On Drawing: Kimon Nicolaides

Here's a great quote from the introduction to Kimon Nicolaides's famous instructional book, The Natural Way to Draw:

'There is a vast difference between drawing and making drawings. The things you will do - over and over again - are but practice. They should represent to you only the result of an effort to study, the by-product of your mental and physical activity. Your progress is charted, not on paper, but in the increased knowledge with which you look at life around you.'

Capitalism, Drawing and Cartoons (Part 2)

Read Part 1 of this article.

This article is inspired by some comments by ace cartoonist, John Kricfalusi, about Capitalism and cartooning. I would encourage everybody to read John's excellent blog, but at time of writing, it has been made private. (I left links to John's posts in the hope that sometime in the future he opens up his blog to general readers again.)

My first post considered the nature of work in creative industries from the perspective of animation students.

John K's second post considered the aims of Capitalism. John says that Michael Moore, in his recent documentary Capitalism: A Love Story, makes one of the classic caricatures of social democracy: 'nobody is allowed to get rich.' Of course this is quite fatuous.

It would be more truthful to say that a social democratic system should allow more people to get rich and that all people should have the same access to the means of getting rich. (Okay, maybe they will not be quite as disgustingly rich as today's super-Capitalists, but they'll get by nicely.)

This example seems to illustrate a persistent problem in debates about Capitalism v Socialism: the former is an idea about economics that may mold society, the latter is an idea about society that may mold economics.

Capitalism: What is it for?

Broadly speaking, I believe the aim of Capitalism is to produce markets and from these markets wealth. Socialism (or Social Democracy) is a delivery system for democracy. There is no like-for-like comparison between Capitalism and Socialism. So let's forget about it and just deal with Capitalism and whether or not it's giving us what we want.

Capitalism tries to produce markets. Big markets, small markets, markets for everything: markets for healthcare, markets for entertainment, markets for food. Companies and individuals try to enter those markets with products and services and to control them.

Is that a good thing? Well it's one approach to economics and it's pretty swell, as far as it goes, but there are trade-offs in every economic model. And some of those trade-offs are social (and creative).

Say Acme Animation Studio corners the market in cartoons. They hire the best artists and make the best cartoons. It 's unlikely, but let's just say that if somebody wants cartoons they go to Acme.

Acme can now charge whatever it wants. There is a market for cartoons and Acme fills that demand. Acme can now lower the quality of their product, because there is no other supplier of cartoons, lowering its costs and increasing its profits.

And that is to say nothing of the fact that Acme must buy or put out of business other makers of cartoons and must devalue the labour that goes into cartoon-making to reach its dominant position.

And if you imagine this to be a fanciful scenario, consider that a handful of huge media organisations produce most of the world's entertainment. Capitalism's problem is that it tends towards monopoly.

Individual incentives v Capitalist incentives

Individuals are motivated to achieve success: for some that means heaps of gold and dancing girls on tap, for others it is creating a character that makes them split their sides. Sometimes the goals of individuals and the profit motive of business overlap and everybody wins, but less frequently than we might imagine.

Despite the unprecedentedly wealthy period of history in which we live - even as we try to unf*ck the global economy - the wealthiest Western societies we have been growing steadily less happy over time.

In the early twentieth century, the best, most profitable way to produce cartoons also provided the most creative opportunity. Everybody one: Tex Avery, Bob Clampett and Co produced Looney Tunes and Warner Brothers turned a buck. It was a narrow window of creative opportunity.

Capitalism is motivated by growth and business by profit. There is an obvious disconnect here between the interests of the truly creative person - for whom creativity is an end and not a means - and the capitalist, who wants to make a profit (and for whom cartoons are merely variably profitable widgets).

In search of a profit, Acme must devalue the labour the goes into making a cartoon - by mechanising its production or outsourcing it to poor countries - to maintain the value of its product. So the problem is not merely technical (poor technical skills or standards) but cultural (poor imagination).

Capitalism, Drawing and Cartoons

John K has been stimulated by Michael Moore's new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, to post his thoughts about Capitalism and cartoons recently. This has stimulated me to some thoughts of my own about Capitalism, cartooning and drawing.

I certainly have mixed feelings about Michael Moore. He's an entertainer, rather than a polemicist, and he's funny, obnoxious and self-righteous by turns.

In his first post, John makes some interesting points about cartooning students and some less interesting generalisations about college education. But among these he makes some sharp observations about the purpose of education.

I'm currently studying animation - from a very practical standpoint (at I guess what you'd call a trade school) - and I have not drawn a single cartoon yet in any class. And I doubt I will this year.

The entire curriculum is based on observation and observational drawing. The logic behind this seems fairly clear to me. Strong looking and drawing skills underpin cartooning and animation. (This is not to say that you cannot animate a bad drawing, but just that it won't look very nice.)

This is also not to say that if you can draw that you can cartoon. After starting this course I now have even more respect for the great animators whose work I loved before; they were clearly excellent draughtsmen and great cartoonists. Drawing is the basis for cartooning, but in my studies I'm learning that a further layer of visual understanding and skill must be learned.

John makes the point that many students mistake a cartoon style for a cartoon drawing, learning some stock expressions and visual style, without digging down to the heart of what makes cartoons work.

I think that a student without competent drawing skills - understanding of tone, colour, line and form and the ability to represent them - will be unlikely to pick up the principles of cartooning - line of action, hierarchy etc. - let alone produce good cartoons.

And here is where the capitalism comes in. Drawing is not a career; but cartooning is. Drawing doesn't shift any commercial units; cartoons on the other hand are big business. Imagine if every would-be animation student was told that he or she had to be proficient in drawing before they could study the subject. Admissions would drop through the floor.

For a number of reasons, but mostly because investing time in developing drawing skills is not directly saleable, whereas illustration and animation, commercialise that skill. This is why would-be animators draw cartoon characters from shows they grew up watching; they don't envision themselves as professional draughtsmen.

Next week: Who's to blame for the state of contemporary cartoons? It's the Economy stupid!

Eclectic Micks-up!

Double the pun! Double the fun!

Here's a picture of the Rocketeer doing a double-take at my amazing wit!

(sigh...)

Anyway, OK Erok! wishes to belatedly draw your attention to the Eclectic Micks blog, where the cream of Ireland's comic creative talent - Bob Byrne, Declan Shalvey, Stephen Mooney, Stephen Thompson and Will Sliney - post sketches every week!

Finally got around to updating my links too. Check out the drop-down menus to your right. Nice!

Famous Artists Cartoon Course

"It's a bad idea to try to prevent people from knowing their own history. If you want to do anything new you must first make sure you know what people have tried before."
- Ernst Gombrich, A Little History of the World

I've posted all the available lessons from The Famous Artists Cartoon Course up on Issuu. Whether or not you are interested in learning to draw, the lessons are illustrated by such old-school heroes as Al Capp and Milton Caniff.

(via Comicrazys and Leo Brodie)

Joyce

What if James Joyce had been born with a huge, pendulous nose? Has this thought never crossed your mind?

Celebrated Irish writer and expat, James Joyce, was a man of many words. Too many, I often thought, as I trudged through his ‘20th century Modernist masterpiece’ Ulysees, required reading in college.

Joyce had rather neat, Irish features, gathered in the middle of his unusually long face. And even if you didn’t like his writing, his majestic chin was the pride of Ireland.

If not exactly a matinee idol, the young Joyce was good-looking, in his way. (Later on, and even after failing basic seamanship and being rejected from the crew of a three-master heading for the Nicobar Islands and from there to pirate in the Indian ocean, Joyce indulgently continued to wear an eye-patch.)

But things could have been so different for Joyce. For example, if Oliver St John Gogarty had not merrily opened fire at Joyce, one morning, over breakfast. If Joyce had remained in Ireland, rather than exiling himself to the continent. Or if Joyce had possessed a nose of giant proportions.

Certainly, we all wonder how Joyce would have coped with such a pendulous, olfactory protuberance.

Things would have been different for this floppy-nosed Joyce. It might have led him deeper into labyrinthine Modernism; he might have revolutionised the literary potboiler. It might have caused Nora Barnacle (awesome name, by the way) to spurn him as a sausage-nosed freak.

Joyce would have been different. His life and his work have taken a radically different course. It would have been much funnier.

Comics are rubbish

Last week, for the first time in over a month, I went into my local comic shop. Ever the optimist, I always anticipate shelves full of fantastical bounty (despite frequent disappointments), but on this occasion the offerings were truly pitiful.

Of course there were all the classic graphic novels and collections - the ones I keep meaning to get around to: the complete Zot and Bone, various collections of Love & Rockets, Queen and Country and The Age of Bronze - but the regular monthly comics were expensive and boring.

To be fair, they may not be boring comics, but they looked dull. Many of the comics I browsed looked generic, lacking in passion. It seemed like all the artists had been to the same school; lots of competent (some excellent) draughtsmanship, plenty of technical polish, but little style.

And style is important. In comics it might be the most important: it is the story.

I’ve always found that if I respond to a comic’s artwork, I’ll give its story a chance. Conversely, I seldom get into a comic if I don’t respond to the artwork. This means a) the artwork must be good (draughtsmanship competent, style compelling) b) the story must be as good or better than the artwork.

Why is this a big ask? Frank Miller, Dave Gibbons, Paul Pope are all celebrated because of their distinctive styles.

The only ray of light I found, in the gloomy basement of the comic shop, was the new Hellboy comic: The Wild Hunt.

Hellboy has now been running for over a decade. The series has not only produced a couple of interesting spin-offs (BPRD and Lobster Johnson), but sustained it’s high quality on several levels: engaging stories, a rich cast of characters and atmospheric artwork that totally ‘belongs’ to the story.

While Hellboy himself is a great character, who wrestles with questions of fate/destiny, free will and human (er, demon) nature, it is Mike Mignola's amazing artwork that brings this world to life.

Hellboy has managed to stay interesting because of its characters and story and exciting because of its artwork. (It's perfectly possible to present 'dramatic' events in totally dull way. Look on the shelves of the comic shop, if you don't believe me.)

I never thought Mignola could be replaced - he’s such a unique stylist and by far my favourite comics artist - but Duncan Fegredo is faithful to Mignola’s style, without being slavish. Mignola continues to write the stories and the comic is every bit as good as ever.

As for the rest... just as well Drawn posted a list of the best comics of 2008 - which I may investigate - or I’d be really depressed.

F*** pens (not really)

I’m always interested in how people go about producing comics. It’s instructive about the craft and fascinating from a creative perspective. For example, Paddy Brown (who writes and illustrates The Cattle Raid of Cooley web-comic) dives right in with a pen.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I like to draw. I’m okay at it, but I lack a bit of confidence. However, I have discovered something interesting about my process of ideation (at least visually).

Given a pen, I often hesitate to make my first mark and if it is not a good one, I lose heart. With a pencil it’s a different story. (And it’s not because I can erase as I draw; I often don’t bother).

I feel much more relaxed with a pencil (and not a push-pen either, a good old piece of wood with a rod of graphite down the middle). The tactile qualities of the pencil reassure me that nothing bad is going to happen. The feel of the wood in my fingers, the contact of the rounded graphite point on the paper, the natural quality of the line (its colour and shape) comfort me.

It seems that the tactile qualities of the pencil do not appeal to Paddy, who gives a full description of his unique comics production process:

“I don't use pencils - I find working directly in ink more satisfying. When I work with a pencil I find myself becoming more tentative, second-guessing myself, and when I've got a pencilled drawing I'm happy with, inking kills it. So I cut out the middle man.”

As long as we're all drawing.

I Made a Drawing!

No idea what this is about.

I think it looks a lot better at its full poster size, but you get the idea.

I Make: Pissed off

Well, I meant to post a panel from my entry to the Irish Comic Creator Challenge, but forgot to put it on my memory stick this morning.

After the trauma of putting on my rain-gear - still damp from the weekend, it was like wrestling a wet python - that was the least of my worries. To be honest, I'm just glad I made it through the torrential rain.

Terrific news just in from the meteorological service:

Today
Scattered outbreaks of rain and drizzle in Ulster and Leinster at first. Persistent rain in Munster and Connacht spreading countrywide this morning, heavy in places, with some thundery downpours and a risk of localised flooding. Low cloud and fog on hills and near the coast. Highest temperatures 15 to 19 degrees in mostly fresh variable winds.

Tonight
Further outbreaks of rain tonight, some heavy. Some hill and coastal fog. Lowest temperatures 11 to 14 degrees, with winds becoming northwesterly and easing.

Tomorrow
Bright or sunny spells and scattered showers tomorrow, some heavy, with longer spells of rain in parts of the east and north at first. Highest temperatures 16 to 20 degrees in moderate to fresh northwest winds.

3 Day Outlook
Apart from isolated showers, Tuesday night will be cool and mostly dry with light winds. Wednesday will be bright with some sunny breaks. Good dry spells will occur, but showers will develop and where they occur will be heavy locally, and the south of the country will have longer spells of rain. Winds will be light mainly southwest. Thursday will be a mostly dry [if damp] with variable cloud and sunny spells. Winds will be light and variable. Then apart from well scattered showers, Friday will also be mostly dry [apart from the downpours, don't forget the downpours] and winds will be light.

[PS: Who cares how fresh and variable the winds are, when they're saturated to the point of dissolving? Seriously.]

What a treat. At least the monsoon season will soon be over and we can all look forward to winter.

I Make: Death-dealing Robot

Inspired by Ashley Wood. And this:

'Everyone knows that [Asimov's] laws will not work, because human beings will not use them when they build robots. Humans are lazy and weak and greedy, which is why robots will inevitably decide to kill them. We should expect this and come to terms with it. We have had a good run.'

I, for one, would like to welcome our robot overlords!

I Make: Fantomah!

Here's a sketch I did the other night of Fletcher Hanks's Fantomah in 'calm' and 'wrathful' modes. I've gone for a more Bettie Page/dark angel look, with the bangs.

Sadly today, there are too few tales of jungle retribution.

Happy Father's Day!

Here's the card I made for Father's Day.

Six of the Best! For Drawing Day!

Grab a pencil/ pen/ stylus! It's Drawing Day 2008!

Celebrate by using any of these six free design/illustration/image editing tools online (and off):

1. The Gimp - and for those who can't imagine using anything other than Photoshop, there's GimpShop, which adapts the Photoshop interface and hotkeys for Gimp!
   
2. Inkscape - powerful-looking vector graphics editor, with plenty of support material; I'm just started to use this, since my ancient copy of Illustrator seems to be dying. But Microugly has created a handy Inkscape reference for Illustrator heads.
   
3. Paint.Net - I haven't tried this one yet, but it comes highly recommended.
   
4. Fontforge - The only free font editor I've come across. Looks good, if a little awkward to install, for non-techie types.
   
5. Pencil! - unlimited undos with the use of an eraser!
   
6. Pen! - there truly is nothing that cannot be done with a biro.
   

Six of the best! How to Draw Comics

I would just like everybody to know that this was a painstakingly researched blog entry. I've been combing the Internet obsessively, making notes and lists of pros and cons. Just in time for Drawing Day 2008. Nice.

1. Edgar Tadeo - short, but covers basics of figure drawing.
2. Rat Creature - scans of various how to draw books
3. Learn to Draw - not particularly about comics (though it does have a section about caricatures), this imaginatively titled website has lots of good exercises.
   
4. Drawing Comics - Comic pro Scott McDaniel's really useful guide to perspective.
   
5. A really good article about animation on Scribd. And Rivkah's posts about panelling and ballooning and Wally Wood's 22 panels are really worth checking out.
   
6. The motherload of comics tutorials.

Also, unrelated to drawing day per se, eager beaver types might like to try a 24 hour comic. All the best comics creators do them.

Do Your Strip!

Ah the Belgians! Always flying the balloon for comics and being (improbably) the centre of the European Union.

Do Your Strip is a project that brings together 50 (or maybe 70?) comics illustrators to design characters - such as this one by Mr Clement - and draw a short strip.

Ah ha! But they must do a strip showing how to draw their character, so that children (and me) can draw their own strips with them. Nice!

The resulting strips will be exhibited in Brussels - at time of writing, this seems to be on hold - and published as a book (of which you can download a PDF preview. Nice work Belgians!)

It's a shame that my native Ireland is so relatively comics illiterate, because this kind of thing would get anybody excited. An exhibition that parents would enjoy bringing their kids to.

[via Drawn]

Lovely picture: Feanne

Idle browsing reveals rapturous delights.

A lovely drawing by Feanne.

[via Drawn]

Heads up!

Check out my new, massive header! Unfortunately, in resizing, it's gone a bit fuzzy. I'll sort it out for tomorrow.

I'm hoping to get my hands on Tristan Manco's amazing new book about grafitti artists' sketchbooks. I produced a zine of street art in Stockholm a couple of years ago and I love taking photos of cool pieces I see on my travels.

I'm into doodling (a la Jon Burgerman), grafitti, 2D design, comics and illustration in general, so I hope to reflect that here on the site, by reworking the design of the site and posting a lot more drawings over the coming weeks.

Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. Please drop a line in the comment box.

Outsider Art

While reading back through archived posts from one of my favourite blogs, I came across an entry about Henry Darger.

Darger was what is known as an 'outsider artist'. He produced art outside the mainstream, for his own sake, lived and worked in poverty and died in obscurity. I find 'outsider art' - or at least the stuff that is good - by turns, compelling and inspiring and depressing.

Unlike most art, it's done without hope of social reward. Many outsider artists suffer from mental illness and do not view what they do as art, so its function is very different from conventional art.

I find it inspiring because of its humanity. It shows the beauty, creativity and imagination that drive the human psyche, even the broken one, the adaptive mechanism that makes us what we are. By contrast, most art is an intellectual husk.

I find it depressing, because the term 'outsider art' betrays a fearful social attitude, not just to art, but to mental illness, normative behaviour and creative wealth.

Amazing names!

I really like the drawings of Jon Burgerman. He's kind of a hero of mine. He is really good at drawing and he has an amazing name. I love amazing names.

Here are some names that I have made up recently:

• Flop Jophlin
• Fingdoll Bushie
• Daphne Skullet
• Jonathan Skewer
• Piers Throne (more members of the Throne family to follow)
• Darren Soup

(All name suggestions are welcome.)

Anyway, Jon Burgerman has an amazing name. He's also a very talented illustrator. I wonder if he considers himself an artist, or even an Artist. From what I've read, I don't think so. So I also like that about him.

I go through phases of liking to draw or do other things more than writing (which is my main bag). I went through a big Jon Burgerman phase about six months ago. Unfortunately, this makes it hard to prove that I've more or less always doodled like this - I have college notes and school copy books to prove it - but when I saw Jon Burgerman's drawings it made me realise that it was okay to draw like a spaz.

(Pardon me, Mr. Jon Burgerman, you do not draw like a spaz.)