Some Rough Stuff

Oftentimes I will sketch personalities from TV with the intention of refining and inking them up later, maybe even doing them in full colour. Here are a couple of recently rediscovered caricatures still in their embryonic rough pencil stage. I was combing through a file drawer full of rough sketches and came across these that I'd sketched a couple years ago, so I thought I'd post them up here just for the heck of it.

The one of Jon Stewart I believe I had sketched from when he hosted the Academy Awards the first time. I was planning to try drawing him again a couple times from "The Daily Show" before committing him to final inking, just to be sure I had the likeness to my satisfaction. That's actually something I often do, waiting for a few days at least before taking a look at a caricature anew with a fresh eye, just in case it then strikes me as falling short of being a good likeness. If I hurry to finish it up immediately after sketching it, I have sometimes been horrified to see that it just isn't the person I thought I had drawn when I look at it later!

In his book, "The World of Hirschfeld", legendary showbiz caricaturist Al Hirschfeld describes this very same dilemma back when he'd been commissioned  in 1967 to do a caricature of TV star Garry Moore for a network ad campaign. After tossing off a sketch of Garry Moore, one of Hirschfeld's neighbours, Mildred Jones, who was visiting with his wife Dolly passed his drawing table and exclaimed, "That's him all right - I'd know him anywhere. Buster Keaton!" Flabbergasted, Hirschfeld ran to his wife to ask her who it was. Without hesitation, she replied, "Buster Keaton". It took him many more furious attempts at sketching Garry Moore before Hirschfeld got a positive identification from wife Dolly, whom he claimed was his most honest critic.

This caricature of Uma Thurman has been languishing in my file drawer for two years as well, although I'm pretty sure it's her, as I had run it by several of my students at Sheridan that year when I was covering the art of caricature, and they all recognized it as lovely Uma. This is one that I really must finish up in colour someday.

"My Friend Rabbit"

I was checking out some of my bookmarked blogs that I hadn't been to in awhile and decided to take a look at Jason Groh's Blammo site. I was quite taken with the publicity image that greeted me in one of his most recent posts, pictured at left, from a new show called "My Friend Rabbit", airing on NBC and also Treehouse here in Canada. Jason, a first-rate cartoonist by the way, is apparently directing this show at Nelvana, so I thought that I should make a point to catch it and see how it looks. 

I caught it on Treehouse today at 1:00 and was quite delighted with it. To be honest, I'm not much of a fan of today's digitally animated TV shows, but this one manages to do the best job I've ever seen with the software it utilizes. (ToonBoom, from what I gather). Yes, there is still some of the computer cutout look that I don't care for, but there is also a lot of real drawing integrated into the animation as well. For instance, when characters walk, their legs and arms are fully animated in the classic style. When they speak, their head shapes may remain static but the mouths are fully articulating the dialogue in a very pleasing manner. There are many original poses created for each scene rather than an over-reliance on "symbols".  But the thing that strikes one initially are the very appealing character and background designs - all rounded, flowing shapes in the more classic studio cartoon approach.

I noticed in the credits that it said that the series was based on the books by Eric Rohmann, so I wanted to see what the original look was that they'd adapted. Interestingly, the animated series put me in mind of Disney's "Winnie-the-Pooh", and seeing the source material from which it is derived makes the comparison seem that much more apt, as the original book illustrations share some similarities to the E.H. Shepard drawings in the Pooh books. Both the Pooh and My Friend Rabbit book illustrations feature designs that are quite charming but perhaps a bit too simplistic to make the transition to animated characters which, in my opinion, need fleshing out in the design to allow for more personality and animated expression. As such, I think that the design team on "My Friend Rabbit" has done a marvelous job at embellishing the designs to make them more appealing and more conducive to the medium of animation.

Though I may not be in the target audience for this show, I know that I would have enjoyed it and been attracted to the design style back when I was of pre-school age. Congratulations to all who are involved in this show - I wish you much success with it! 

Mouse Doodles

Sometimes it seems I'm happiest when drawing "throwaway art" - that is, cartoons for non-commercial, usually trivial reasons. These sketches of a mouse were done on the spur of the moment as a way to brighten up and add a bit of humour to an otherwise rather dry looking assignment sheet for the Character Design class I teach at Sheridan. There was some spare room on the sheet and I decided to fill it creatively. My only regret is not filling the available area more ideally, having left a lot of open air space around each pose. Maybe I'll juggle the elements a bit for more visual appeal before assigning this one next year.

This particular assignment has to do with "Performance", and involves the students choosing any two of the characters they've designed for me previously this year and having them act out two little scenarios I provide in a total of six poses apiece. The three pose example of the mouse is my way of showing them what I expect of their efforts in regards to drawings that communicate a story visually, showing distinct expressions and body language to indicate what the character is thinking and feeling at each stage of the scenario. I know my students have been overwhelmed with the cumulative amount of work involved in the assignments from all of their various animation classes. Despite this daunting workload, my hope is always that they have some fun in my character assignments, as that sense of fun usually can be seen in the final work, resulting in real entertainment value for the viewer.

Solution: Elect a Bachelor Playboy!

This current controversy over New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer getting caught in a prostitution sting really makes me shake my head in wonder. To be honest, I'm not particularly troubled by Gov. Spitzer being caught in an extramarital tryst with a prostitute - that's a matter that should be solely between he and his wife, and I don't think it's fair for we the public to pass judgment. The only relevant aspect to this situation, as far as I'm concerned, is that Gov. Spitzer had set himself up as a crusader against corruption, which included trying to wipe out prostitution from the state of New York. But in a way, who can blame the guy for hypocritically creating this image of himself as a staunch defender of "Family Values" by fighting that which is perceived to threaten those values? I believe that the root of this problem really is the overriding conservative and puritanical mindset that still has a stronghold on the majority of Americans, and that they must shoulder some of the blame for this whole sad downfall of Eliot Spitzer.

You see, it occurs to me that Americans have always insisted that their elected officials at both the state and federal level must meet such silly conditions of electability as being both married and having children. This is especially true of the office of President of the United States. Perhaps there have been one or more single Presidents throughout history, but in my lifetime this pre-set condition of married men with families has been a rule without exception. It seems to me that you Americans would never allow a single man (or woman) to attain that office, though perhaps you should. Because, by insisting that Presidents and Governors always be good, loyal family men, you hold them to such high moral standards that you are often blind to the legitimate work they do in running their governments.

Which brings me to our much different situation here in Canada. Back in 1968 we elected Liberal leader, Pierre Trudeau as our Prime Minister. I think most Canadians, whether they loved him or hated him, would agree that he was our most famous and perhaps most notable Prime Minister. I can say from having lived through those years of "Trudeaumania", that it was indeed an exciting time to be a Canadian, as Trudeau, more than any other PM before or since, really put us on the world map. Pierre Trudeau was a unique man: He was a single and swinging bachelor when first elected, who would date the likes of Barbra Streisand in his first several years as PM. With his fashion sense, wearing mod ascots and with an often present rose in his suit lapel, he was a stylish and dashing fellow who also was very much his own man politically, never kowtowing to other political leaders. Nixon hated him apparently, and when Trudeau was informed that Nixon had referred to him as "That asshole", Trudeau merely shrugged and replied, "I've been called worse things by better people".

Though Trudeau did marry eventually, it was to Margaret Sinclair, a 22 year old "Flower child" who was thirty years younger than him. The marriage produced three sons, two of whom were born on successive Christmas Days no less. The marriage didn't last, however, and the two separated and divorced after Margaret went off to famously party with The Rolling Stones in New York! So we once again had a single Prime Minister, but I guess we liked the job he was doing for Canada because we kept him in office from 1968 to 1984, with just a brief retirement in 1979, having been voted out then re-elected after a disappointing Conservative Government under Joe Clark that lasted only nine months. In the years following his divorce, our Trudeau was seen on the town with the likes of classical guitarist Liona Boyd, Margot Kidder, and even a then twentysomething Kim Cattrall. So you see, we Canadians rather liked the rakish, swinging playboy we'd elected, and were not going to hold him to some impossibly high moral standard. As Trudeau himself famously said as Justice Minister before being elected PM, in regard to Canada's wise decision to decriminalize homosexuality in the mid-60's, "We take the position that there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation."

And so it should be in America too. So long as you maintain that puritanical mindset and obsession with all your elected officials remaining icons of "Family Values", then you are going to continue to see these tragic downfalls of otherwise competent political leaders. As for Canadian politics, I'd gladly take another swinging single playboy Prime Minister like Trudeau anyday!

Oh Yes...The Oscars

The day after the night of the Academy Awards is often a bit of a blur to me. So many awards handed out over several hours with montages and performances wedged in between...Anyway, let's see what I can recall:

First off, I remember seeing the cute and adorable Anne Hathaway coming onstage to present an award for Best Animated Feature with some comic actor by her side. As I recall, the award went to some film about a cooking rat. That is, rather, a rat that cooks. Sorry, I didn't mean to traumatize anyone with that awkward description...


Soon thereafter, we were treated to the first of the Best Song nominees from Disney's "Enchanted", as performed by the star of that film, the cute and adorable Amy Adams, with her big blue eyes and red hair. I think Amy Adams has now supplanted my previous favourite cute and adorable actress, Meg Ryan. Hey, I was loyal to Meg for the last 20 years or so, since seeing her in "When Harry Met Sally". I think it's time to trade up. (Sorry Meg.) Actually, I think Amy Adams should have been nominated herself for her role of "Giselle", the cartoon fairy tale princess who ends up in live-action form in contemporary New York. She played the part to the hilt, giving a note perfect interpretation of what a Disney princess should be. Anyway, here's cute and adorable Amy singing "The Happy Working Song":



Sometime later, the second of the nominated songs from "Enchanted" was performed, this time by Broadway star, the cute and adorable Kristin Chenoweth. If anyone was going to sing "That's How You Know" instead of Amy Adams, I couldn't ask for a better substitute than Kristin, who, as you can tell, is just as cute and adorable as a southern baked cherry pie! I saw Kristen on Jimmy Kimmel's show not long ago. Not only is she cute and adorable, but she's TINY too. She looked like a little girl with her legs dangling over the seat without touching the floor. Anyway, here she is performing a real showstopper from last night's show:



Later on in the telecast, they handed out the award for Best Actress. In what proved to be a real surprise, the award went to French actress, the cute and adorable Marion Cotillard. The role she won for was that of legendary chanteuse, Edith Piaf, in the film, "La Vie en Rose". This was one of my favourite films last year and I was so happy for Marion, who seemed to be as shocked by her win as anyone when she delivered an emotional acceptance speech in her cute and adorable French accented, broken English. Prior to seeing her on the Academy Awards last night, I had not actually seen what Marion Cotillard really looked like, as she is practically unrecognizable as the poor wretched "Little Sparrow", Edith Piaf, who, despite her massive talent, was frankly not exactly that cute and adorable herself. (No wonder the film's makeup artist also won an Oscar last night.) Anyway, here is Marion Cotillard's acceptance speech. And yes, she's not merely cute and adorable - she's GORGEOUS!!



And that's all I seem to recall of last night's Academy Awards.....

Addendum: It appears that all three of those videos have now been pulled. I wonder if it was AMPAS or Disney's decision?

Spare Some Change?

I did this sketch a couple weeks ago from the last debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on CNN. It seems everybody's running on a message of "Change", but with good reason: after eight long years of enduring George W. Bush, not just America, but the whole world could use some!

The majority of we Canadians have historically always favoured the American Democrats, so it should come as no surprise that I'm hoping to see either Barack or Hillary in the White House come next year. I personally prefer Barack Obama, as I remember seeing him interviewed a couple years ago on PBS' Charlie Rose show and he struck me as a guy with intelligence and integrity. Seeing him in the debates, he seems to be less biting in his attacks towards his opponent, as if that sort of mudslinging makes him uncomfortable. I like Hillary Clinton too, but I do have some reservations about her as she has been rather ruthless in her attacks on Obama. But that's just the nature of the game of politics and I'd be happy with either one of them as President. I figure no matter which one wins, that they'll surround themselves with wise counsel to keep them in check.

Actually, things are shaping up pretty good on the Republican side this time around too. It looks like the majority of Republicans have smartened up since eight years ago, and are now backing the more moderate and honourable John McCain. Fact is, I think they should have made him their man back in 2000, as many Democrats would have found him worthy of their vote too, being a straight up kind of guy who doesn't blindly toe the party line. Had McCain been president, I doubt that America would ever have ended up in the Iraq quagmire we have today.

In short, I think this is an exciting Presidential race with the top three contenders all being worthy candidates for the job. I hope Americans realize just how lucky they are in their choices leading up to the November election.

"Ya' Ever Pick Your Feet in Poughkeepsie?"

I actually had sketched this out in pencil a couple months ago, but decided to ink it up and post it today in honour of Gene Hackman's birthday. Gene's 78 now - can you believe it? Looking at his filmography on IMDb, it seems he's slowed down a bit in the last few years but was still pretty active leading up to his great role in "The Royal Tenenbaums" in 2001. Many of you may think back with fondness to his fun, campy Lex Luthor in "Superman" back in 1978. I still think his greatest film, though, was "The French Connection" in 1971, which really put him on the map, as it really was one of the landmark films that ushered in the gritty style of moviemaking in the 70's along with such films as "The Godfather", "Serpico", "Taxi Driver" and Hackman's other masterpiece, "The Conversation", to name but a few.

Hackman plays Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, an out of control narcotics cop, who on a hunch tails a suspected smalltime drug dealer who turns out to be mixed up with a major drug kingpin from France. Doyle and his partner, Buddy Russo, played by Roy Scheider, get deeply involved with what turns out to be more than they originally figured, culminating in that famous scene where Doyle appropriates some poor schmoe's car to chase down the kingpin's murderous accomplice who's on an elevated train. Whereas "Popeye" Doyle is a rather manic and tenacious cop, Roy Scheider as Russo is pretty calm and levelheaded, trying to keep his partner in check. Scheider would of course go onto greater fame himself in 1975 as the police chief of a small coastal town in "Jaws".

I really enjoyed doing this caricature of these two guys, not only because of my admiration for this film, but also for the visual contrast between Hackman and Scheider. Gene Hackman has a rather doughy quality to his features with all round bulbous forms and a horizontal thrust to his nose and chin, whereas Roy Scheider has a strong vertical design to a face that looks like it's chiseled out of rock with all those straight lines and blocky shapes. I'm always onto my Sheridan students to try to get greater contrast between their characters for more visual interest and appeal. Here's a good example of such characters from real life.

Jumping on the Chuck-Wagon

All right, since all the cool kids are posting about Chuck Jones, I'm feeling left out. So here's my take on Chuck's artistic ability and whether or not it waned in his later years. Cut to the chase - NO, of course he was not drawing at his best in his old age, but even his drawings for the limited-edition sericels that he was mass producing to satisfy the animation collectibles market that was springing up, were pretty damn good when taken on their own terms. I think ol' Chuck was no more guilty than other "Animation Legends" that were out making some easy dough in their golden years by exploiting their illustrious filmic past. Friz Freleng was doing it too, but if you take a look at the sericel images in these two runs, I think Chuck's drawings were far better than those of Friz. However, I don't believe that Friz in his prime was ever as notable for his draughtsmanship as he was for his directing skills, so I don't hold it against him.

To be sure, Chuck's drawings on the sericels and also the illustrations he did for his two memoirs, "Chuck Amuck" and "Chuck Reducks" were pretty off-model, as they say, when compared to any of the cartoons he directed back in his heyday at Warner Brothers. But when taken out of context, his drawings are still examples of damn fine cartooning nonetheless! I always suspected that when any of the oldtimers, once having long retired from their respective studios, were basking in the glow of the recognition and popularity that came their way later on, they basically didn't care how accurate their sketches were to the original character models. They were a bunch of old farts just enjoying all of the overdue attention they were now getting from their legions of fans and, free from the constraints of actual cartoon production, were allowing their own personal artistic styles to take over in the same manner as their handwritten signatures. If the characters weren't exactly on-model, so what? Being a beloved oldtimer in this industry buys you a lot of slack, in that, who is going to tell you that you no longer know how to draw the characters that you had a hand in originating? Guys like Ward Kimball and Bill Justice from Disney were taking the same liberties with their characters that Chuck took with Bugs and the gang, but any fan lucky enough to get a quick sketch from these delightful old codgers treated it like gold (as well they should), despite whatever inaccuracies to the design had taken hold with the passage of several decades of their being away from the animation desk.

For the record, by the way, Chuck Jones was also my favourite of the Warners cartoon makers. Even back when I was a young kid catching them on the old "Bugs Bunny / Roadrunner Hour" for the first time, I noted that the cartoons I liked best mostly seemed to be directed by some cat named "Charles M. Jones". They always seemed very sophisticated, though sometimes given to self-indulgence, in retrospect I suppose. It was years later before I delved into the history a bit and learned something about the various animation greats at both Warners and Disney. If memory serves me, I think one of the first times I actually saw Chuck Jones at length on TV was in an interview he gave on "The Dick Cavett Show" sometime back in the 1970's on PBS. I vividly recall what a fun interview it was and that Chuck did seem to come across as a guy who loved to hear himself speak. In fact, it seemed to me at the time that both he and Cavett were two of a kind, engaging in their know-it-all banter, with Chuck likely quoting Mark Twain and Cavett quoting back with Groucho Marx. But, as I am also often guilty of being a bit of an elitist blowhard, I felt a certain kinship with these guys!

In his post Warners animation career, Chuck was pretty hit and miss. I still consider his "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" to be the gold standard in animated TV specials, but his three adaptations of Kipling's stories from "the Jungle Book" later on were good, but not great. Sadly, his very odd version of "Carnival of the Animals" with Bugs and Daffy I consider to be pretty abysmal, which proves that even a once great director like Chuck was not infallible. And I don't think any of us are being disrespectful for pointing out such shortcomings either. Chuck Jones was only human, after all.

To see a retrospective of Chuck Jones art, running the gamut from "Classic Chuck" to "Make a Quick Buck Chuck", please take a look here on John K's site.

Suzanne Pleshette

Sadly, we lost Suzanne Pleshette yesterday, who died from complications following a battle with lung cancer. This follows the death only about a year ago of her husband, comedian Tom Poston, whom she'd married late in life, after both had been widowed by previous spouses. I ran this caricature once before in celebration of Bob Newhart's birthday, as "The Bob Newhart Show" remains one of my alltime favourite sitcoms. Now, hearing about Suzanne Pleshette's death at 70, I find it hard to believe that it's been over 30 years since that show was originally on the air.

For many of my generation, Suzanne Pleshette represented the type of woman we associate with entertainment of the 60's and 70's. She was attractive and sophisticated, and always a class act. In addition to the years she played Emily Hartley on "The Bob Newhart Show", I remember her as a familiar presence in some of the Disney films of my youth, including "Blackbeard's Ghost", "The Ugly Dachshund", and "The Shaggy D.A.", all of which teamed her up with Disney regular, Dean Jones, with whom she had a natural onscreen chemistry. She also costarred alongside one of my very favourite actors, James Garner, in "Support Your Local Gunfighter". With the advent of DVD, many of the TV shows I loved when I was young have been released in the last few years, enabling me to bask in the warm glow of nostalgia. Again, Suzanne Pleshette turns up in guest roles on some of these series. She played opposite Eddie Albert in a first season episode of "Columbo", and she was in the very first episode of "Wild Wild West", starting the trend that show would become famous for - having a different gorgeous woman in every show opposite Robert Conrad, much like the tradition of the Bond girls.

After hearing of Suzanne's passing yesterday, I watched an episode of "The Bob Newhart Show" in tribute to her. She and Bob were just so great together and I miss the classiness of that era of TV. Goodnight, sweet Suzanne...

(Please also see Jim Hill's site for another look back at Suzanne's career, with an emphasis on her films for Disney)

BJ Crawford

Sorry I've been rather late in updating this blog, but I've been keeping rather busy with teaching and freelancing. I'll be posting up some new drawings later this week, but in the meantime I'd like you to take a look at the following clip of animation that I accidentally ran across while looking for something else on YouTube. It's by a fellow named BJ Crawford, whom I had the pleasure of teaching in his first year of animation at Sheridan College way back in 1997. (Actually, that was also my first year teaching there too!) I recall that BJ was one of the more natural cartoonists that year and that his Character Design assignments were always fun to look at. It was therefore a real treat to happen upon both this clip and his sample reel to see just what great stuff he's been doing in the 10 years since I last saw him. As I've often harped on about my dissatisfaction with most modern day animation being of the flat, Flash cutout variety, it is indeed refreshing to see a young guy doing some full character animation with personality in the movement:



And, though it's certainly made the rounds on many sites before this, I'll also add this bit of animation by the great James Baxter for more visual pleasure. This is a short cycled piece of a self-caricature that James did of himself dancing that shows the pure magic of the animated drawing at its finest. No fancy backgrounds, no digital paint job, just what appears to be nothing more than coloured pencils on sheets of animation paper. It is examples like these of both James Baxter and BJ Crawford that sum up what animation should be. I personally never tire of a hand-drawn cartoon character seemingly having that "Illusion of Life". Enjoy!