Happy Birthday, Robin Williams!

I mentioned Robin Williams in my last post, in regard to the Disney short film that he appeared in with Walter Cronkite. As it happens, today is Robin Williams' birthday, so I figured I should celebrate it with this little novelty pictured above. Here's the story behind this particular caricature:

Back in 1982 I went out to visit my friend, Bryan Stoller, whom I had grown up with in Ottawa but who was at that time aspiring to become a film director in LA after having graduated from the American Film Institute. Bryan had made some contacts within several of the studios, enabling us to visit the set of the series, Bret Maverick, filming at Warner Brothers, where I got to meet my hero, James Garner. I've written about this at great length in this previous post. But Bryan also knew a producer at Paramount, and was therefore able to get us onto the set of the popular sitcom, Mork and Mindy, which was pretty much what had launched the career of Robin Williams, playing Mork, the alien sent to study earthlings.

When we arrived on the set, the cast and crew were busy rehearsing for that week's show, with the director setting up camera angles as the actors went through their paces. Bryan and I went up into the empty stands where the audience would sit for the taping at the end of the week. I had brought along my sketchbook and so I started sketching the cast while they rehearsed. This was to be the final season of the series, and Jonathan Winters had joined the cast as Mork and Mindy's (strangely fully grown adult) baby, Mearth, hatched from an egg laid by poppa Mork. (Okay, the 70s really was a strange decade!) The main reason that Winters had been added to the cast, however, was that he had been the lifelong comedic idol of Robin Williams, who had patterned his own scattergun style of improv comedy after this comedy legend.

One of the most memorable events while watching this rehearsal came when the cast took a short break while the camera crew set up the next shot. Jonathan Winters had wandered over to a chair on the set and had started a one way conversation with it. Robin noticed what he was doing and was soon joining in on this madcap bit of improv with the chair. It was really neat to see how these two guys, the master and his disciple, worked off of each other, obviously having great fun with such off-the-cuff invention.

After they were through with the rehearsal, Bryan and I went down to say hello to the cast and the producer, Gene Sultan, who had kindly given us permission to visit the set. I showed them the quick sketch caricatures I'd been doing and the cast members were quite excited with them. We accompanied them back to their breakroom for coffee and to chat for a bit, and they asked if they could photocopy my sketches. Interestingly, I found Robin himself to be a bit quiet and reserved, quite unlike what I would have expected. In contrast, Jonathan Winters was very outgoing and funny, and even sketched a cartoon for me! I must admit, though, that I was most of all enjoying the company of Pam Dawber, who played Mindy. Pam was just as cute and sweet in person as she was on the show, and I came away quite smitten! As our visit wrapped up, the producer gave us tickets to come back and attend the show's taping at the end of the week. I couldn't believe how gracious they had all been and I wanted to do something for them in return.

Once I had returned back home from my trip, I decided to work up the rough sketches (as well as some new ones I drew from the TV show) into a finished piece of art. Actually, I did three identical originals, then mailed them to Bryan with the instructions to keep one for himself as thanks, and to give one to the producer, Gene Sultan, and hopefully see if he could get the cast to autograph and return one to me. Bryan came through, and several weeks later I received my original back, signed by the cast, as well as an 8 x 10 photo reproduction of it. There was also a note from the producer, thanking me for the caricature and hoping that I didn't mind him taking the liberty of having it printed up and distributed to all the cast and crew at the end of season wrap party. Of course I was flattered that he had done that, happy that they all had a momento of their final season that featured my art.

Just as a postscript, I've always thought it was funny how similar an approach Disney animator, Eric Goldberg had 10 years later in caricaturing Robin Williams' features and incorporating them into his design of Genie in Aladdin. Both Eric and I are highly influenced by famed caricaturist, Al Hirschfeld, so I think we were both somewhat guided by his sense of flowing design in the facial features. It's uncanny how similar our approach is when you look at that profile of Genie in the centre of this model sheet:

Walter Cronkite Signs Off For The Last Time.

Though he lived a long and full life, passing away at the ripe old age of 92, Walter Cronkite will be well missed. I was too young at the time to have witnessed the pivotal moments in America's history that he famously covered, such as the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, or the first walk on the moon by Neil Armstrong. But for a teenager growing up in the 1970s, Walter Cronkite was a familiar and comforting presence on the evening news, speaking in that calmly reassuring voice of quiet authority. In fact, with his bushy eyebrows, neatly trimmed mustache, and warm midwestern tones, he very much put me in mind of that other Walter - the one who went by the name, Walt Disney.

Like Disney, Walter Cronkite came across to we youngsters as a trusted older uncle or grandfather type. It's no wonder that he had earned the nickname, "The Most Trusted Man in America", as he always seemed to be giving us the straight goods, devoid of the type of hype we're fed today, especially on the all-news channels. I suspect that I wasn't the only one who had noticed his similarity to Walt Disney, as there seemed to be a distinct Disney connection for Cronkite in his later years. On October 1st 1982, my family and I were at Walt Disney World for the opening day of EPCOT Center, and it was very exciting to be among the first guests to experience this new park. Of course, we wanted to do things right, and immediately joined the big line-up just inside the park entrance for the attraction within EPCOT's iconic geosphere, Spaceship Earth. This attraction was sponsored by Bell, and simulated a time machine trip through the history of communication. As guests who visited Spaceship Earth in the early years will recall, the narrator of this trip through time was none other than Walter Cronkite. Again, I couldn't help but think of Walt Disney's voice back when he hosted his TV show, as I listened to the warm, rumbly midwestern tones of Mr. Cronkite.

A few years later, Walter Cronkite would make an onscreen appearance at another Disney theme park - the Disney/MGM Studios that opened in 1989. He appeared alongside Robin Williams in the whimsical featurette, Back To Neverland, that accompanied the Animation Tour at Disney's Florida Feature Animation Studio. Although the film in its entirety may not be available for viewing, here is a short segment featuring Robin Williams as an animated Lost Boy from Peter Pan, going through a succession of animated impersonations, including one of his very dignified co-star. Yes, Walter Cronkite, that respected and beloved CBS anchorman will be missed, but well remembered:

Fondly Remembering Marty Feldman

I'm afraid I missed this guy's birthday by a few days, as it was on July 8th. But a belated Happy Birthday nonetheless to Marty Feldman, one of the funniest characters to grace the movie screens in both Hollywood and his native England. Though Marty had an unfortunate defect of the eyes, he was able to turn this bizarre physical trait into a successful career as a much beloved screen comic. In order to draw this sketch, I watched him in 1975's The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, where he costarred alongside actor (and first-time director) Gene Wilder. In truth, it's a pretty weak film, although it boasts some quite nice atmospheric visuals and lush colour. Also, it was shot in England, thereby giving them easy access to some terrific British character actors, including Leo McKern (as Prof. Moriarty), John Le Mesurier, and Roy Kinnear.

Much better of course was the film where Wilder and Feldman had first costarred together the year before: Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, considered now to be a comedy classic. Marty Feldman played the assistant, "Igor", (humourously pronounced "Eye-gor", as Feldman points out when his character is first introduced), whose hump seems to migrate between the left and right side of his back. This was the film that firmly established Feldman as a screen comedian in America, although he'd already been a big star on British TV for a number of years. One very bizarre film that I recommend seeing him in is The Bed Sitting Room, a darkly funny, post nuclear holocaust film, where Marty Feldman plays a female nurse that has mutated into...well... a bug-eyed little man!

Sadly, Marty Feldman left this world far too soon back in 1982, the victim of shellfish poisoning that triggered a massive heart attack while he was in the midst of shooting his final film, Yellowbeard. He was only 49 when he died.

Happy Canada Day!!

Here's wishing all of my Canadian readers a Happy Canada Day, although the rest of you are welcome to celebrate too by putting on your toques while dining on some Molson beer and Beaver Tail. If you Americans don't know what a Beaver Tail is, go ask President Obama - he sampled one in The Byward Market during his first visit to Ottawa back on my birthday in February. Hey, I kid you not. Or you can just sit there and relax while this pretty Canadian maiden on mooseback rides by and bestows a blessing of Timbits upon you all:



Though I consider myself a proud Canadian and enjoy living here on the western edge of Mississauga not far from the scenic Niagara escarpment, I must admit I don't believe that Canada has ever lived up to its full potential. I personally loved the years that Pierre Trudeau was our Prime Minister, as he was such a dynamic leader who really helped to raise our profile on the international scene. But after that, Canada seems to have become rather second-rate, content to live in the shadow of our neighbour to the south. When I was a kid back in 1967, Canada's centennial year, it really felt like we were going someplace. Though I was too young to appreciate everything going on at the time, I do recall all of the hoopla and national pride surrounding Expo 67 in Montreal. Mostly, I remember the song that had been written for our centennial that played everywhere at that time. Hopefully, the following YouTube clip will bring back some happy nostalgia for my Canadian readers of a similar age:



That same year, also for Expo 67, this promotional film and song were created for the Ontario pavilion. This song too I remember loving whenever I'd hear it, as it had such a majestic quality to it. Coincidentally, it was written by Delores Clamen, who also wrote the theme for CBC's Hockey Night in Canada that made its debut the following year in 1968. (Sadly, CBC let its rights to that song lapse last year, resulting in quite the national controversy!) Anyway, here too is the Ontario song for my fellow middle-aged Canucks:



However, lest you think that I'm just wallowing in the past, here is something contemporary for you to enjoy. I don't like modern pop music at all (as I HATE rock!), so I turn to the world of jazz to hear singers that I can relate to and appreciate. One of my very favourite singers these days is Sophie Milman, a young jazz chanteuse who is making quite a name for herself not only in Canada but internationally too. She's actually Russian born and grew up in Israel, but has been living here in Toronto for a fair number of years now. Apparently, she didn't even speak much English prior to arriving in Canada, so I'm doubly impressed with how much she has accomplished artistically in a relatively short time span. So let's have a big hand for Sophie Milman:

Death Takes No Holiday Last Week

It would seem that the whole world is now in mourning for "The Gloved One", despite the fact that Michael Jackson had been largely forsaken by the public in his latter years, reduced to a sad joke, most tragically of his own making. To give him his due, Jackson certainly was a phenomenal solo talent back in his prime years of the 1980s, but he just couldn't seem to sustain it for more than a dozen years or so. While I could admire his technical skills as a dancer, that kind of high energy pop/rock performer so typical of "The MTV Generation" never appealed to me. Remember, I'm a Sinatra guy myself, so Michael Jackson just didn't measure up. For the record, I deplore all contemporary pop music, as I've never liked the rock influence. Sorry...

So instead, here in The Cartoon Cave we're going to celebrate the other two big names of the entertainment world who left us this past week:



Farrah Fawcett is certainly the more tragic loss of the the two, by virtue of her being only 62 and having been in so much physical agony from the cancer that had wracked her body for so long. When I was a teen in the 1970s, this beauty with the big blonde mane of hair was the reigning sex symbol of the day, with her blue eyes and that million dollar smile blazing forth from the ubiquitous poster that became an iconic image of that era. As Marilyn Monroe was to the 50s and Raquel Welch was to the 60s, so Farrah Fawcett became the feminine ideal of the 70s, inspiring many a teenage girl's hairstyle while inspiring something else in we guys! It's ironic really that she made as big a splash as she did, as her greatest claim to fame as the breakout star on Charlie's Angels only lasted the first season, before Farrah decided to leave the show to try her luck in movies. It's a shame that she never did achieve the fame in film that she had strived for.

Admittedly, I was not a huge fan of Farrah, being only a casual viewer of Charlie's Angels back in its day. I found the show entertaining, but a bit too fluffy and silly for my tastes. I preferred my crime shows to be more plausible, favouring Columbo and The Rockford Files at the time. Still, the three gals were very cute and appealing, although truth be told, Jaclyn Smith was my favourite Angel, with her soft dark eyes and warm honey voice. But I certainly admired Farrah and Kate Jackson as well. Having recently revisited the show on DVD, I find their portrayals rather refreshing in retrospect, in that they're not the badass, butt kicking action girls so prevalent in movies and shows today, but are instead still allowed to be very sweet and feminine while solving the dastardly crimes. The 1970s was still a more innocent time on TV!




And not to be forgotten, we also lost Ed McMahon this past week, who was in fact a big favourite of mine. In the 70s and 80s I was an avid viewer of The Tonight Show, back when Johnny Carson was the king of television and the show itself had so much more class than in its later incarnation with Jay Leno. Big Ed was more than just a sidekick to Johnny, in my opinion. His hearty laugh and always affable manner was a very comfortable presence to be around, and I felt that he and Johnny operated more as a team than we see with any of the second bananas working on TV today.

I remember back in 1982, I was in New York City freelancing for the Disney office there. While I was in town, a friend and I got tickets to see the then very late night version of Late Night With David Letterman, which ran on NBC following The Tonight Show. I recall the audience being herded like cattle into the theatre, then having some very crass fellows come out to instruct and nearly threaten us into obeying the applause sign. Overall, I found the experience of that TV show taping rather demeaning and wasn't too impressed at all. About a year or so later, I was out visiting my friend Bryan Stoller in LA and Bryan knew somebody at NBC who was able to secure us very good seats near the front of the theatre to see The Tonight Show. In contrast to the experience at the Letterman taping, I found the taping of The Tonight Show to be very warm and friendly. I recall that Ed McMahon and Doc Severinsen came out before the show to warm up the audience before the taping was to start. They had a very inviting manner about them, putting the audience at ease with their good humour and taking a few questions from the people in the stands. When the show started up, it was just magical to hear Ed's familiar intro of "Heeeeere's Johnny!", bringing forth the king himself. I remember being so impressed with the consummate professionalism of Johnny, Ed and Doc, and their obvious respect for their live audience.

In recent years, Ed McMahon had shown unfailing loyalty and respect for his former boss, even after Johnny Carson had passed away, speaking with great affection of their years working together. At some point I'm planning to do a fuller post on the subject of Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show, but in the meantime I'd just like to pay my respects to that gentle giant, Ed McMahon.

Happy Birthday, Phil Harris!

I've written about Phil Harris before, particularly in regard to his voiceover work for Disney, most notably as Baloo the Bear in The Jungle Book. I just watched him last week on an episode of Burke's Law from 1963, which prompted me to find out when his birthday was so I could celebrate him with a new caricature. Coincidentally, his birthday was fast approaching with June 24th, so I had just enough time to draw something up. Since he was a good buddy of Dean Martin's and I just wrote up a tribute to ol' Dino, here's a fun clip of these two rascals from The Dean Martin Variety Show that will show you what Phil looked like in the mid 1960s, the way I've depicted him in the caricature:



Phil Harris was one of those larger than life personalities that used to be quite common in the showbiz of yesteryear, but sadly is rather rare today. With his broad features, distinctive warm southern drawl, and a brash, yet affable manner, Phil was a memorable character. Though never really a leading man, he had a pretty good career playing variations of himself in a fair number of films. Mostly, however, he's remembered for two things: First, his radio career, initially as one of Jack Benny's regulars, then later alongside his wife, Alice Faye, in their own radio show. And secondly he's remembered as the warm, rumbly voice of Baloo in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967), followed by roles as Thomas O'Malley the alley cat in The Aristocats (1970), and as another bear, Little John in Robin Hood (1973). These Disney voiceovers guaranteed Phil a longlasting legacy with successive generations of kids, an audience quite the opposite to the adult crowds he was more used to entertaining on the Las Vegas strip in the hotels and nightclubs of that great era of the 50s and 60s.

Though I'll always love him best as Baloo, I'm also rather impressed with his role as O'Malley in The Aristocats. Whereas Baloo was purportedly modeled on that affable oaf, Wallace Beery, the popular character actor from the silent era through the early 1940s, Phil's portrayal of O'Malley has always seemed to me much more like an alley cat version of the 50s/60s breezy Frank Sinatra! O'Malley's a middle-aged Lothario, initially looking for an uncomplicated and noncommittal romance with Duchess, the Persian cat damsel in distress that he encounters in his aimless wandering. This in itself always seemed pretty interesting and different to me, since the average Disney hero was always hellbent on love and marriage with the heroine right from the get go, with the only other exception I can recall being Tramp (who puts me in mind of Gene Kelly, by the way). Additionally, I like the fact that O'Malley is obviously a more mature male, quite a bit older than the usual teenage hero of Disney animated features. This placed him more in the company of the type of actors I always liked best, such as Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, as well as the aforementioned Sinatra. I know the critics have never liked The Aristocats, but it remains a guilty pleasure of mine, mostly due to Phil Harris's vocal performance as the rakish O'Malley.

Here's the clip of "Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat" from The Aristocats:



And here's a neat Youtube video of Phil Harris and Scatman Crothers, reminiscing about their roles as O'Malley and (the Louis Armstrong inspired) Scat Cat:

Let's Drink To Dino!!

I've written on several occasions of my favourite singer, Frank Sinatra. More recently I did a caricature tribute to Bobby Darin. With today's subject of Dean Martin, I now complete the triumvirate of my favourite male singers. Yes, more often than not, one of these three legends is heard crooning from my stereo, as I still yearn for those wonderful years when the radio airwaves were ruled by Italian American baritones. Actually, I had hoped to write this tribute to Dean for his birthday on June 7th, but I'd been on vacation the week before and had no time to draw the caricature at that time.

I am of course a huge fan of The Rat Pack, not only for their music, but also for their breezy attitude and brash humour, so refreshing when compared to today's stifling (and in my opinion, unhealthy) "politically correct" sensitivities that seek to find offense in any off-the-cuff remark. As a cartoonist, I have no time for this latter day nonsense, and much prefer the freewheeling style of Frank, Dean and Sammy. The joke of course is that the Las Vegas routines of The Rat Pack were satirically puncturing the absurdity of ethnic intolerance, but did so through allowing Frank and Dean to behave like frat boys, getting in good-natured digs at Sam, who ultimately came off as both the sympathetic character and the most dignified, yet always somehow getting in a jab or two back at them.

It's always struck me as pretty curious how Frank and Dean ended up as best buddies, as they are actually quite different in many ways. Whereas Frank was a political animal and very passionate about causes he believed in, Dean seemed to prefer not to get too involved and often couldn't work up much passion about something one way or the other. For example, it was Frank who was solidly behind getting JFK elected President, staging fundraisers and using personal clout to sway voters (infamously among the teamsters union). In contrast, Dean was merely along for the ride, showing up to perform at fundraisers more as a favour to Frank than due to any personal political motivation. He'd likely rather have spent the time on the golf course instead, or on his couch back home watching a western on TV.

In their Rat Pack concerts in Vegas, Dean was the court jester sent out first to warm up the audience through feigned inebriation, slurred jokes and humourously altered lyrics to some of his songs. When Frank emerged later for his set, it was a much more serious presentation of his song repertoire, with just the occasional glib aside to the crowd. Dean was certainly the more gifted comic of the two, with an easy humour and perfectly timed delivery. Frank often made remarks that seemed forced and weren't really very funny (except maybe to him). It is likely because of this less than comfortable approach that Frank was not as successful as Dean in hosting a TV variety show, having briefly tried and failed at it several years before Dean went on to a highly successful run with his own Dean Martin Variety Show that lasted for years on NBC. Frank was too intense for a weekly show, whereas Dean's easygoing style made him a natural host that viewers looked forward to spending time with.

There was a trade-off however, in that Frank has to be acknowledged as the more passionate of the two when it came to their recording careers. Frank could sing all manner of songs convincingly, whether it was a swinging, breezy number like Witchcraft, or a heartbreaking ode to rejection and loneliness like One For My Baby, or the wistful It Was a Very Good Year. Though Dean was a wonderful singer, his choice of song material always seemed to remain on the light and breezy side, as I really can't recall him singing anything of great emotional depth. He could sing romantic ballads, but never with the yearning that Frank could imbue them with. His forte seemed to be odes to the swinging bachelor life, with a martini and a babe always within easy reach, my favourite being his rendition of Baby, It's Cold Outside. Interestingly, although both Frank and Dean were proud of their Italian heritage, it was only Dean who included a lot of olive oil saturated Italian ballads in his song catalog, with Frank only dabbling in that genre with his 60s hit, Domani.

I suspect Frank in many ways not only admired Dean, but was likely a little envious of those traits that he himself lacked. It also seems that Dean was alone among Frank's friends in being able to say no to him, while still remaining in his good favour. Frank counted on his cronies hanging out with him and sharing some laughs at the bar until the wee small hours of the morning. Yet Dean was able to get away with often declining the invitation, instead heading back home to bed for a good night's sleep so he could be out the next morning for an early tee off time on the green. Though Frank was one to infamously hold grudges against those who wouldn't jump through his hoops, Dean seemed to be spared his wrath and perhaps was the only guy whom Frank actually admired for his contrariness. Maybe that's also how Dean's fans respond to him as well - as a guy they admire who always marched to the beat of his own drum, critics be damned. Here's to ya' Dino!

For the ultimate Dino site, check out Dino Martin Peters' blog.

(By the way, I dedicate this post to my ol' buddy in Ottawa, Jack Tremblay, another one of Dino's biggest fans. This one's for you, pallie!)

And finally, here's a clip of Dean at his playful best. Check out the part where he's waiting for his cue to resume after the backup singers are through - just priceless!

Sheridan Animation at the Bloor!

Please excuse the fact that I haven't updated the blog lately, but I was on vacation for a week back in my hometown of Ottawa. Anyway, I wanted to start back by helping to spread the word on the upcoming screening of a sampling of films from the 4th Year Sheridan grads that will be shown this Tuesday (at 7 pm) and Wednesday (at 9:30 pm) evenings at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto. This screening has been put together quite generously by my friend and Sheridan colleague, Mark Mayerson. You can read more about the show right here on Mark's blog. If you live within a reasonable proximity of the Bloor, please come down for one of the two screenings to show your support for the Sheridan grads. I'm planning on attending the Tuesday 7pm show and hope to see you there.

In the meantime, just to whet your appetite, here is a sample of the cartoon goodness just waiting for you to savour! This is one of my favourites from this year, animated by the highly skilled cartoonist, Kelly Turnbull:

The Chronicles of Turghot and Dragam from Kelly Turnbull on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday Christopher Lee!

Last year on this same date I celebrated the birthday of one of my favourite actors, Vincent Price. By some coincidence, today is also the birthday of another horror film veteran, Christopher Lee. (And if that's not amazing enough, his buddy and frequent film costar, Peter Cushing celebrated his birthday yesterday on May 26th!)

But today we honour Mr. Christopher Lee, whom I'm happy to see is still quite active an actor, having appeared in The Lord of the Rings films, as well as in the most recent Star Wars entries as Count Dooku. And as if that wasn't enough, he's done a couple of turns for his big fan, director Tim Burton, including playing Willy Wonka's dad in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I see from his IMDb page that he's also scheduled to play the Jabberwock in Tim Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland. I suspect that it will just be his voice that's heard in that role though, as I can't imagine him wearing a rubber dragon-like costume to play the part.

All of this film activity is particularly admirable when one considers that Mr. Lee will be turning 87 today. Where have the years all gone? He received his greatest fame, of course in all of those wonderful Hammer horror films of the late 50s/early 60s, including several star turns as Count Dracula. Frankly, it doesn't seem that long ago when Christopher Lee was starring opposite Roger Moore in the 1974 James Bond entry, The Man with the Golden Gun. It is his role in this film as the million dollars a hit assassin, Scaramanga, that inspired this caricature I drew of him a few days ago after watching the film again on DVD. What a great villain he makes, with that refined deep, rich voice of his - the perfect British cad! I wish I could find a YouTube clip from the film where he speaks, but you'll just have to settle instead for this non-verbal scene where Scaramanga menaces his mistress, played by the lovely Maud Adams:



However, if you would like to hear that deep baritone of his, here's a real oddity I came across in my search where Christopher Lee actually sings. I must admit, I have never heard of The Return of Captain Invincible until now but, after watching this bizarre clip, I have to somehow see this film!!

Digital Cheesecake!

For a long time now I've been trying to figure out this digital painting stuff with Photoshop and finally I seem to making some headway. I went through pretty much all of the Photoshop brushes, trying them out in various ways to see what I could do with them, but I find most of them rather unsatisfying. However I did stumble upon this one that, after lots of messing with, I found I could get some nice painterly results. I also had been studying the work of fellow caricaturists, Court Jones and Paul Moyse, both of whose abilities I admire greatly, in order to analyze how they're using the medium so well.

So then I decided to experiment and see what I could accomplish with this initial amount of Digital knowledge, as little as it was. I started out sketching this girl right on the screen using a brush I'd created from a tutorial that gives a nice soft pencil look. Then on a separate layer, I jumped in with both feet and started to paint it. I must confess that I got very frustrated along the way, nearly giving up a few times, but I persevered just to see what I could learn from the experience if nothing else. For this first attempt, I do wish I hadn't painted the background so close to the colour of her hair, though I do kind of like the way her hair melds into it at the back.

The more I worked with it, the more it started looking like a cartoonier version of the type of pin-up paintings I've always loved by Gil Elvgren, with a rich, creamy, oil paint feel to it. Since I didn't really know what I was doing most of the time, it took me hours longer to do than it really should have, but this was just a learning experience and hopefully I'll be able to accomplish things more quickly as I get more proficient with it.

For this second attempt I used several vintage 50's pin-up photos as reference, combining elements from each and making stuff up as well. This time, however, I drew her in pencil on paper the way I normally do, then scanned in the sketch. After making it into a transparent layer in Photoshop, I painted in the main areas on a separate layer underneath, first in flat colours, then adding a bit of modeling based on the lighting in the reference photos. Above is the rough sketch with quick colour added. It's actually a fun and satisfying technique in itself, and warrants more exploration sometime.

Once I had a rough colour sketch I was happy with, I merged the two layers together and started into the "oil painting" technique on top. Though I was having an easier time of it since my first attempt, the difficulty with digital painting is knowing when to stop and leave an area alone. I tried to keep the whole thing progressing at the same rate, but it's always so tempting to start embellishing it with details too early in the process.

Seeing the finished artwork, I'm still not sure about some things. In my opinion, there could still be more tonal definition, as I feel that some areas look too soft, especially when compared back to the colour sketch. Doing narrow, smooth lines is not easy in Photoshop, and I therefore have a hard time with detail in the hair, as well as the eyelashes, and any areas where I've used a bit of soft darker outline to help accentuate some of the form. Here's where a good sable watercolour brush still beats the heck out of computer technology, in my opinion. (Yes, I remain a traditionalist at heart!)

Anyway, these are just a couple of initial attempts to learn the digital painting process. I keep on studying the work of artists I like in order to pick up additional skills, but I know it's a long road ahead of me.