Again I go back to artwork done for Saturday role-playing games, a thing which I started doing in 1981. It filled my life for a time. And it also taught me to be a teacher. After all, the DM (Dungeon Master, or Game Master) has to be a story-teller and a master explainer… just like a school teacher.
Filed under artwork, characters, Dungeons and Dragons, Paffooney
Drawing is a matter of life-long practice and a honing of skills. Honing? I like that word. A hone is a fine-grained whetstone for sharpening knives or cutting edges. It can also mean sharpening the details, clarifying and making more accutate the process you are performing.
So, what’s wrong with this picture?
Well, the unicorn who posed for it had round glasses and didn’t stick his tongue out while posing.
Honing is needed.
And these duck eyes aren’t realistic because mallards are usually much angrier when they are looking at you in real life. Where’s the red blood vessels around the edges of the eye-whites that real ducks don’t even have?
And this evil smile is not supported by necessary details. Where’s the MAGA hat? And why does his left hand not contain the severed pigtails of the girl who sits in front of him in Science Class?
And this picture? Is this supposed to be Cupid? The tip of his arrow is not dripping with love-potion. And if you look closely, you can see the wrinkles in the paper it’s drawn on. Honing is needed, Mickey!
Here I am back to doing D&D and Traveller on Saturdays. All of the art in this post was once used in conjunction with RPGs played with former students, and my own kids. I was always the game master in the past, and I used drawings and illustrations to help the imaginary adventures come to life.
Harun the Charmer was only ever used as a player-character once. The boy whose character it was provided the face I modeled it after. He was an absolutely arresting boy that had such a winning personality that people fell in love with him almost instantly.
He spent way more time helping another teacher grade papers than he did playing Talislanta games with goofy old Mr. B.
And I promise, only one of the facts presented here about Harun is a lie, in attempt to protect this young gentleman’s identity. We unfortunately lost him back in the 1990’s.
Filed under artwork, characters, Dungeons and Dragons, humor, Paffooney
Once I was finally able to scan pictures again, I did some scanning of old pictures that only got the camera treatment before on my blog.
But why stop a drawing at just the pen and ink, when there is potential for so much more?
So, I took the Microsoft generic paint program and my generic photo editor to not only this pen and ink of the Jungle Princess, but a few other pictures as well.
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This is what she looks like after being attacked with color by my arthritic old hands. (There was a day when I could have handled intricate details more cleverly, but that was many, many days ago.
Anyway, I have added new dimensions to Leopard Girrrl with color.
Now I need to add more complications to the basic story of the picture.
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Here is an older pen and ink.
This is Dorin Dobbs, one of the dueling plotlines’ protagonists from the novel Catch a Falling Star.
But, of course, Dorin is a more complex character than this old black and white.
So, color needs to be added.
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I had this one actually already painted in…
But in order to use it in this project, I needed to enlarge it to make it fit into the other picture.
Making this unlikely pair work together in a story is one of the challenges of doing surrealist stories. They have to be grounded in realism, but also bring jarringly different things together. Like the Jungle Princess going on an adventure with Norwall’s Lying King.
But, putting these two together is still not enough. Let’s try some other things.
The Jungle Princess together with Tomboy Dilsey Murphy is an unusual pairing.
Or what about the blue faun from Laughing Blue?
Or even Annette Funicello?
Ridiculous, I know. But don’t they look like satin sofa paintings?
And how surreal is that?
Actual anatomy should be studied with live models and strong light.
…And making a human form look real depends on how you render the shading and shadow to reveal 3-D shapes in 2-D.
And it probably becomes an issue if you are only drawing children’s anatomy.
You have to have parental consent for a child to pose nude for you. This picture not only shows adult male anatomy and deer anatomy drawn from photos, but a nude girl who was 13 when the photo was taken, but 22 when she gave me permission to use it. And, of course, I returned the original photo when this was done. The girl was the daughter of Canadian nudist friends.
This picture was drawn from a model that was actually a nude statuette rather than an actual human being. The important factor in creating nude art is that it is not sexual or intentionally erotic. It does not focus on genitals or breasts, and can, in fact, obscure those parts of the body completely and still be a nude.
Filed under artwork, nudes, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life, studio
Some of the drawings and paintings I do, I do because they make me happy. I know it’s more noble if I do it to make you, the viewer, happy. But part of making art is that you are making it for your own needs. Art is therapy. Often, art is love. This picture of Shannon (not her real name) makes me happy. She was a student I loved, (only in the legal, Platonic sense.)
This one makes me happy. I drew it on a day I needed to laugh. And I laugh a little even now when I look at it.
This one is also a smirkable smirk-maker.
I drew this on a day when I was lonely.
This one tickles me on many levels.
These Telleron, temporary Martians helped me start my publishing career with the publication of Catch a Falling Star.
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And pretty girls can make me happy too.
Especially naked ones.
And I mean drawing them, not what was in your evil mind.
To celebrate the funny face, you really have to smile.
The goofy look, the bizarre expression, that lingers for a while.
Have a face that’s funny? It really is a gift.
To look for happy people, use the chuckle-sound to sift.
Brekka the female Telleron Tadpole is accidentally eaten by the flesh-eating flower from outer space known as Lester (both heads seen here are actually Lester,) But Brekka’s species of amphibianoid alien is poisonous to him/her/or it. so he vomits her out again, having juiced her just enough to grant her telepathy with the plant and all its buds. They become best of friends. This scene comes from the novel Stardusters and Space Lizards.
Filch is a Dungeons and Dragons character from the 1980’s. He is a Gypsy, pickpocket, thief, trap-master, and all around disgusting twelve-year-old boy. (A sixth-grader if he ever went to school.)
He was a D&D rogue used as a character by a 16-year-old band nerd who went on to attend undergraduate college at Notre Dame.
I told teacher stories in the fall of 2016, the second start of a school year after I retired. Randy was a pain in the posterior, extremely smart, and my biggest classroom clown. He saw the fins on the back of my Ford Torino and decided he would call me “Batman” my second year of teaching, 1982. In October he wore a Batman Halloween Mask (a cheap plastic one,) and before he could call me Batman, I addressed him in front of everyone, “I’m so glad you could attend my class today, Battyman, but you will need to go by your secret identity during class.” After that, Battyman was what the other 8th graders called him for the rest of the year.
Filed under artwork, autobiography, humor, Paffooney
My blog began in 2013 after the publication of Catch a Falling Star.
This picture/illustration from my failed novel, AeroQuest, appeared on the blog that first year.
2014 Davalon and Farbick from Catch a Falling Star
In 2015 my book Snow Babies killed an Indie Publisher and I found a rip-off publisher for Magical Miss Morgan.
In 2016 I realized I could publish for myself with Amazon.
In 2017 I began publishing at least 2 novels a year.
By 2018 my blog was percolating along with a post every day.
2019 found me publishing novels set in 3 different decades, the 70’s, 80’s, & 90’s.
The pandemic in 2020 made me more productive, publishing 6 books.
2021… I have now shown you one artwork from each year of my blog.
Catch a Falling Star 
Seeing Through an Artist’s Eyes
It is not an easy thing to explain. Artists don’t see things using only their eyes. The brain intrudes in the process. For instance, you are welcome to interpret the picture above any way you like. But the way I see it will be nothing like what you thought this picture is about. You probably see two very different girls here. There is actually only one. I know because, as the artist who drew both parts of this picture, I actually know where the ideas came from. There is only one girl in the picture. Dilsey Murphy, in front and wearing her Carl Eller Minnesota Vikings’ jersey, is based about 33% on the older of my two sisters. On the outside she is pragmatic, no-nonsense, and focused on living a family life that is as normal as possible. But the inner Dilsey is the African leopard-princess. She dreams of going on Tarzan adventures in the movie-jungles of the mind with a handsome male hero. She is fierce, loyal, and completely independent, not even needing the hero she adventures with. In fact, she often saves him.
This picture is about the idyllic parts of my childhood. The mother figure is doing a ritual dance. She is in tune with the music of daily life. She is closely attuned also to her responsibilities of stewardship in her society. Both children are nude. I cropped this picture so that it is not rude and showing Smiling Boy’s penis. But both children are bathed in nature and sunshine, not just because I am pro-nudism personally, but because clothing covers up innocence and joy.
This one is easier to interpret. I was an ESL teacher. I had students who spoke Spanish as their first language and students who learned to speak Mandarin Chinese as their first language. It makes for a classroom that becomes a cultural mixing bowl. You have to learn how to deal with people who are very different than you,, but are benefitting from learning English together.
Every picture the artist draws or paints has its own weirdness embedded inside it. The way the artist sees it is probably never the same as how the viewer thinks about it. And that is as it should be. But as a viewer of art, it is hoped that you will at least try to think about what the artist means to say..
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Filed under artwork, colored pencil, coloring, commentary, Paffooney
Tagged as Saturday Art Day