more cover paintings

comic covers!

So, in what extra time I have, I've been painting comic cover for The Shadow for Dynamite and House of Gold and Bones, for Dark Horse. They are starting to appear on the stands now, so here's some of the art.

and some more

Some more black and white comics art

some black and white comic art

you'll find your new door, down the hall and to the left

   
     First off, I have no intention of making this a "this injury has become a blessing in disguise" post. I was doing just find before this. But, much like the lack of posts over the last few days, there's only so much bitching I'll allow myself to do. So, yes I'm frustrated and get depressed a bit, but it was time to buck up and use this, somehow. Lemonade out of lemons and all of that. Mostly it was going to allow myself to be curious.

When I was a kid I couldn't kick a football right (no pun intended). My father told me to try with my left foot. So I did and was quite successful ("quite" might be exaggerating. I was never a sports guy. I was more competent than "quite successful"). I also felt I had more control and strength in my left arm than I should have had, but my family is all right handed so I learned to write with my right. All of this meaning, I believe there was a possibility I was supposed to be left handed. This surgery allowed me to see if I could wake up that possibility and maybe it has.

Someone asked me if this was like learning to draw all over again. That's too broad, I think. Learning to draw means you lack the experience and knowledge and are slowly acquiring them. This is more like learning to use a new tool. I remember the first time I held a quill in my hand. It didn't make sense but over time it became an extension of myself. That's what this is like, my mind knows what to do, but the tool is so awkward that the execution of drawing/painting is more challenging. Like thinking you want to start drawing with your shoe. I'm sure it can be done, but at first, you don;t know how to hold it, the movements seem uncontrollable, it's unstable, nothing will be comfortable about it.

What I've learned is that I really like the pencil stage of the drawings with my left (the first drawings of my father and the apes were not penciled at first. They were straight to ink drawings). There is an awkwardness and movement and exaggeration in the left handed drawing that I could not seem to let go and get to with my dominant hand. And that had excited me immensely. Much like continuing to learn Italian after getting back from Italy, I have every intention of using my left hand, long after the recovery is complete.

This experience has allowed me to access more of myself in my work.

I will continue to lay out my drawings with my left and stay true to them in the finishes with my right. The idea that not only will I use both hands in my work from now on, but I'm more excited because both hands offer different advantages. Tightly technical execution, and more fluid, moving forms.

A new option in my work has presented itself and I'll use it as the next chapter.

I'm excited to get this damn sling off my arm. But I'm more excited that I feel like this has allowed me to feel even more in control of my world. I'm less dependent on outside validation. Not checking myself or looking for answers through the hundreds of artists I know or that reside in my sizable library.

In 2 and a half weeks, when I get out of this sling, I'll come out with my own voice, screaming. This has been years coming and finally I believe I have the tools to not pull back anymore.

Fuck.

This was a blessing in disguise.

music from the left

war from the left

discovering new things.

This, on the other hand was done late in the insomnia hours. no sleep available. As watched the extended cut of Apocalypse Now with a glass of Ardbeg, this came to be.

Cheers.

another day this side of left

another left handed.

whats left

back to people drawing.

nights can get rough. It's quiet. Not a ton of mobility. I waited to post this until I could read it in the light of the next day. It's bitter and annoyed. But it's honest. Nights can suck and not being allowed to fully get into work puts me in a dark place sometimes. I feel great today. I have a meeting about a comics project and and working on a few new drawings for a possible painting. But for full disclosure, this was the post written around 1:00 am last night:


im bored out of my skull.

drawing left handed takes so much focus and concentration. Its exhausting. I feel like 2013 started and Im on the side lines "experimenting and healing and learning". Yeah, that's nice, but Ive another 4 weeks of this shit.

I start a drawing in the morning. read a little bit. do my therapeutic exercises, then back in the sling. My friend Kent came to see me today. Went to lunch. it was nice. Haven't had a lot of artist friends visit. As artists, we tend to keep our heads up our own asses quite a bit. Hell, I do. But it was refreshing to catch up and talk.

Then I came back home.

I'm either tired or in pain.

By 10pm I just want the day to be over. I have a script to my own graphic novel ready to be thumbnailed. but  for me, thumbnailing a comic is another major part to writing it. and that means it requires a certain level of involvement and momentum. Things I cannot do left handed.

I can't write. I'm tired of hearing my own damn voice when I record it for texts and blogs.

My wife takes great care of me, but theres an entire new year beginning and I'm not able to jump in.

I'm the guy on the couch, under the blanket, with the ice pack machine on his shoulder. healing.

Im sure I'm just in a mood.

Good days and bad.

Happy left year

Another ape! 11x17. Starting to try and use a little paint as well. Back to humans or something, tomorrow. The pain amped up over the last few days. It's been hard to focus on anything. But it seems to be easing up now.

Happy New Year!

More left handedness coming tomorrow.
Thanks to everyone for really incredible support over this last year.

This year will bring in a new sketchbook, Children's book, comics project, and new body of personal paintings/ drawings. I'm really excited.

Taking a quick break from the left handed world, here's a painting I finished at the end of last year before my surgery. 67x67 in.

Thanks everybody. Have an amazing new year!!!!!

from the left side of the tracks

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!

Here's another left handed ape!

....and an ape doodle.

apes to the left of me

Started a new series of drawings from shots my friend and I took from a visit to the LA zoo of apes and Gorillas. Something about them makes me more comfortable working out the left hand. Starting to do limited exercises with my right arm. It was shocking to see how stiff and weak it is right now. And still hurts 70% of the day. I tend to have less patience with people and have shorter interactions because of the constant irritation.

Starting to read more, again, and that helps.

Introducing Rudy Ray Moore movies to my wife, at night, has become a great way to end the days.

Put your weight on it.

Oh! also.
She took me out to lunch after getting my stitches out. My wife that is. She pulled out her journal and said, "draw me something!" Since I started drawing apes, thats what I did. I did a few silly ones. I'll include those over the next few posts, as well.

cheers.

lefty McGee

Once I came home from surgery I had 48 hours without a shower. Then I could take a large bandage off and wrap my shoulder in plastic and shower without getting my shoulder wet.....My wife is a saint. Two days ago, I got my stitches out. Now I can shoulder without getting wrapped in plastic. I got to go out of the house for lunch for the first time in over a week. the air was nice, though the car movement made my arm ache.

I'm now taking percaset (sp?) for the pain. It hurts less constantly now. Last night our little shit head dog, Matilda, jumped up and barked at nothing outside. But she did so, right beside me as I was laid up on the couch with my ice pack machine on my shoulder. the suddenness and loudness of it scared me and made my body jerk. I've never encountered so much pain, so fast and so thoroughly. My entire body arched with searing pain and I could only see red and white. Apparently I cured the dog quite a bit but all I could think to do was get out of the situation. Out from the eyes of my wife. I got up and hustled into the bedroom, alone. Hustle. Not run. Running isn't available to me right now. Hardly anything is, it seems. I write 95% of these blogs on my dictation app on my phone and then email them to myself so I can paste them here.

I lay there on the bed saying "please don't let this fuck up my arm" over and over and over and over, with my teeth clinched and tears forced down. After around 5-10 minutes (or an hour in my time) the pain subsided and I could rejoin my wife in the den. Two pills later, I sat with a hot tea and ice pack and we watched the Avengers together.

Throughout the day I worked a little here and there on, again, larger paper. this time, the 11x17 water color pad by Moleskine. More room. More I can move my arm instead of just my left hand. So, over the course of the day, coming back and forth, I worked up this portrait of my father.

I'm working on a few more pieces this size now.

I miss the consistency and reliability of my right hand so much. But the left does one thing, it takes the availability of "style" away. No way can I stop and think of "how do I want to portray this?" It's now "just get it down". This experience is already teaching me things.

I still hate Matilda.

aaaand one step back.

from the left

so.... a day or two in and i just start scratching at the paper. rough silly angry doodles. Then I try to pull it back together with another brush pen drawing. Two steps forward.

Left arm of the law

These next drawings were done later the same day realizing that I needed to start working on slightly larger sketchbook. This one being roughly 8 x 11 because I didn't have another hand to hold on to the sketchbook to stabilize it so I started working a little larger. These were done with a ball point pen and then later, the larger drawings, using my brush pen and white out pen. The experiment with the brush pen I thought was a fairly successful first attempt with the left hand realizing, right off the bat, that it would be a little easier to basically paint with my left hand as opposed to draw. Painting, for me, has always been much easier than drawing but as you'll see in the later posts it all starts coming along.

Forced Leftist Agenda

These first two drawings were done with a pilot parallel pan with my left hand on the midsize small watercolor moleskin sketchbook these were purely just to start testing the motor skills of my left hand..... I have little. the feeling is so awkward. It's as if I suffer from a nerve disorder. It's sometimes almost numb and sometimes makes jerking motions I didn't intend. It's like being forced to speak only in a foreign language.