Workplace Cartoons, Part 8

 

My latest Substack is up for you to see. As you can tell by the title, it is continuing my workplace sketches  and cartoons. This time from my stint as a mattress maker. The boxbuilder years. Click here to be amazed. 

Go Figure! Sketch Night August 2025

 This past Saturday evening was the Go Figure! sketch night at the Grosse Pointe Farms Congregational church in Grosse Pointe Farms. Our model this time was Loki Gregory dressed as a fair renaissance maiden and she did a great job. Here are some of the sketches that I did during the evening.

Above are a couple of blind contour sketches

I tried to experiment a little, using colored pencils, ink, ballpoint pen and pencil (not shown). It was a fun night drawing at the church. And we didn't burst into flames. 

Keith Richards?

 Well, almost...

16x20

acrylic on illustration board

mixed with flood water

This morning, I was out in the garage doing some loose scribbling in charcoal on the easel. I have a small stack of paintings sitting nearby that were damaged during a basement flooding some years ago. It's denial, like they will somehow magically not be water damaged. I look at them from time to time and cringe. Some were ok, some just started, like this one of Keith Richards. I think something finally relented in me, because I'm now starting to think about restarting this one. I've resisted, angry that I should even have to start over again, dammit! I had even given in to scrapping this all together, but now...

Maybe this is why I relegated these pieces to the garage only to be seen every once in a while. The chance that I will see some kind of promise, like I once did and start again. Maybe.

I think that I had a decent enough idea with this one. I planned on having all of these abstract looking smoke whirls filling up the entirety of the background, all coming from a cigarette attached to the end of his guitar. The smoke would be thick and all encompassing, suffocating, but somehow pickling the man, keeping him alive. The music, as well, yeah, yeah...

Yeh, I think that I may begin again with this one.

Mindblowing Exhibit

My Heike Diver drawing will be included in the Mindblowing exhibit at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial starting tomorrow. I am one of 58 artists exhibiting their surreal works. I was able to see some of them when I dropped of my piece on Monday and there are some very cool and evocative works to be on display. There will be a lecture about the show with the Canadian artist Adam Strange who was the juror for the show. That will start at 6:30 on Thursday August 7th. Awards and such will also be presented at this time. Below, is my piece all framed up and ready to go.

 And below, is the drawing as I scanned it.

The Grosse Pointe War Memorial is located at The War Memorial campus, 32 Lake Shore Dr.Grosse Pointe FarmsMI48236. Stop on by to see the show. It will run through the beginning of October.

Ripley

10x10

colored pencil on tinted paper

For a while now I have been tinkering with the idea of doing pet portraits. but I needed to find a way to make them unique to my way doing things. I wanted something to add than just a somewhat stylized version of someone's pet. One of my friends has a cool little dog named Ripley, named after Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien. This was a no brainer. But, I do fear that I may have started way high and everything that comes after will be somewhat of a let down. I mean, c'mon, Alien! What are the chances that someone will name their dog Deckard or some such thing. They are out there, I know...

So, spread the word.

 

Parasaurolophus Linocut Process

 

My latest Substack is up and I show the process of the Parasaurolophus linocut prints that I made yesterday. So, check it out, if you are so inclined. Click here.

Parasaurolophus Print

 

5x6.5

print on bristol board

For those of you who might have been paying attention, I did a sketch of said Parasauropholus, the very best of all the hadrosaurs, sometime back. January, to be precise. All with the intention of doing a linocut, then the print. Which is what you see above. 

I had meant to do a Substack about the process and have that ready last month. As you can see, that didn't happen. But, it will. Tomorrow, in fact, I will do a post and show the process and more of the prints. When I was printing yesterday, I decided on red ink (kind of looks orange, but I didn't mind), but I poured some out over some dried black ink thinking that it's dry, it won't reactivate. Did I mention that I'm kind of sort of new to all this? So, as I was going along, the two colors mixed and I was getting some cool looking images. Now, I don't know the exact rules as far as numbering goes when the color changed a bit during the process, but I'm going with 1-12, with the one you see above the 1st of the 12. I'll need to check with my Jedi linocut master, John Benson to get the correct way of doing things. 

So, tomorrow. The process. 

And, I would like to re-mention that the above design was inspired by the logo done for the band Beat by Dan Ermy. He did a very cool looking elephant head that they use for their backdrop,