t make literal sounds, but the incredible series of squeedonks and doinks that Martin uses create a cacophony of craziness in the mind’s ear.
And there is a certain musicality in the rhyming of the character names he uses. Fester Bestertester was a common foil for slapstick mayhem, and Fonebone would later stand revealed by his full name, Freenbeen I. Fonebone.
And, of course, one of his most amazingly adventurous ne’er-do-well slapstick characters was the immeasurable Captain Klutz!
Here, there, and everywhere… on the outside he wears his underwear… it’s the incredible, insteadable, and completely not edible… Captain Klutz!
If you cannot tell it from this tribute, I deeply love the comic genius who was Don Martin, Mad Magazine’s Maddest Artist. Like me he was obsessed with nudists and drawing anatomy. Like me he was not above making up words with ridiculous-sounding syllables. And like me he was also a purple-furred gorilla in a human suit… wait! No, he wasn’t, but he did invent Gorilla-Suit Day, where people in gorilla suits might randomly attack you as you go about your daily life, or gorillas in people suits, or… keep your eye on the banana in the following cartoon.
So, even though I told you about Bruce Timm and Wally Wood and other toon artists long before I got around to telling you about Don Martin, that doesn’t mean I love them more. Don Martin is wacky after my own heart, and the reason I spent so much time immersed in Mad Magazine back in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.
Filed under artists I admire, artwork, cartoon review, cartoons, comic book heroes, goofiness, humor, illustrations
The Art of the Faery Tale
Filed under artwork, fairies, gingerbread, Hidden Kingdom, humor, illustrations, Paffooney
Story-Telling for Art Day
Filed under artwork, drawing, humor, illustrations, imagination, Paffooney
Pen and Ink Storytelling
But however you look at it, pen and ink is fun.
Filed under artwork, autobiography, characters, humor, illustrations, Paffooney, pen and ink
Living in the World I Once Drew
It is normal for the world we live in to inspire us to draw pictures of it. But architects do the opposite. They imagine a world we could live in, and then build it.
Sometimes, like in the picture above, I draw real people in imaginary places. Other times I draw imaginary people and put them in real places.
Sometimes I put imaginary people in imaginary places. (I photo-shopped this planet myself.)
In fiction, I am re-casting my real past as something fictional, so the places I draw with words in descriptions need to be as real as my amber-colored memory can manage.
When I use photos, though, I have to deal with the fact that over time, places change. The church does not look exactly like it did in the 1980s when this drawing is set.
Drawing things I once saw, and by “drawing” I mean “making pictures,” is how I recreate myself to give my own life meaning.
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Filed under artwork, autobiography, collage, commentary, humor, illustrations, imagination, Paffooney, photo paffoonies
Tagged as Saturday Art Day