Yes, it’s another Buchwald sketch. I did it a while ago, and I’m still pining to get going on a Big Buchwald Project that’s looking farther and farther off. This drawing also demonstrates some loose, free, quickness that I seem to have lost for now. Yeah, I know that back leg is a little weird, but I still prefer it to what I’ve been up to lately.

I just keep thinking how much I wanna simplify things when I get to that Next Big Project. Time to Speed Things Up and Get Things Done. None of us is making a career out of comics, so why kill ourselves over it? Oy. I should stop now. Jeeeeeeee-zooey, we haven’t had one o’ these posts in a while, have we??

You guys, I know. It’s been a while. And I was really starting to feel like I was being withholding, but then I noticed a slew of blogs that started out something like, “Oh, I know I’m always apologizing for not posting anything in a while, but anyway, sorry for not posting anything in the while! But, you know. Holidays!” So you won’t hear it here. That’s my sterling guarantee.

Above are some trees and a monster’s bird head that I doodled at an exhibit of Dürer prints at the Clark. It happened a long time ago. Okay, so I might have some blogger’s guilt about not posting these more in-the-moment. You imaginary internet people and your insistence on timeliness! As I was saying, Andy Warner, Kate LaRocca,* Jon Fine and I took a day trip down to Williamstown, Massachusetts back in, I don’t know, November. We saw this lovely, lively show of the Northern Renaissance master’s woodblocks, and a few etchings. We also drove through some spectacular New England scenery, with billowing clouds and shafts of light dappling the hillsides. Yeah, that’s right. I said it. Landscapes!!

I’ve got another page from our drawing adventure that I might or might not post. It also occurred to me that this might qualify as a Drawing Adventure.

*Does anybody have some up to date internet location for her? I’m only finding broken links. <3

Sometimes blogs have this funny, insidious spam that pretends to be a comment, but usually there’s something just…off. In the context, that is. Like this one from Linda: http://blog.patbarrett.com/2009/06/cover-girl-whole-shebangin/#comments

Folks, I’ve been having lots of fun in my sketchbook lately. I am feeling some small moments of clarity and putting them on paper. I’ll shut up about it, though, because I’m not even sure how many of these I’ll show you. That might also be what’s making them good, that they aren’t made for an audience. So, sorry, we’ll have to give some of these some time. I’ve been picking up my Microns again, to get ready to make chapter two of Petrified Girlfriend. Let’s hope that’s good!

Last week I saw Zombieland. I didn’t really like it much. Plus, as you’ll see below, I was pretty distracted. There are movies I want to see! Like A Serious Man, and now there’s Where the Wild Things Are tomorrow! But I go out pretty much whenever something’s happening on Thursdays. It’s about hangin’ with friends.

Annnnnd, while we’re all here together, here are the actual, live, on-the-spot drawings of and on Mt. Ascutney.

The next one you can enlarge if you’d like.

Well friends, it’s countdown to Escape from New York. I’m really sad to go. I love this place, and I love all my pals that live here. But I’m leaving this Saturday.

I’ve been meaning to show the page below for a long time. It’s from a few months back when I was fleshing out chapter one of Petrified Girlfriend (only available in the impossible-to-read-titled Oak & Linden – I’ll make an Etsy page or something when I move to Vermont if you’re interested in a copy, Blogiverse). You may recall that Caitlin and I stomped around the Museum of Natural History taking reference pictures for it. Well, a pivotal moment occurs in the Hall of Ocean Life, which has had a wonderful lighting effect ever since it was remodeled sometime this decade. The hall’s skylights, which were painted over in the let’s-paint-over-everything 1960s, are illuminated with the blue, shifting ripples that you see on the sand under the ocean water. It’s gorgeous. And it took me a while to figure out just how to depict it, as you can see. This objet d’art features some coffee stains by me and also one of my collaborator Caitlin Martin’s inimitable lists.

I realized I should let y’all know there have been a whole slew of updates at PB dot C recently. Not only is there the Abraham Lincoln comic, but there’s also one about a robot R&B star (which is also for applying to cartoon school), plus, like, three illustrations from The Big Money.

I’ve been thinking about doing one of those conception-to-finish blog posts that are so popular with illustrators these days. Would that be lame? Does anybody care what how some kid’s thought process/drawing process works? Is it really any different from anybody else’s? They only ever differ in the details. I guess I’m talking myself out of it. I dunno. I’m working on a wrap-around cover for the first issue of my comics anthology I’m calling Oak & Linden. And it’s pretty awesome. And it’s on much bigger paper than I’ve used since, like, sophomore year at Pratt. I was thinking maybe I’d post the process. Is that so lame???

This ship is turning around, this new leaf is turned, this bird has flown, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Friends of the internet, I think I’m gonna go to grad school. I’m gonna try to go this fall. That might not happen. I think I need to be at the Center for Cartoon Studies. They’re not full yet and I’m trying to get in an application in the next couple of weeks. Yesterday I was going through what I’d send in my portfolio and I was confronted with the fact that my comics output since school has been running at about four pages a year. This has fortified my resolve!

Don’t you see? I’ve been going at things all wrong! It’s crazy to try to make a freelance illustration career that can support a comics career – I’m going at it bass ackwards! First you write a hit comic and direct it, then you feed yourself by drawing.

Now I know what you’re thinking: OK Pat, why not just draw comics instead of spending all your time building websites and promoting yourself to art directors in dying media? The answer is I’m just too fed up with how things are moving now. I don’t think I can hold out much longer doing what I’m doing, and there isn’t much else that sounds too appealing.

That, and I never got a satisfying critique out of my classmates at Pratt. They’d look at blue pencil lines under black ink and say if I added red, it would be like 3-D glasses. This isn’t to say that my friends haven’t been both supportive and constructive, but I’m yearning for a workshop environment and for classes on literature and writing and the comics medium and guest critiques by real -deal cartoonists. Does this make any sense? I don’t know, but it’s what’s happening now.

And I drew this semi-Phallic, World Snake-ish whale:

I’m happy to announce that swampbrick.com’s envious younger brother has murdered him and seized the throne for himself. Long live PatBarrett.com! And speaking of succession, the first presidential debate just ended. It was tense, but civil, as only a discussion between senators can be. Also tonight, the Mets have shown some more signs of collapse. This is a good thing, because I won’t need to continue to be weighed down by the guilt of being invested in their race at least as much as I am by Barack in his.

In conclusion, whoa-ho-ho-hoooooo-ooohh. You didn’t think I’d post some practice pages did you?? Drawing hands! The question is always, how much comes from cartoons and cartooning, how much from graphic art like illuminated manuscripts, and how much from “life” – which I suppose means Renaissance ideals. No’m sayn?

Here’s that follow-up I promised. These are marked as copyright of Field Publications, but it looks like they belong to the Dr. Seuss Collection at the University of California, San Diego. They’re from a collection my mom found at a used book store called Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel. It’s by Richard H Minear and was published by The New Press, New York, 1999.

Apparently the good doctor drew political cartoons from 1941 to ‘42 for PM, a liberal New York rag, before he joined the service making instructional and propaganda films. Seeing this many of his drawings back to back to back pointed out how clearly Seuss used the silhouette to improve legibility. It’s a classic trick of cartooning and animation, that an action is clearer if it can be judged by the shape of the figure against the background (this is also a trope of character design). So, rather than sipping a drink held in front, cartoon characters turn their heads sideways and gulp it from an uplifted hand. Anyhow, the dude gets it.

I’ve also been reading Popeye and Krazy Kat and Little Nemo comics lately, and I feel like I could stand to incorporate some of the frontal, theatrical nature of old comic strips into my own work. I tend to compose cinematically, with camera angles and a sense of space, but I’m really drawn to the clarity and elasticity when the characters are at the front of the frame, and the scenes are behind them. This is something that’s worked for book illustration since the illuminated manuscripts. But what do I know? Maybe my overly-rendered backgrounds are my thing. Maybe I’m more a product of the movie theater than the stage.

Okay! That’s enough art school blah blah blah for today. Here are those drawings I’m ripping off:

Okay bloggers, real talk. I haven’t posted in a while, which makes me sad. I’m continuing to make glacial progress on my website overhaul, which makes me happy in a bittersweet kind of way. I haven’t even posted a celebrity for either of the last two Saturdays. Do I chalk this up as a blog vacation, or do I quit on the whole celebrities thing, and develop more drawings in the nakedness/supernatural/imp vein? I have been doing some more loose-limbed sketchbook doodling lately.

Let me tell you, it’s hard to figure out where one fits in the ever-shrinking editorial illustration world. It’s also hard to figure out the appropriate tone for a public blog. When I launch at PatBarrett.com, I’m going to include the sketchblog as a sub-site. How much of this sort of desperate, searching, I’m so in my mid twenties business should be allowed to continue? How should I link to you, my readers and fellow bloggers? Where do I leave the Live Journal world behind? Ay ay ay.

This drawing is inspired by Dr. Seuss wartime political cartoons. I’ll post some in a follow-up.