http://mcirillo.com . Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:05:10 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I like old comic strips; they're a favorite source of models for drawing practice. This was a truly obnoxious character from 1900 called Mischievous Willie. He makes Dennis the Menace look well-behaved. At least most of the mischief caused by Dennis seem inadvertent rather that premeditated. http://mcirillo.com/2010/02/26/willie/ Wanna be normal? Take a pill. More collage thoughts in the sketchbook. I like how the pages take the glue stick, but if I come back later to do a wash on the back side of the page the glue starts dissolving. http://mcirillo.com/2010/02/24/normal/ I'm trying some ideas for future collages in my new sketchbook. I've lately been enamored of some 1950s cigarette cards found in the New York Public Library Digital Collection depicting rockets of the era. I use the images for drawing practice, as the forms are fairly simple and good for ... http://mcirillo.com/2010/02/23/the-launch/ Putting the new sketchbook through its paces has stimulated some experimenting. Yay! http://mcirillo.com/2010/02/20/baseball-doodle/ Here's the inside cover of my new art journal/sketchbook. I tested some of the pens I'm using to see how they would react and how they would look on the new paper. A most happy surprise has been an old Bic Brite blue highlighter I found in a drawer. It ... http://mcirillo.com/2010/02/18/test-colors/ I love the little moleskine notebooks, but my pens and markers tend to bleed through the paper, leaving the other side almost unusable. I'm now testdriving a Hand Book Artist Journal. Same dimensions as a classic pocket moly, 3.5 x 5.5 inches, but with 128 pages of thicker stock ... http://mcirillo.com/2010/02/17/new-sketchbook/ Doodling again....micron, gelly roll & pitt pens with colored pencils. http://mcirillo.com/2010/02/16/food-chain-2/ http://mcirillo.com/2010/02/14/doodle-2/ Micron pen with marker in moleskine. As long as I call these things "doodles" I don't feel so bad about posting them. Doodles are fun. http://mcirillo.com/2010/02/13/doodle/ A while back I found this book Sci-Fi Western, which is a collection of art depicting things like cowboys in outer space, UFOs in the desert, and so on. I love it. It seems perfectly logical to me. Contributors include some artists I've only recently discovered, including Gary Baseman, Tim ... http://mcirillo.com/2010/02/12/desert-monster/