Last week my good friend, illustrator and caricaturist Ed Steckley, called me to chat and told me about a cool painting get together he and some fellow pals had planned for the weekend. Ed was going to host a watercolor mini-class by MAD illustrator Hermann Mejia for just he and another MAD artist, Ray Alma. He invited me to tag along.

Hello frequent flyer mile awards.

I cashed in a few of those frequent flyer miles and spent the weekend in NYC. On Saturday we bummed around Brooklyn, and checked out Hermann’s show at RocketShip comics on Smith St. See pics of the show below.

Wow. I had seen a few of Hernann’s orginals before but these were really spectacular.

What a rare opportunity to be shown some watercolor techniques by a true master. The “class” was terrific and I will post about it and some of the work I did tommorrow.

Meanwhile if you are in the NYC area stop by Rocketship Comics in Brooklyn to see some amazing work by an amazing artist.

Tags: NYC, travel, watercolor

Q: Norman Rockwell writes in his book Norman Rockwell, artist and illustrator )by Norman Rockwell & Thomas S. Buechner) how people would constantly write in to the Saturday Evening Post about the mistakes he made in his references. Do you get any of that kind of feedback? If so what is the biggest mistake you have made, if any?

A: I believe you are talking about “bloopers” like drawing six fingers on a hand or something similar, as opposed to mistakes in perspective or similar mechanical flaws… because if it’s the latter this will be a very long post.

Oh, I’ve made my share of dumb mistakes in some of my illustrations. In 99% of the cases it’s just being in too big a hurry and making quick changes without thinking things completely through. I’ve posted a few of them here in the past, and here are two of the ones that come to mind right away:

In the baseball scene above, I was supposed to draw two guys colliding in the outfield while the ball drops to the ground. In my haste to finish the piece I was thinking more about the interest of the colors than I was about the scene itself. The mistake? Two guys on the SAME TEAM would be wearing the SAME UNIFORM! D’oh! The client also did not catch it so it went to print as is.

In the scene above, I did a bunch of changes from the original sketch where I pasted in elements from one sketch to a second. During that process I switched the business woman’s legs around so her right knee was forward rather than her left as in the original sketch. The mistake? I didn’t change her left foot into a left foot, so she has TWO RIGHT FEET. D’oh! Client didn’t catch that one either, but one of my blog readers did, and the art got fixed in time for the printing!:

I’m sure there have been others but I’m not coming up with any right now from “professional” illustration work.

There have been a few doozies I’ve done when doing live caricature, though.

One of the drawings I often do with young teenage boys is the simple “showing off the bicep” pose where the kid holds up one arm to show a well defined but roughly walnut sized bicep muscle flexed. I drew one kid once in this pose who had come in and sat down while I was turned around giving change to my last customers. He was sitting in front of me when I turned about, and he was kind of short so I couldn’t see much past his neck due to the angle of my drawing board.  I did this pose on him, with his right arm flexed. His buddies behind me started laughing and told me to look closer. I rose up in my chair… the kid had NO RIGHT ARM. Missing from the deltoid down. Ooops.

Another time I was drawing a twelve year-old who had these lush, dark eyelashes, full red lips and thick, curly hair. The mom asked if I’d do a drawing with a tennis theme. I drew the subject in a cute tennis skirt delivering a backhand smash. I finished the drawing in color and handed it over, got paid and went on with the day. Later the mom came up and told me she just wanted to know how upset her SON was that I drew him in a skirt. Ooops. After that I would ask the kid’s name before committing to a specific sex in the drawing… of course whenever I was in doubt the name was always “Chris/Kris”, “Pat” or “Sean/Shaun”.

A few years ago at Valleyfair I was drawing a couple towards the end of a busy day, and I did one of the quickest and easiest of poses… the guy with his arm around the girl and giving the “thumbs up” as he looks at her. The couple and their friends watching were Hispanic and speaking Spanish so I had no idea what they were saying. As I got through drawing the bodies and started adding the color, the friends started laughing and saying all sorts of stuff to the guy. He starts laughing and then raises his hand up to show me… NO THUMB. Ooops.

That doesn’t even take into account the times I’ve mistakenly thought a dad and his adult daughter were a couple, that a woman was pregnant when she wasn’t (those are never pretty) or that what I thought were freckles were really zits.

Thanks to Micheal Garisek for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!

Tags: illustration, live caricature, Mailbag, questions

The Good News is that MAD artist extraordinaire Tom Bunk is having an exhibit of his “METAPHYSICAL QUANTOONS” in the Robert Mayer Zeigt Galerie in Frankfurt, Germany from April 12th – 30th. Check out the gallery’s website for a sneak peek preview.

The Bad News is that I do not live in Frankfurt, Germany.

For you lucky clods that do or live near enough for a road trip, you can see a whole bunch of Tom’s stunning color work in all their juicy goodness.

Tags: art show, MAD Magazine, TOM BUNK

This just in from the Illustrator’s Partnership:

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

White House Seeks Artists’ Comments to Improve Copyright Protection

3.18.10

New Copyright Czar begins Joint Strategic Plan to Protect Intellectual Property

Victoria Espinel is the first U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), also known as the Copyright Czar. Congress created IPEC by an Act of Congress. Ms. Espinel serves within the Executive Office of the President to coordinate with all the federal agencies that fight the infringement of intellectual property.

Ms. Espinel and her team are specifically tasked with formulating and implementing a Joint Strategic Plan to help protect the ingenuity and creativity of Americans by improving the U.S. Government’s protection of the rights of intellectual property owners.

Your input is requested.

The White House is inviting your public input and participation to shape an effective intellectual property enforcement strategy. Please respond with your written submissions regarding the costs to you, your business and the U.S. economy resulting from infringement of your intellectual property rights, both direct and indirect.

This will be a 2-part process. The first is to gather public recommendations by March 24. IPEC will then gather your input on the formulated plan.

Please be precise. Include your name, city, state, and what type of artist you are. Explain why copyright is critical to you as a commercial artist, how infringement affects you, and what the U.S. government can do to better protect the rights of American artists. If your submission is about your economic loss due to infringement of your copyrights you must clearly identify the methodology used to calculate your losses or otherwise validate your infringement and enforcement costs.

Your submission will be publicly posted. For this reason, please do not include in your comments information of a confidential nature, such as sensitive personal information or proprietary information.

Confidential disclosures- If you have confidential business information that would support your recommendation or that you believe would help the Government formulate an effective enforcement strategy, please let them know by contacting:

Thomas L. Stoll
Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator
(202) 395-1808

Deadline: Submissions must be received by Wednesday, March 24, 2010, at 5 p.m. EST.
Address: All submissions should be sent electronically via intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov

Additional Background Reading:
White House Blog
Federal Register Notice Request

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership

Yikes, that deadline is this coming Wednesday. The gist of this message is here is a chance to get your voice heard over how copyright infringement can damage your ability to earn a living as a creator of intellectual property, and the concerns you have. Considering the shady and misguided Orphan Works legislation some members of congress have been trying to sneak through the last few years, this is a chance to get the concerns of artists, writers and other creators out to people who might listen.

Tags: copyright, Illustrators Partnership

Artwork by Patrick McDonnell

The nominees for the divisional awards from the National Cartoonists Society are officially announced:

TELEVISION ANIMATION

• Kevin Deters – “Walt Disney Prep and Landing”
• Mike Gray – “The Infinite Goliath”
• Seth McFarlane – “Family Guy”

FEATURE ANIMATION

• Ronnie del Carmen – Storyboard Artist – “Up”
• Tomm Moore – Director – “The Secret of Kells”
• Barry Reynolds – Character Designer – “The Secret of Kells”

NEWSPAPER ILLUSTRATION

• Bob Rich
• Tom Richmond
• Robert Sanchuk

GAG CARTOONS

• Glenn McCoy
• VG Myers
• Dave Whamond

GREETING CARDS

• Glenn McCoy
• Kieran Meehan
• Debbie Tomassi

NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS

• John Hambrock – “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee”
• Wiley Miller – “Non Sequitur”
• Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman – “Zits”

NEWSPAPER PANEL CARTOONS

• Dave Blazek – “Loose Parts”
• Tony Carillo – “FMinus”
• Hilary Price – “Rhymes with Orange”

MAGAZINE FEATURE/ MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION

• Ray Alma
• Anton Emdin
• Tom Richmond

BOOK ILLUSTRATION

• Lou Brooks – “Twimericks”
• Tom Richmond – “Bo Confidential”
• Dave Whamond – “My Think-A-Ma-Jink”

EDITORIAL CARTOONS

• Nick Anderson
• Rob Rogers
• John Sherffius

ADVERTISING ILLUSTRATION

• Steve Brodner
• Randall Enos
• Mort Gerberg

COMIC BOOKS

• Terry Moore – “Echo”
• Paul Pope – “Strange Adventures”
• JH Williams – “Detective Comics”

GRAPHIC NOVELS

• David Mazzucchelli – “Asterios Polyp”
• Seth – “George Sprott”
• David Small – “Stitches”

As previously announced, the nominees for The Reuben Award for “Cartoonist of the Year” are:

• Stephen Pastis
• Dan Piraro
• Richard Thompson

The winners will be announced at the 64th annual Reuben Awards on May 29th.

I am overwhelmed (and in fact in deep disbelief) to see that I am nominated in three different categories this year… surely there will be some sort of “hanging chad” controversy over it. Any nomination is of course a huge honor, and I am suitably humbled. Congratulations to all the nominees! You can see the list complete with links to images from many of the artists at the NCS website.

Tags: National Cartoonists Society, NCS Reuben Awards

This week we continue our Sketch o’the Week ink wash caricature series countdown to the May 23rd finale of “LOST” with the fetching Evangeline Lilly AKA Kate Austen. Each week I am planning on doing one of these ink wash studies of one of the major LOST characters. That means nine more until the finale… or until I get bored with it. I’ll try and stay focused.

Tags: caricature, Evangeline Lilly, sketch