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Other Birthday Comics:

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Nate's First Comic

While I was out, my four-year-old son made his first comic book. He made four pages of story and then ran around the house looking for tape to put it together. He even used speech balloons to show who was talking. He told me what was going on in the story, so I'll narrate the comic with his words.

1. Mary Jane is falling off a building. Spider-man is catching her with his webs.
2. Now Peter Parker is saying words to Mary Jane.
3. Mary Jane is falling off a building again. Spider-man says, "I saved you!" The "Green Glob-lin" is flying in the sky on his glider.

4. Now the Green Glob-lin is in jail. Peter Parker is there with Mary Jane.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Here is a photo of my latest artwork in progress. You can see that I sometimes begin by collecting images from various sources and assembling them into a collage. In this case, seven different sources. The collage on the left is the source for the drawing on the right.

At first the choices are random, but sometimes a theme emerges. In this case, I had been trying to reread Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Kandinsky. This is a book that I don't understand very much of. What I do understand of it I don't even necessarily agree with.

However, what I was thinking about while I made this artwork is that you often hear someone say, "I used to enjoy making art but I stopped because I wasn't making any money." I think this is tragic, and I think there are other reasons for making art than just for financial profit. Many times that is the first thing someone will ask an artist: "Are you able to make money doing this?" What I was thinking about while I drew this is that often the ancient people created art with spiritual motivations. I wanted to contrast examples of this with some kind of imagery that shouted "Art for Money!"

Kandinsky contrasted the spiritual artist with the materialistic one. I decided Mr. Materialistic would be drawn superimposed over ads for artists that appealed to speed in creating art for financial gain. By no means am I against commercial art! I just felt like making a statement about my own reflections on artistic motivations.


To get the right shape, my classroom window became a makeshift light box. By turning off the light in my room, the hall light made it possible for me to trace the shape I needed.

I pasted the ads down over part of the drawing paper. Now I was reading to add color to Mr. Materialism.
I wanted the ads to be seen with varying degrees of obscurity -- just barely readable in some places. This had to become a mixed media piece since colored pencil didn't do the job.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Mixed Media (Colored Pencil & Acrylic)
2010

The drawing above is the finished work. Unfortunately, the photograph didn't turn out as well as I hoped.

As I said, Kandinsky's book is hard to read -- though it does have some good ideas to ponder. A better one on art and spirituality that has inspired me is The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.

Comics Art Lesson

My daughter Anna taught a lesson on comics as part of her Art in the Elementary class at Mansfield University. Part of the class involves teaching lessons to children in the community at Saturday Morning Art classes. The students really seemed to enjoy it!

Contemplation

Contemplation (2010). Colored pencil.

I don't think I've ever done a realistic self-portrait, so I did this one in colored pencil. I called it Contemplation, because it's inspired by Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer by Rembrandt.

This drawing table surface shows the process.
Here I am with the finished product. Come to think of it, this photograph is a Triple Self-Portrait. Boy, this one is going to be hard to draw!

The Power of Yes

The Power of Yes
Colored Pencil

The Pop artists showed us that we can appropriate imagery from commercial sources -- changing the context changes the meaning. Something I enjoy doing is collecting various images from multiple sources and moving them around to see how new meanings can be created. Once the collage is finished, I can use it as a reference for drawing. I finished this one this week.

Father

This is a charcoal portrait of my father, George Wales. While drawing it, I thought about all he has meant to me in my life. He is the man I admire most.