Betsy Murgatroyd Zine

 

All that fiddling around in the prior posts turned into something... check it out here.

Moar Style

So, I have sort of become enamored with my blowsy barfly and have been using her as a model while I try out different pens/line weights/styles and so forth. In that vein, I really appreciated the feedback from my SAW colleagues Syne and Tim at our co-working session yesterday morning.

Since I am putting Betsy Murgatroyd (I have decided that's her name) through her paces as an artist's model, I have also had her spout quotes from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Albert Camus. I love the juxtaposition of image and thought that results. Never judge a book by it cover, or a barfly by her drink.

In any case, here are three studies of Betsy, completed last night at the SAW Starlight Studio.

 

 

 

 

Style - a shaggy dog story

Fair warning: This is a meandering rumination, so settle in...

Since real life is a little busy now, I haven't given myself a project-of-the-month -- after Sawgust, the September Strip, Nountober, November Space Tales, Adaptuary, and Flaky Feb -- and I have just been doodling/sketching/practicing/whatever during my open studio time. 

The other night, I drew this barfly (on a piece of scratch paper):

I like the way it came out -- she's not dainty and definitely has some attitude -- so I decided to ink it:

I like this one, too, and thought perhaps she might might become an ongoing character in somethings, and I started to think about how to draw her consistently.

At the next draw jam last night, I took a detour -- the CBC series Pretty hard Cases was on my mind. so I used a reference photo to draw a sketch of the main characters:

I decided to ink this one, too:

Frankly,I found this one a little meh -- and lacking in energy, for sure. So I reinked in with a thick marker-type pen:

I really think that this one jumps off the page, and that it captures the essence of the characters better than the other version, even though it is much simpler and more stylized.

In today's open studio, I went back to working on the barfly again:

Again, I tried inking:

Not bad, I like some of this. But thinking back to the draw jam, I did a marker versionof this one too:

Again, I really liked the energy... so coming full circle,I went back to the original barfly sketch and did a marker version of that:

There's something about the bold, simple lines that seems to bring the the sketches alive,and I am not sure what to do with that. For almost a year, I have been developing my cartooning praxis thinking I am heading toward a style something like Dick Calkins:

But what if I am not?

And how do I switch gears and cultivate that simpler style - which, it seems, either soars and sinks, with little in-between?

And still, how do I develop that consistency.

I am not sure I know the full answer, but I know that part of remains working at the drawing board every day.

See you there.