... He really is ...
McDonnell is the creator of the comic strip "Mutts." This gentle strip has a retro feel to it that I find very appealing. It seems to draw from the past in design and a love for comics and animals. I saw him interviewed in the documentary, "Stripped." (Which can be seen through Netflix) This film deals with the symbiotic relationship of comics and newspapers and examines the options and opinions of cartoonists as their market shrinks. In his interview , Patrick McDonnell explains his work method ... drawing journals. At the time of filming, he was at number 101.
At present, I am working on number 10. It was Professor Hagenbuckle, who got me in the habit of keeping one. He assigned the class to keep a daily drawing journal. I took the assignment to heart. When they were turned in ... I did ten times the drawings. But my Mother was the one who actually started me on the path.
I had shown an interest in art at an early age and I was blessed with nurturing parents. When I was about 13 we made a visit to the Ringling Art Museum in Sarasota, FL. There we saw a traveling exhibit of Duane Hanson, a sculptor that made sculpture using fiber glass. He painted them and even infused hair into their bodies. The later ones even had clothes and props. However his early works were nudes. They were quite realistic and very controversial for the time. So here my parents with their darling child turned the corner into a darkened room illuminated only by the spotlights on naked women. Mom was studying painting and Dad was very cultured ... still Mom watched intently on my reaction. I examined each piece ... walking through the room. As we exited, Mom asked what I thought. I said ... "Their feet are out of proportion." Mom smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.
As a reward, Mother gave me a spiral bound drawing journal, craypas (an oil pastel made by Crayola) and a Walter Foster art book on drawing nudes. A few of my first nudes made it into that drawing journal. It was at a school dance that I sat listening to the music and drawing in my journal. A fellow classmate asked to see what I was doing. I let him look ... at the whole book. He rushed away and I went back to work. Within minutes my good friend, Phillip Karl came up to me and asked if I had pictures of naked ladies in that book. I started to explain that they were called nudes, when he flipped through and started pulling out selected pictures. He explained that the earlier classmate had run to the Dean of Girls and told her I had a book with naked ladies in them. No sooner than he had made a getaway with the offending drawings than up came the Dean of Girls with the grinning classmate in tow. She grabbed my journal but without the evidence she then turned her anger on my fellow student, ready to deal justice to one who had given false testimony.
You know ... I never did get those drawings back.
The nice thing about drawing journals are that they can be a vehicle of exploration and growth. Sometimes you let the pen take you where it wants to go ...not knowing what you are about to draw ... somethings focusing on a single point and somethings capturing a single fleeting moment in front of you. I am now working on a project ... using the journal to define a vision. Everyday at work, I gobble my lunch as fast as I can to use the rest of my break to draw. Something I had planned was validated in a conversation with my cousin Eric. So some of the drawings that I present here will be from the journal to share with you the thought process. This is a raw sheet of images that just seemed to come from the pen.
This one has been modified using Sketchbook Pro.
Behold the Zombie Chicken!
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