Happy National Cartoonists Day
woo hoo… paaaarty.
2017 – one week in…
Welcome to 2017. We live in interesting times… and it may be getting more interesting.
I didn’t want to do my typical year end/year ahead type of post. Admittedly, there was an element of lazy involved with that decision.
So, 2017. There will be some stuff happening. 2017 is the 15th year of Bob the Squirrel. There will be some sort of year-long celebration for that – even though I think throwing a party for yourself is a bit egotistical. On June 8, 2017, the 5000th Bob the Squirrel strip will post/print. That too isn’t anything that should alter the orbit of the Earth or get a parade… but it’s going to happen. The plan (as of now) is to combine the 15th year and the 5000th strip will be combined somehow. I’ll keep the world posted.
In addition to that, I started my Frank’s anything-but-a-squirrel-drawing-a-day 2017 project. The title is self-explanatory: I will post a drawing a day for the entire year that has NOTHING to do with Bob. I felt that some of my other muscles needed a little workout. I’ve become a bit comfortable knowing that I could always go to the Bob well and get a drawing. Limiting myself will force me to be more creative. It may ALSO drive me a tad crazy. I will post the drawings everyday on Facebook and Twitter. A gallery on bobthesquirrel.com will come later on.
There are a few other things but they’re little more than sketchy sketches at this point.
I’m a little fearful of the various unknowns before us…but what are you going to do?
I’m going to draw. #bobthesquirrel15
perfectly illustrated
In all the years of drawing squirrels name Bob, I have never captured my OWN present feelings as perfectly as I have this morning. It’s not the best drawing, but it’s the best illustration.
The tension, the stress… all there. Now I’m even more stressed that I’ll never be able to capture a feeling as well ever again.
I’m going to need a bigger teddy bear.
20 years of Self-Portraits UPDATED
I pawed through some archives and managed to fill the collage out a bit more. I’ve added years 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2004. In addition, I’ve added the year to each image to make it a bit more viewer friendly. Some of these are not “actual” self portraits…in that, they may have been done for a strip or an illustration… but the evolution still holds.
To me, these images are more telling than photos. Sure, a photo can convey some emotion, but a photo can’t tell me about line. For example: 1999. The lines used on that portrait are pretty uniform. There is some hatching in the hair and beard but for the most part the lines are tentative. There is nothing that I was sure about in drawing that. In fact, maybe by not getting into detail, I was hiding something. What that something may have been isn’t too clear.
2000 finds me confused. Am I supposed to be doing this?
2001 makes it seem as though I was happy… if only for a brief moment. I’m not absolutely certain of when in 2001 this was drawn, but it’s a same bet to assume it was before September.
Between 2005 and 2008 and possibly into 2009 I’m trying to figure out who I was not only as a person but as an artist. Am I supposed to be a cartoonist or so I want to be a “fine artist”? This was the period where I was living in a tight rope… my marriage was starting and ending, life changed for me… grad school and a new life. New life means a new face and int he process, trying to figure out what the old face was.
By 2010, with an MFA on my wall, I had myself all figured out. Sort of.
Wonder what the next 20 will look like.
I will try and fill the gaps in this collage as I find them. 1993, 1996-1998 and 2002.