Happy Birthday, Sis!

Happy Birthday to my sister! Thirty nine again........
I thought I would draw a picture for you and what better than a monkey? Anyway happy birthday from all of us out here on the left coast!

I tried to find the best birthday song I could, I must have listened to one hundred of them, but this is the only one I liked, (except for The Beatles "Birthday" of course).

Just substitute your name, and no I don't expect you to listen to the whole thing.

Just thinking out loud.

I have not been watching American Idol this year, so I don't have a clue what is going on there. But it's always fun to think about what would have happened if some truly great artists, who did not fit the American Idol mold, would have tried out.

Pete Seger, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and a whole host of great others.
The guy on the top is the great Woody Guthrie and the guy on the bottom is supposed to be Frankenstein Simon Cowell.

Woody!

Frankenstein Simon Cowell

Here's a couple of songs from Woody. Lessons learned and I think, at least partly forgotten.





And of course "This Land is Your Land". We used to sing this one in school.

About journaling and other thoughts.

Now that I am getting older and my mobility is limited I find myself sketching when I go out. I have been looking a lot at peoples sketches on the net and I am finding the most attractive ones have some order to them. Like panels and personal notes. Below is one I did from Saturdays fly fishing expo in Albany, Oregon. I think it looks better this way and certainly better for others to look at. I added a bit of ink when I got home. I still have some things to learn, but this is, I think heading in the right direction.




I also adding a warm up doodle that I did on Saturday. I wish I would have put it in my sketchbook and not on the program. And another doodle that was an idea that I had. I was thinking of a bunch of chimps hanging out around a fly tyer and smoking drinking coffee and telling stories. I don't know if I will work on this or not it is just an idea at this point, but everyone who has seen this has had something to say about it. I think everyone must like monkeys!






The last item I wanted to share today is a song from The Dave Clark Five. I heard yesterday their lead singer died. They were a great group from the "English invasion", a musical movement that was in the early 1960's.

A Card

It's my broter in law's retirement party tonight, so I made him this card. I drew it on a cheap notepad with felt tip pens and then had to try to fix it with photoshop. The paper wrinkled from the felt pens and then there were all these lines from the paper.

I think it looks all right. By the way, that is not my sister-in-law that he has his arm around in the photo!

A few sketches and a movie recommendation

A sketch of a picture I saw.


My youngest son. He was trying on hats.


Playing with markers, (brush pens). I am just starting to do this.


Here are a few of my sketches this week. I have been able to move around this week and actually get a few things done. I don't have too much to say about these sketches.

The next thing I want to do is a movie review. It's funny I would do this, but I liked this movie and because the critics panned it, I thought I would bring it up.

This movie is "The Martian Child". The critics said it was too sentimental and too predictable.
I rented it anyway because I like John Cusak. In fact I like the whole cast.

I was not disapointed and found the story very touching. It was was well paced and interesting. And I though the boy, Bobby Coleman was great. He gave a very strong preformance. Cusak was cool as usual and Amanda Peet was beautiful.

If I were going to grade this, I would probably give it a solid B, but that is just my opinion and you are welcome to it.

Here is a link to a song from the movie, which a heard and looked up. I have been listening to it for a few days. It's from a band named Guster.

The Real Me?

My arthritis has been bothering me lately, but I did do this sketch this afternoon.


My wife said I should do one of her with a lot of eyes. I thought that was a good idea! Very funny!

As I mentioned before, I have been looking at a lot of cartoons and graphic novels lately. I read Art Spiegelman's "Maus: A Survivor's Tale". Spiegelman's father was a survivor of the holocaust. I thought it was really well done. I kept putting myself in their place.

I have also been looking at Australian artist Norman Lindsay's "The Magic Pudding" This is a children's book, but the art is very good.

That's all for now, Jake.

Graphic Storytelling

I mentioned before that I have lately been interest with cartoons. Particularly pen and ink ones. Political cartons and such.

One of my sons goes to Portland State University and he is taking a course on short stories. The text book is "The Sory and it's Writer", by Ann Charter. In this book, toward the end is a chapter on Graphic Storytelling.

In this, she mentions a few artist and so I thought I would share them and some of their work:
Scott McCloud-"Understanding Comics"
Will Eisner-"Comics and Sequential Art"
Art Spiegelman-"Maus; A Survivors Tale"
Gilbert Hernandez-"Heartbreak Soup"
Keiji Nakazawa-"Barefoot Gen: A Story of Hiroshima"
Jiro Taniguchi-"The Walking Man"
Marjane Satrapi-"Persepolis"
R. Crumb's take on Kafka's "A Hunger Artist"

Marjane Satrapi was here in Portland last week, so I checked out her two books, "Persepolis" and "Persepolis 2" from the library. They were quite easy to read and frankly I don't think there is any other venue that a person like me, A 57 year old American would be able to consider the thoughts of an Iranian woman. That is to say that i found them interesting.

Here is a link to a radio interview done on comunity radio (KBOO) here in Portland.

Persepolis director Marjane Satrapi interview on KBOO, 1/22/2008.

VW Vans

This is a sketch that started off as a doodle and I just kept on drawing it.

When I was about 20 there were a group of 4 or 5 of us that all got Volkswagen Vans. I used to throw my surfboard in and go to the beach as much as possible. On any given weekend you could go to where the waves were the best and find 2, 3 or 4 VW vans parked. Or at the jetty park at night. It was free back then.

So, now with my arthritis and stuff I can only look at it and say, "Those were the days my friend. We thought they'd never end."

So even thought it would be impossible for me now, the memories are stored to conjure up and enjoy from time to time.

Saturday Part Four

Here is another song. I am posting it just because it is the song I am listening to the most right now. Just click on the play button.

It's Colin Meloy is the lead singer for The Decemberists, a group from here in Portland, Oregon.

Saturday Part Three

Persons of integrity. Some people are able to stand up and make a difference. Here is to good people of conscience everywhere!





Martin Luther King Jr.
On a small sketch pad. 4 1/2"x5"