Here is what the pen and ink background project looks like tonight before I start working on it.
Tag Archives: drawing
Broken Hearts
Last night I had an episode that may have been tachycardia, a scary enough thing, but that was followed by chest pain in the area of my heart. I came very near to calling 911 and going to the emergency room at about 2:20 a.m. I didn’t, or rather, I kinda passed out before I got to the phone. But it turned out okay. I have been to the cardiologist twice before for the same thing. It turned out that the electrocardiogram was completely normal. Before it was my COPD that fooled me into thinking I was having a heart attack. This time was probably also that. Lung pain and muscle spasms can disguise themselves in Halloween costumes of myocardial infarction. But I am over the scare now. I am not dead. I am apparently not dying yet. So I am still playing games with Paffooney backgrounds.
Yes, I know you are getting tired of this same background, but I’m still playing while I still am able.
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Things You Probably Ought to Know about Mickey
As Mickey’s go, the one who is writing this is a moderately interesting example of the breed. Still, there are things you probably ought to be made aware of. A sort of precautionary thing…
First of all, this particular Mickey is an Iowegian. That means he comes from Iowa, the State where the tall corn grows. It is a prime reason why his jokes are corny and his ears have been popped (oh, and he does actually have two, unlike the picture Paffooney where only one is showing). His fur is not actually purple. If anything now, it is mostly silver-gray. But the Paffooney is a magical portrait, and purple is the color of magic. He has a goofy, and sometimes fatal grin. You may not be able to prove that he has ever actually grinned someone to death, but it is likely he could always dig somebody up.
Another irrefutable fact about this Mickey, unlike many many Mickeys, is that he used to actually be a public school teacher. He taught the little buggers for thirty-one years, plus two years as a substitute teacher. He did twenty-four of those years in middle school… twenty-three of those in one school in South Texas. His mostly Hispanic students managed to teach him every bad word in Spanglish… err, Texican… err, Tex-Mex… or is it Taco Bell? Anyway, they taught him every bad word except for the word for cooties… you know, piojos. He learned that word from an old girl friend.
A despicable thing about him… (you know despicable, right? It’s that word that Sylvester the cat always uses) is that he actually likes kids. That’s just not normal for someone who teaches them. Teachers are supposed to hate kids, aren’t they? But he never did. It is true that he yelled at them sometimes, but he never did that because he hated them. He did that only for fun. And he actually apologized to kids sometimes when they got into behavioral trouble, because he said it was the teacher’s fault if kids are bad, and, besides, the kids are so surprised by that, that they forget all about the behavior and can be flammoozled into acting good.
The last and most wicked thing you need to know about Mickey is that he cartoons up a storm sometimes. He loves to draw everything that is wacky and weird. He has more goofball colored pencil tricks than a Charles Shultz and a Dr. Seuss rolled together in a sticky lump with a George Herriman stuck on top in place of a cherry. He steals ideas and techniques from other artists and steals jokes from comedians, undertakers, and random juvenile delinquents. He also puts together lists of wacky oddball details that don’t quite fit together and weaves it into purple paisley prose (somewhere in this whole messy blog thing he has also defined purple paisley prose and how to make it… in case you were curious.)
So there you have it. The Truth about Mickey. The sordid, simpering, solitary facts about Mickey. The straight poop. (wait a minnit! How did poop get there? Not again! I thought I had cured that!)
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Consequences of Art
This little picture Paffooney is a work that makes me sick. Now, I don’t want to mislead you, but it I literally mean it makes me sick. So let me explain quickly before I have to do something about the nausea. I drew this from a black-and-white photo of a zebra on a day when I was seriously ill with the flu. It took a good deal of concentration while having a headache and fever to draw the detailed, stripey form. The stripes, the zig-zags, the cross-hatches, all conspired with the dizziness and the fever to permanently impress the feelings on my brain. I can’t look at it now without feeling queasy. So why am I posting it now? Well, it shouldn’t have the same effect on you. And I can post it and look at it now without feeling any worse because I am now sick with fever and possibly flu. I hope you like this more than I do.
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Bug People
Sometimes I like to bug people. Wait, is that a pun? Was it punny? Maybe puny? Bugs are puny. I like bugs. I am constantly making up names for them. Bugs are people too… Aren’t they? These are bug people. One is a beetle who is not John Lennon. Another is a moth who would rather be a butterfly. There is a little ladybug. And the bug giving out the Koolaid is Billy Bugbright. Have you ever seen Hoppity Goes to Town? It’s a Max Fleischer feature-length cartoon from 1941. Here’s a link; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZQhZkee5LA Okay, enough about bugs… I am going a little bit buggy.
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Protagonists
I have been thinking about who qualifies as the Protagonist in my most recent novel, The Bicycle Wheel Genius. I have to ponder this because the title character, the inventor Orben Wallace, doesn’t actually seem to be the center of his own story. Instead, it is the boy who lives next door that is learning about life, adventure, girls, and imagination. In the novel, the inventor has taken a vow to never use electronic devices if he didn’t have to because it was an electromagnetic invention that went awry in his laboratory and started the house fire that killed his wife and son. So he tries to invent things with pedal power and tries to forget the wife and son he lost. But it happens that Tim Kellogg, the inquisitive boy next door, not only reminds him of the lost son, but he actively tries to learn about Orben and make friends with him. Tim has a best friend, Tommy Bircher, who shares in his adventures and always stands by his side. But Tommy’s parents are involved in an international business that moves them away from Tim. He has to deal with the loss of his best friend. At the same time, his new best friend, Mike Murphy, has discovered girls. One particular girl, Blueberry Bates, is in love with him and captures his young heart. So naturally Tim is upset, and so tries to get back at the girl who took his replacement best friend. He has to learn to understand an appreciate the girl and her needs better. Tim and Orben desperately need to be friends with each other, and through shared adventures, they discover that the bond between them is very powerful. So, I have to conclude that Orben is not really the protagonist of his own story. He is not the one who has to learn something and fundamentally change. And Tim Kellogg begins and ends the story, just as he does in this post.
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Maxfield Parrish Pictures
Much of what I draw is inspired by Maxfield Parrish, the commercial artist who created stunningly beautiful work for advertisers in the 1920’s and 30’s, and went on to paint murals and masterworks until the 1960’s. He is noted for his luminous colors, especially Parrish Blue, and can’t be categorized under any existing movement or style of art. No one is like Maxfield Parrish. And I don’t try to be either, but I do acknowledge the debt I owe to him. You should be able to see it in these posts, some of mine, and some of his.
Mine; (In the Land of Maxfield Parrish)
His; (Daybreak)
Mine; (Wings of Imagination)
His; (Egypt)
Believe me, I know who wins this contest. I am not ashamed to come in second. I will never be as great as he was. But I try, and that is worth something. It makes me happy, at any rate.
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Little Mermaids
Why do I post a Paffooney about a mermaid? Especially the horrific tale of the Little Mermaid written by Hans Christian Andersen? I cannot really say… unless it is about self-sacrificing love… and its redeeming value.
In the original story, the 15-year-old mermaid discovers that mermaids, though they live for 300 years, do not have a soul. She also manages to save a handsome prince from drowning, and then falls in love with him. She goes to the sea witch to become human and have legs. For the switch from fins to feet, the little mermaid pays a terrible price. The sea witch cuts out her tongue. When she drinks the feet-making potion, it hurts as if she were being split by a knife. And, though, she can’t talk to win the prince, she can dance. Dancing, however, feels like walking on broken glass, constantly bleeding and hurting. So she goes to win true love’s kiss from the prince, the only thing that can give her a human soul. But the prince is a total jerk, refusing to believe that the mermaid is the one who saved him and marrying the princess next door instead. The sea witch gives the mermaid one final hope. She can kill the prince, and bathing her legs in his blood, become a mermaid again. Though he probably deserves to die, she decides she cannot kill him, and so she dies, becoming sea foam. Yep, a horrible story in which the heroine sacrifices herself for a love that exists only in her own heart.
And the story doesn’t end there. In the 1952 Danny Kaye movie Hans Christian Andersen, it is suggested that he wrote the story of the Little Mermaid as a ballet to send a message of his self-sacrificing love to the ballerina he loved but had no idea of his love. Now, we know the movie doesn’t even try to be biographically accurate, but the real Andersen, a self-proclaimed asexual being, had many deep affairs of the heart that were not only non-sexual, but decidedly unrequited. He had loves both female and male who could not love him in return. No one ever gave the old bachelor the kind of love he desired, and yet, in his self-sacrificing way he poured his love into some of the most lovely fairytales ever written.
Disney had the audacity to change the little mermaid into a story with a happy ending. This, of course, was the Disney way. Although Walt Disney was dead and had no knowledge of the animated film, he would’ve approved. Wish-upon-a-star magic of happy-ever-aftering is pretty important to the Disney legacy as a whole. The lovely cartoon musical saved the Disney empire from decline and dissolution. I am aware that the business plan of evil corporate manipulator Michael Eisner also has to be given credit, but I prefer to believe that everything can only come to a happy ending by mixing in the essential ingredient of unconditional love.
Why, then, did I do a Little Mermaid Paffooney? Was it so I could draw a naked young girl? I hope not. I hope it is because I believe that the only purpose of art is to portray the uncloaked love that exists at the center of all experience.
The Little Mermaid by Edmund DuLac
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Doofy Dog Doings
I noted before that I have so far used an alarming number of dog-poop jokes in my creative writing projects. (All right, two instances may not really be alarming, but it does indicate that I am thinking about dog poop way too much.) I guess the reason for it is that I have a dog, and she is not a genius dog. She is smarter than I can cope with, but she only beats me at chess once out of every thirty games. She inspired today’s Paffooney, so let me show you the picture before I tell you everything that is wrong with my little dog.
Okay, my dog looks nothing like this. She is a Cardigan Corgi, a dog bred to chase and kill barn rats, or to protect the baby’s crib when the adults are not in the room. She is highly possessive, and she considers me her property. So, here’s where the dog poop comes in. I have to walk her twice a day, and I have to take a Walmart bag with me to pick up the poop in the park (even though it is obvious that no one else in our neighborhood does it despite the posted law). And it turns out that this is not enough to keep her from pooping in the house. The little poop factory can make as many as five times in one day. And even worse, she will poop in punishment if we commit the crime of leaving her alone to go somewhere. We get back from the dollar movie and she has pooped on the dining room carpet, or in front of my bedroom door, somewhere where she knows I will see it and get mad. She doesn’t care if she gets punished in return. She is satisfied if she made her point. So I am drowning in dog poop on a daily basis. It’s no wonder it’s on my mind and I end up writing about it. God help me, of all the things to have on your mind, I have dog poop on mine!
If you are wondering about the rat in the picture, there is a rat part to my doggy nightmare. We live near a city park where there are lots of storm drains and rain gutters for rats to inhabit. And there are throngs of rats. When we kept the dog in the yard on a chain, the rats would come by daily to laugh at her before coming into the house and gnawing rat holes into the walls and ceilings and eat the glues out of the spines of many of my books. So rats are a part of the reason she now gets to live in the house. My wife goes ballistic from seeing or hearing rats. But I think they still laugh at her as they come in anyway. It’s just that they stay quieter with her around and my wife doesn’t see or hear them. So, it would be problem solved if only the poop problem would go away.
Here’s her actual portrait. Sorry if it is too scary for children and the faint of heart.
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Playing With Picture Paffooneys
As an artist, you find many ways to cheat and make more with less. I have discovered that with a cheap photo-shopping program, I can snip elements out of existing artworks and combine them together into something new. My fingers no longer have the dexterity needed for intricately detailed backgrounds, but I find that photo-backgrounds fit my plan better anyway. Here I took Valerie Clarke and pasted her on a photo of hollyhocks created by Belinda Buchanan. I then pasted in the Swallowtail butterfly from a recent Paffooney. Now, I know that if your mind doesn’t accept the butterfly as in the air and closer to the viewer than Valerie, then I have created a picture of pre-historic monster-bug. Mothra does Iowa. Oh well, I think it is pretty anyway… and it leads to further noodling with old art.
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