Sunday, March 24, 2024

A-BON 2024: Beaver Tales

(Photography by Marina Barbosa Santos/courtesy A-BON)

One of the highest points of the academic year was a fun presentation to a conference of the Arctic Beaver Observation Network. Aside from providing comic relief, I managed to encapsulate, using Castor Canadensis cartoons, my career in both arts & education to a group of international scientists + Native folks from communities across Alaska, Canada and the UK.

The 3-day long event (here’s a link to an excellent summary) took place on the scenic top floor of the Akasofu building , a crown jewel of the International Arctic Research Center of the UAF Geophysical Institute. The organizer, Professor Ken Tape, is an ecologist who studies the northward expansion of beavers and their effects on the tundra. One example is when they dam in an area it floods and thaws the permafrost, hastening the effects of climate change.

(Photography by Marina Barbosa Santos/courtesy A-BON)

We met first during the summer of my show at Ester’s new, seasonal café Flossie & Mays. Fittingly enough the bulk of the “Colony” exhibit was used as a backdrop in the main conference room, and at the close of my talk anyone who wanted to take one off the walls home with them could get the print signed and personalized. It was a really humbling experience with some new friends and fans.

(Photography by Marina Barbosa Santos/courtesy A-BON)

My opening line was to “bring STEAM into your STEM,” and through the use of humorous imagery I hoped to illustrate another side of Castor Canadensis – not of a tasty, furbearing pest, but a creature that is a perfect metaphor for how groups of animals can live in balance with the environment. In other words, while the expansion of their range is a symptom of global warming, they’re not the animal that’s at fault for creating this planetary disaster.

Bonus: Of special note was getting to show some work by an amazing local artist + acknowledge Troth Yeddha’ with another three-eyed beaver design by Navonne Benally (@menabashmedia) who I had just met setting up at the 50th annual Festival of Native Arts a few days earlier.

Watercolor Recap

Last week I was invited to give a show & tell + demo to one of the oldest and most active local art groups in our neck of the woods. The fine folks at the Fairbanks Watercolor Society (website, Facebook, Instagram linkage) have monthly meetings held at Pioneer Park (aka Alaskaland) along with fieldtrips and workshops. Their 25th year anniversary group show will be at the Fairbanks Arts Association's Bear Gallery next month, and will showcase the breadth & depth of their membership's diverse range of skillsets and subject matter - an exhibition not to miss.

After an opening social, and brief business meeting, a good-sized crowd of about forty-something people attended the talk. The 45-mute slide show went over a bit compared to a couple rehearsals that kept one-hundred images at 30-minutes instead. That's on account of feeling so welcomed and relaxed, like talking to a bunch of friends. Then after a brief break a group gathered around the table for a half-hour demo on the process and my technique.

This was the second opportunity I've had to present before them: a decade ago was my first visit (back when I was less gray and skinnier), and it's probably taken that long for some of the them to recover from seeing how bad I treat my brushes - and definitely can't stay in the lines! 

So realizing I am so far opposite the spectrum compared to many of the experienced watercolorists watching me, in a kind of way released me from any expectations, which lossens you up... not unlike doodling. In this instance I admit to the intimidation at the number of really, really talented practitioners, who probably look at me like a gorilla poking about with a stick. I know all too well my skillset in using watercolor medium - not that that will ever stop me from having so much fun with it. Your limitations are a starting point - I've always equated critiquing artwork with attending 12-step groups: there's always gonna be somebody "better" than you, and there's always gonna be someone "worse." But that's not what it's about - we're all learning from sharing, and learn from our mistakes, and are all here to help each other do some drawing. 

One of the reasons I am particularly effective teaching the Beginning Drawing level (which over all of my years in the classroom has comprised the majority of my experience) is that I can relate to a lot of the issues facing them, whether it is not having enough hours in the day to work on art, to anxiety over meeting deadlines, and the existential stress staring at a blank sheet of paper. In other words, I have empathy with anyone who every time wonders to themselves "what am I gonna do?" and/or "how am I gonna do this?"  That's when the fun starts, and and there's so much more possible than what will happen in reality: wake up, go to work, pump gas, order food, park and walk to the office etc. The panels boxing in the images don't restrict because they're are windows.

Thank you to the fantastic hosts!

These wonderland images via Vladimir Zhikhartsev and Phoebe Mae Flanagan courtesy Fairbanks Watercolor Society. 

"The Stinker"

One of the comparative few panels scanned directly from the pages of the omnipresent sketchbook (hence the rarely-used header addendum designating the same). Done while sitting at the cafe, as there;s only two colors of wash in the man-purse: gray + brown, plus ballpoint + Sharpie + white gel pen. Speaking of Fine Art, I would routinely revisit the Rodin Museum whenever in Philly.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

"Baked Alaska" Doodles (One of Two)

Jump below the break and take a peak at five bonus ballpoint doodles right off the pages of the sketchbook... Only one more post after this - next Saturday at high noon!

Sunday, March 17, 2024

"'Doughs"

Right about the time I recognized that I had fallen into a predictable pattern - in this instance repeating the Ol' Timer character - I followed some long-time advise routinely given to students in the drawing studio (particularly during the caricature unit and also gag writing techniques) that if you sit back and say to yourself "that's really stupid" that's the time to push it even further, as in way over the edge. So I drew him five times in one panel.

Also used the old-fashioned name for the fifth flavor, as I had to look up what the hell "umami" was. And just like pushing the envelope over the edge of the drawing table, I guess that the olfactory angle all comes down to, uh, a matter of personal taste. 

Saturday, March 16, 2024

“Baked Alaska” #69 + #70 + bonus doodles

There'll still be a couple more posts - next two Saturdays at high noon - where we'll upload the last of the doodles.... but for today, jump below the fold and find out what the last two "Baked Alaska" panels are!

Sunday, March 10, 2024

"New Tricks"

Another in a six-week series of panels that featured the Ol' Timer character, charitably interpreted as being based off of my father (who despite his many faults was not as stupid as this guy). It's also become very clear in retrospect how much I have been listening to myself talk over the years of lecturing to Beginning Drawing students about compositional arrangement of the elements on a picture plane so as to enhance the depth of even a relatively simple scenario. All of which is to say, along with the character, I'm visually repeating a predictable pattern. Conversely, I have as of late been upending some traditions, pulling the creative rug out from under myself, such as voluntarily switching to the majority of the feature being rendered in color, for example. Still don't know how to type though.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

"Baked Alaska" #65 - #68

Time to spark up another episode of "Baked Alaska" as we roll up the final feature panels now that the Alaska Cannabist magazine has folded. Join us below the fold for more...

Sunday, March 3, 2024

The Return of Cartoon & Comic Arts: ART 220 / ART 420

Note that this is a slightly different screen-grab than the similar one recent appearing on the "Teaching Teaser" post from a few weeks ago. The key difference is in flowchart down the right-hand side of the screen that indicates that the progression of the paperwork for this course (and also in tandem with the Beginning level, ART 220) has now moved from off the desk of the Provost, bearing their signature, and will now at long last appear in the catalog for the fall semester of 2024. Hence the absence of any link to registration for direct enrollment into the class, but it's now just a matter of time for the finishing touches and it becomes formally added to the official UAF catalog as a legitimate part of the College of Liberal Art curriculum in the Department of Art. More after the jump...

"Come gather 'round" - The Buffet of Awesomesauce

"Fairy Godmusher"

During one of my usual mid-lecture segues in a recent art class final critique, I likened the creative process to that of mining for gold: First you must use a pickaxe to begin breaking down manageable chunks, then into successively smaller pieces, which in turn go into a (mental) sluice-box, which will slowly refine the material into that lump, or flake, of stuff. This stuff has the connotation that it’s of something precious + rare, comparatively small but of high value. I’ve mentioned here before how the name change came about; since I had an editor who restricted the number of outhouse jokes per year (more than one being one too many), random moose nuggets would begin to pop up (moose present in panel or not). And I retired "FreezeFrame" with the defense that "Nuggets" had such both universal (ex: "nugget of wisdom" or "... information" etc.) and local (as in the pioneer//frontier/sourdough associated "gold nugget") appeal. We just won't talk about the connotation with crap.