Blue Moon Blog

On our last day of class, we took a few group pictures, so here’s the crew from my first foray with higher-level instruction: our MCAD Introduction to Comics class, Spring, 2012:

Back row, left to right: Amber, Caroline, Professor Paul, Brandon, Aaron, Leigh. Middle row: Olivia, Rachel, Thomas, Tanner. Front row: Jei, Chan, Alice & Nicole.

I had a great group of students with a palpable passion for their art and/or comics. They impressed me, coming into the class with more drawing and storytelling chops than I’d expected. I just read all their course evaluations, and while I’m pleased they all liked the class, their constructive comments will help me focus more on where I can improve if I get the chance to teach again. I hope they learned a lot, but here’s…

What I learned:

• If you ask me talk about Comics for hours straight, I can do it. In fact, it’s tough to shut me up.

• My Corpus Callosum Dominant condition is a perfect fit for teaching an art class. Relying strongly on both sides of the brain is a big help to handle the aesthetic nature of art class as well as the organizational and structural necessary to keep me and the students on track.

• Regardless of one’s age, we can all pursue our passion or bliss, make dreams come alive through action, and have personal challenges, situations and stresses to overcome.

• While grounding ourselves in traditional, tried-and-true methods of art-making, we must also embrace and encourage the use of digital tools and technology. As long as principles of drawing, storytelling, composition, design and clarity are followed and adhered to, it doesn’t matter what tools we use.

• Comics makers are a weird, idiosyncratic, smart and sharp, wonderful group of people.

• The future of Comics is in good hands. You’ll be buying and reading comics, watching cartoons made by these young people shortly.

Just for grins, our Justice League pose – heroes all!

After an exchange in class last week, one of my students whipped out this quick cartoon -

LOL! I was incredulous, throwing my head back, laughing at the notion she plans to do a story 4-5 times the length required for her Final. I wasn’t laughing at her, but bowled over by her audacity and confidence. A wonder to behold! And more yet, she’ll no doubt pull it off and with panache. The Future of Comics is here, folks. We’d all best get our butts in gear!

FYI – I am too large for my own good, do wear Hawaiian shirts, but go sans belt and do not tuck.

The Fractured Fables anthology (Image) to which I contributed has been released now in softcover. To get a taste, read the Pippi van Wrinkles story I did with my pal, Len Strazewski and wife, Mary at my comics site, bluemoontoons.com.

We’re honored to in such great company with creators such as Ben Templesmith, Terry Moore, Doug TenNapel, May Ann Licudine, Bill Alger, Alex Grecian, Christian Ward, Jill Thompson, Scott Morse, among many others. There’s such a wide array of tales, tones and styles you’re bound to like most presented here. And for only $4-5 more, one can still pick up the hardcover copy. Either way – good deal!

It’s been three years today since I slid a snowmobile into a tree. It seems like yesterday…and an eternity. Doctors tell you the trauma will always be with you, but that it will fade. And they’re right. For me, that tree becomes less solid, less an immovable object ahead of me I’m going to run into and more something I can leave in the distance. I may not have passed it that night three years back, physically, but I’m passing it emotionally and metaphorically. I dwell less in the icy, windy, frigid darkness of that night, less in the moment in the hospital nine days after when I thought I was checking out for good. More often I strive for the light, the sun, my family, longtime friends and new, for activity and life.

Doctors will also guesstimate how long recovery will take. The say six months, a year, maybe two years. Then after two years pass, they say I’m on track, that a trauma like this can take 4-5 years to overcome. They project because they don’t really know. Each person and experience is different. They favor less time for the sake of hope, and ’cause a shorter recovery time may turn out to be true. And maybe not.

My bones are still healing – I’m no spring chicken. I can still hear and feel them click and clack as I move about, and I’m sure I always will. But they don’t hurt as often, pain comes less sharply to trigger anxiety. But sleep still bleeds into the sense of dying and panic is not always a thing of the past. In the Summer of 2009 hearing or speaking words about death would send me into a tizzy. I’d have to turn off quickly the baseline of a Michael Jackson song used in an online commercial lest it spark an anxious tingling through my body. I was that sensitive. News of celebrity deaths don’t have the same effect now. From a purely selfish perspective: what a relief.

My challenge now is beating bad habits that have formed over time as I ween further off medication. Going to sleep at a regular time each night is something with which I’ve had little success. I snack too much before bed and don’t exercise nearly often enough. I’ve got to go cold turkey on nervous, twitchy compulsive behaviors. And I don’t find those tasks as easy as they may sound. But my path is more clear to me since my accident than ever before. I’m more active and social, interacting and connecting, producing more. Leaning towards the light, making progress.

I’m confident I can get over these next hurdles, and hope it will be sooner than later. And I’m pretty sure a year from now my next Alive Day, I won’t feel the need to draw that darned tree again.

Emily’s Alphabeast this week is a sculpey Mermaid, done on her 12th birthday!

Don’t forget to visit her eMinis etsy shop for turtles, doughnut earrings, aliens and Jake the Dog.

Alphabeasts is a 26-week project, a blog where artists of all types and stripes contribute a mythical beastie any old way that suits them, as long as it’s a new drawing or sketch of a creature whose name begins with the letter for that week. Check out a cornucopia of crazy creatures by an amazing array of artists at the Alphabeasts archive, and be sure to check in every Monday.

My daughter, Emily decided to contribute this week to the Alphabeasts project with one of her eMinis sculptures. “L” is the letter this week, so she chose Ljósálfar, a Sun Spirit from Norse mythology.

If you like the looks of this, check out her eMinis etsy shop!

Alphabeasts is a 26-week project, a blog where artists of all types and stripes contribute a mythical beastie any old way that suits them, as long as it’s a new drawing or sketch of a creature whose name begins with the letter for that week. Check out a cornucopia of crazy creatures by an amazing array of artists at the Alphabeasts archive, and be sure to check in every Monday.

My daughter, Laura agreed to pose for me today, so I could try my hand at pastels again for the first time in years. I mark it as a failure: I used pastels too large on paper too small; her nose is too large here, face not wide enough. The drawing doesn’t do her justice, either – she’s prettier than this. Not horrible for a half hour, I guess. I see more coming in the near future….

Happy Halloween from Blue Moon Studios! Check out our Halloween-related posts from the last four years…

I spent Saturday drawing with kids in the Children’s Pavilion at the Twin Cities Book Festival. Tried to teach ‘em a thing or two about cartooning, creating characters and stories. I learned from them, too. Always do.

All kids draw. Some don’t stop.

At the Festival, some kids drew known characters, some created their own. Some scribbled abstract shapes and textures. Some were off on their own, others wanted some pointers. Others called out ideas and suddenly I was taking requests. It was fun! I drew some cartoons versions of some kids who stayed by the table a while, gave ‘em a little memento.

It’s funny, at an early age, kids draw free ‘n’ easy. The sky’s the limit. There are no rules. In all my drawing sessions with kids, I try to encourage that. Sure, I offer tips, tricks, guidance and insight, but It seems a mistake to shackle young kids with too many boundaries and guidelines. There will be a time for that soon enough. At some point, if a kid keeps drawing, they’re gonna put in a lot of hours, learn the rules before they can break them again.

Lots more pix of the day and event viewable for anyone at my Facebook page.

On Saturday, October 15, I’ll be appearing as a featured author at Rain Taxi’s 11th annual Twin Cities Book Festival, a FREE event open to the public. Thousands of book lovers attend each year to meet their favorite local and international authors, for readings, panels, talks, and to snatch up a bunch of books, of course!

I’ll kick off the kid’s book events at the Children’s Pavilion with a reading of my Night of the Bedbugs at 10:30 AM, followed by an all-day drawing/cartooning workshop from 11AM-4PM. I’ll be on hand to show young artists how to draw features and expressions, create their own characters and start making their own book. Paper and drawing implements will be supplied; you just need to bring your curiosity and imagination. Drop by anytime!

Copies of Night of the Bedbugs will be available for purchase from The Red Balloon. I’ll be happy to sign and do a sketch in your copy. See you there!