Ebenezer

This was done at coffee this morning with the word "cracked" in mind. i think the other people around me thought i was cracked with all my big arm movements and jerking and twitching (a lot of coffee helped with this one i think =) )

Hope all is well with you
peace, g

Sketch Snafu

MY liitle pony

disaster siblings: Hong Over and Hang Over

Illustration done with colored pencils and ink.

Speed

©Kathleen Rietz
A dancer needs to gather speed to achieve a grande jette!
http://licoricegirl.blogspot.com

Harvest

Harvest, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. I suppose this is the quintessential cliche of autumn, but I couldn't resist. In Mike Kline's Big Book. Polychromos pencils and graphite pencil.

{And let me tell you, the scan is terrible! I the barn is red, the sky is blue. (all those nice clicheed colors!) Oh well.}

I am leaving Thursday for 4-days at a poetry conference/retreat/workshop in Harbor Springs, MI.

Sugary (Cotton Candy)

Sugary (Cotton Candy), by Mary Stebbins Taitt, for Illustration
Friday's Sugary Challenge. In Sketchboook, from sketchbook exchange,
pen and ink.

Recent Sketchy-ness

Candace Illustration

Kate's Sketchbook Class

©Kathleen Rietz
A page of demos I did for the sketchbook class I am teaching at Wheaton. I took the students outside this evening and had them collect items from nature to "sketch" in watercolor.

HALF BEAST

click to enlarge

BEAST SCALE: 1 beast, ¾ beast, ½ beast (though ears don’t count, the kid’s got attitude…and that counts too!)

william frawley

I always hated Lucille Ball. I hated "The Lucy Show". I hated "Here's Lucy". And I especially hated "I Love Lucy".
Except for William Frawley.
I have always been fascinated by William Frawley. Well, maybe not fascinated, but intrigued. Look at him. How did this guy become an actor? And not only was he an actor, by 1951, he had starred in over one hundred movies. He was one of Hollywood's biggest and most sought-after character actors.
He started in vaudeville, doing musical comedy and was featured in his first film in 1916. His film career continued through four more decades. But, his reputation as a difficult, belligerent alcoholic made him almost unemployable by the early 1950s.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were about to begin shooting a sitcom, a fictional account of Desi's everyday life as a band leader. The show, "I Love Lucy", was still in the casting stage when Frawley heard about it and envisioned it as his opportunity to get steady work. Lucille Ball wanted her friend Gale Gordon to play the part of cranky, penny-pinching landlord Fred Mertz. Due to prior commitments, Gordon was unavailable. Frawley auditioned. Lucy knew Frawley from her days as a film actress in the 1940s. Frawley called Lucy regularly, asking about his chances for the Fred Mertz role. Desi thought having Frawley, a Hollywood veteran, on the show was a good idea. However, Desi (and the CBS network) was well aware of Frawley's reputation as a louse (he was fired from the set of "She's My Baby" for punching Clifton Webb in the nose) and a drunk. Arnaz immediately leveled with Frawley about the network's concerns, telling him that if he was late to work, showed up drunk, or was unable to perform except because of legitimate illness more than once, he'd be written out of the show. Contrary to expectations, Frawley never showed up drunk to work, and, in fact, mastered his lines after only one reading. Arnaz became one of his closest friends. Frawley, a huge New York Yankees fan, had it written into his contract if the Yankees made it to the World Series, he didn't work during the games.
Frawley and his co-star Vivian Vance hated each other almost instantly. Vance (the second choice for Ethel Mertz after Bea Benaderet) was 22 years younger than Frawley and complained that he should be playing her father, not her husband. Frawley said, of Vance, "She's one of the best things to come out of Kansas. I wish she'd go back". Despite their contempt for each other, they played a married couple for 175 episodes for nearly seven years. When the run of "I Love Lucy" ended, CBS offered Frawley and Vance a spin-off called "Fred and Ethel". Even though he openly hated Vivian Vance, Frawley was anxious to work and agreed to the series. Vance said no, vowing to never work with Frawley again.
Frawley landed steady TV work again, playing grandfather Bub O'Casey on "My Three Sons", but poor health forced him to leave the show. His last TV appearance was as a maintenance man on an episode of "The Lucy Show" in 1965.
In March 1966, a sick and frail 76 year-old William Frawley was walking down Hollywood Boulevard after seeing a movie. He collapsed right on the sidewalk, was dragged into the lobby of the Knickerbocker Hotel, was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. While dining in a Hollywood restaurant, Vivian Vance, upon hearing of Frawley's death, announced "Champagne for everyone!"

I'll paraphrase Edward Norton...
"Who would I fight? Frawley. I'd fight William Frawley."

The Tortoise and the Hare

Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who is faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he'd stop to have a cigarette and relax before continuing the race.

He stood next to a big, impressionistically-drawn rock and fired one up. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The hare finished his cigarette, was diagnosed with emphysema, lived out his remaining days in an iron lung and died. Oh, and he lost the race.

The moral is stated at the end of the fable as: "Smoking will kill you".
Or something like that.

camouflage

I love Stan Ridgway! He is one of the most talented and underrated singer-songwriters in modern music. One-time leader of L.A. new-wave band Wall of Voodoo, Stan’s solo career has spanned twenty years and still continues. In 1986, he released his first solo album, The Big Heat. This album featured the song “Camouflage“, a story of a soldier stuck, alone, in a Vietnamese jungle. When the situation looks hopeless, a mysterious marine enters the scene and the fights off Charlie with ease. The story is a re-telling of the urban legend, “The Vanishing Hitchiker“. “Camouflage” went to the top 5 on the British charts, but went relatively unnoticed here in the US. Stan continues to release great albums as a solo artist and with his side project, Drywall. His music is worth seeking out.

"Suits"

I did this for another illustration blog, but I liked how it came out, so I'm posting it here too.

I have been working as a professional artist, in one capacity or another, for almost 25 years. In that time, at every job I have ever had, there are guys in suits. They are very far removed from the end result of what the business produces. Yet, as far as they are from the day-to-day work process, they always have the perfect solution for making things work better. Mostly, their suggestions (or demands) are so insignificant, that it seems they are merely justifing their presence. It is the employees doing the actual work that keep a business running. It is the job of the "suits" to screw things up.

This is dedicated to the people who actually work. You know who you are. Um.... no.... not you.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

from my sketchbook - television

I did this for a challenge from another illustration blog.

Who hasn't heard these words in their lifetime...
"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale/A tale of a fateful trip..." ?

Sure, everyone claims they "hate it", they think it's "stupid"... but everyone has seen at least one episode. Everyone instantly recognizes the theme song. Every guy has had the Ginger/Mary Ann debate. Everyone has questioned why did the Howell's bring every dollar of their wealth and a friggin' chest of clothes on a three-hour tour, but Gilligan just brought that one red shirt. Everyone has wondered how the professor can make a washing machine out of bamboo and coconuts, but he can't fix a two-foot hole in an otherwise unharmed boat.Screw Lost, Gilligan's Island is why we love televison.

Comments?

from my sketchbook: another warrior

I found another drawing that could possibly fit the weekly challenge "warrior".

This is from my sketchbook from last year. It's Bill "The Butcher" Poole, the actual guy that Daniel Day-Lewis' character was based on in "Gangs of New York", a movie I never saw. I did however do the layout for a textbook about the history of New York and the story of Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed and the early politics of New York stuck with me.

Bill Poole was a bare-knuckle boxer, a member of the Bowery Boys gang in New York, and the leader of the Know-Nothings political party. Poole's archenemy, John Morrissey, was an Irish immigrant and enforcer for Tammany Hall. Morrissey was also a popular boxer and challenged Poole to a match. Though the two men were of differing ethnic backgrounds and political parties, the initial grounds for their dispute may have arisen from an earlier bet by Poole on a boxing match. Poole placed his bet on Morrissey's opponent, "Yankee Sullivan". The fight took place at Four Corners on October 12th, 1853. Results of the boxing match were disputed, and Poole was against Morrissey being paid. Poole and Morrissey squared off in the ring to settle their dispute on July 26, 1854, at Amos Dock, New York.
According to historian Mark Caldwell, during the fight Poole "bit and gouged, but won only when his friends joined the fight and kicked Morrissey unconscious."
Morrissey plotted revenge and on February 25, 1855, Lew Baker, a friend of Morrisey, shot Poole at a bar on Broadway.

History class is over.

warrior

Here's how I arrived at this:

I searched warrior at wikipedia, and I came up with a general description of war and battles and the people who love them. Then I came to a section about women warriors, specifically a character named Vishpala.

Vishpala was a woman in the Rigveda, a collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns dedicated to Rigvedic deities. It is counted among the four Hindu sacred texts known as the Vedas.

Vishpala is helped in battle by the Ashvins (the doctors of gods). As she lost her leg in Khela's battle and they gave her a "leg of iron" so that she could keep fighting. Cool!

This immediatelty brought to mind Rose McGowan's character in the "Planet Terror" segment of "Grindhouse".

Many, many years ago, when I was in art school, I was taught to always look for reference material (or 'scrap') before doing an illustration. I searched Yahoo and Google for Female Warriors. This resulted in page after page of scantily-clad Frazetta amazons wielding giant broadswords and pictures of Xena. I thought, "If these women are headed for battle, wouldn't they be covered in armor?"

So, no femme fatale military bimbos for me. My Vishpala is using her new, god-given iron leg to kick some enemy ass!

Let me know what you think.