I have been drawing and illustrating for most of my life. Sometimes, for fun, I redesign older pieces and frame them—just to hang around the house so my infrequent visitors may admire them. Click on the images to see a larger version with captions.
CARICATUREI began working on a series of caricatures of literary/artistic figures when I was an English major in college (a very long time ago). My style has evolved so much since then that I've redone most of them and added a bunch more. These caricatures (or what I've dubbed "cari-collages") are created using Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter with photographs or other historical images as references. I work with a Wacom tablet and stylus to achieve the painterly effects.
On the right are two sample images. The first is John Donne, which I did over 20 years ago in an entirely different style (see the latest version below). Next is an enlarged portion my Lincoln caricature that will give you some idea of the detail involved in my latest approach to caricature. The images below are arranged alphabetically by last name. Click to enlarge. |
CREATIVES: Writers, Musicians, Actors, Artists
A recent category for children and young adult book authors.
Since I teach media ethics, creating images of renowned thinkers is an obvious choice.
One of my favorite subjects, Media History...
Odds & Ends
Bookmarks
So, I took some of the above images and made bookmarks. I'm not sure what to do with all of them since most of the people I know don't actually read books anymore. By the way, "Ex Libris" is Latin and means, roughly, "from my library." Click on image for a detailed, high resolution look.
DOODLES
Recently, I've also been doodling on my iPad Pro (mostly during meetings and while "watching" TV in the evenings). I use a great program called Procreate and an Apple Pencil, then frequently finish them off in Photoshop. The compilation below is what I've done to date. Click on image to open a larger version.
DUCKS (HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OUT OF A MASCOT)
Although I thought I was done with ducks after drawing them for practically everyone on campus for 10 years... not so. A couple of years ago, I created "Unkle Duck" to use as an intro to my classroom slide shows. Most of these are for various lectures in Media History. I've probably gotten a bit carried away.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Here are some illustrations from my children's books.
COVERS
I also design covers for all my electronic toys (and, yes, I have too many). You can have your own designs made into high-end graphics at Gelaskins.com.
JAPANESE PRINTS
Some years ago, I worked on a project I called "Fractured Haiku." I produced collages using images from traditional Japanese woodblock prints, adding my own haiku. Here are some of the results.
SAMURAI DUCK
Way back when I was intensely interested in all things traditionally Japanese (which I still am), I decided to meld my ongoing production of ducks with my love of feudal Japan. I began to think about a comic based on the supposed life of a duck who had become a samurai. Silly, but interesting for a while, at least. I may come back to it at some point. Following are some of the images I produced while working on a plot. With me, it's usually image first, story later.
EDITORIAL CARTOONING
For a number of years, I was an editorial cartoonist for newspapers in Alaska, Delaware, and Oregon. It’s a job I always liked, but couldn’t support myself doing. Most of these are from the 80s, but I'm still living off my past glory.
More recently, I started doodling cartoons on my ipad pro during faculty meetings, mostly just whatever came into my mind at the time. Some of them were based on a bunch of cartoons my brother, the artist, sketched years ago and which I've been using in various forms for various reasons ever since (with his permission, of course). I decided to try to mimic his style and see what I could come up with. Some of these, which I've titled "Deducktables" are morphed versions of his work twisted to my needs. But, most of them are new creations. They all, slightly to greatly, verge on editorial comment. I'm still working on them, so expect more here in the future.
ai-assisted cartooning
Like a lot of illustrators today, I have experimented with artificial intelligence -- primarily to generate ideas or get a second take on something I'm working on and need some fresh approaches. Although I rarely use a completed AI-generated image, my creative range is greaty broadened by seeing the variety I get from various prompts. My go-to application is Midjourney (although there are a number of excellent choices out there). Here's how I work with it:
I use it to generate usually 12 or more images using various prompts. Then I take pieces from several images and put them together into a sort of collage in Photoshop, trimming, adjusting lighting and shadows, applying various filters, and matching the parts until it looks like a unified image.
I use it to generate usually 12 or more images using various prompts. Then I take pieces from several images and put them together into a sort of collage in Photoshop, trimming, adjusting lighting and shadows, applying various filters, and matching the parts until it looks like a unified image.
I often use previously created backgrounds because I generally prompt for no backgrounds in Midjourney to keep the primary cartoon image clean for Photoshop, and combine the two images in the final process. This approach has been used in traditional animation for nearly 100 years. For detail work, I use a Wacom graphics tablet with a stylus that can mimic any art tool from pencils to paint brush. The creative process can take anywhere from one or two hours to several days. I usually finish it off by combining the primary image and background in either Apple Pages, or Keynote if I want to add animation. When I produce these images, I sign with the initials tb/mj to indicate that it is mutually created.
examples -- click on any image for details
ANIMATION
I've always wanted to put the words I combine with the images into the actual mouths of the people I draw. Recently I found a new software, Crazy Talk 8-Pro, which does exactly that. It also works well with the right photos. I'm still experimenting, and still picking up on the nuances, but here are a few examples. The Mark Twain aphorisms are used in my slide show lectures in Media Ethics. The rest are just practice. Most of male voices are mine (especially Mark Twain's). The female voices I generate with various AI voice generators. Here are a few of the 60+ I've done so far. Click on the image to watch the movie.