Big Boy

Christmas is just around the corner, and yet, amidst the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I've found the time to conceptualize and pen a brand new comic (available under the cut) starring one of my classic muses. We'll call him Charles Blarney. Don't let all the text and background story chase you away -- If the comic is all you want, by all means click on that link, scroll down, and it will be there for you!

In my senior year of high school, I was voted "Shyest", for purposes of a senior superlative yearbook photo shoot. Were I not quite so shy, I might have also won the titles of "Most Artistic" and/or "Funniest," having received a decent chunk of votes in both categories. But the blonde young Philadelphian who won "Funniest Male" was -- aside from our varying degrees of sociability -- the male version of myself, "Charles". He and I were so much alike, it's like I could read his mind. We both liked orange juice with pulp, cheese-less burgers, memorizing secret scripts ahead of time for use in (thanks to us) surreal classroom discussions, poking fun at our schoolmates through creative writing, not making eye contact...the similarities were uncanny.

"Charles" and I became good friends in the 8th grade -- before becoming his friend, I earned his positive attention when I started featuring him and his pals Aigy and Mat in a short-lived underground comic series: "The Devil's Triangle". He and his friends used to make fun of me in class, and I sort of returned the favor by bashing them in cartoon form. Mat and "Charles" thought these comics were hilarious -- "Charles" enjoyed them so much that he stole the first issue and held it ransom until I created more. To this day, he owns the full set of original "Devil's Triangle" comics, as well as the concurrent, more superhero-based sister series, "Satan's trio".

Actually, issue #2 of "The Devil's Triangle" is missing, since Aigy ripped it up.

Well, "Charles" and I are in two different places now, but we didn't grow apart, really... in fact, he still feels close enough to me to reveal plenty about his personal life -- enough for me to realize that he's a grown-up now, and, like most young men, engages in the popular mating ritual known as picking up chicks at the bar -- and I don't mean religious tracts!

Being the hopeless romantic in the parade of weirdos who comprise my closest friends, I've never hooked up with someone I just met at a bar, an apple orchard, church, the library, or anywhere else. Not even through a sheet of saran wrap. But I'm glad "Charles" is there for me to live vicariously through -- he's as fascinating now as he was at age 13. And it's been quite a while since I've featured him in his own comic story, so let's see what he's up to now, shall we?






That charming story is, in typical "Devil's Triangle" fashion, true yet exaggerated.

Human Nature

With the exception of my Photoshop entry and my lovely profile pic, I've never featured any colorful artwork in this blog. I don't use color very often, but fall's flora is so pretty this year in Syracuse that I made an exception.



I hadn't used watercolors since, at the latest, junior high school, but I guess I'm getting soft in my old age, so off I went to the SU bookstore to purchase a $9.00 watercolor paint set (with a brush and 18 colors) and a Moleskine watercolor notebook -- don't use anything water-based on a regular Moleskine, as I learned the hard way.




Isn't it interesting how my painting style differs from my drawing style? When I use black ink or pencil, I have a spooky, for lack of a better word, "gothic" style. But when I paint, everything is very soft and quiet. My personality is similarly two-sided.

I painted these outside in Thorden park, and my feral shyness caused me to close my book whenever someone approached my area: I didn't want to draw attention to myself. Sadly, this had the effect of smearing the painting I was working on. For one painting, I was in such a high-traffic area that I couldn't handle it--after sketching the scene in pencil and making some notes about the colors, I went home to paint it. See if you can figure out which painting that was. It's a pretty easy call if you think about the clues.



I'm not a skilled painter, but I'll tell you how I got those complex, muted pastel gray tones. Some people like those colors, and ask me about them. I use that color palate with everything I paint, and it's impossible to find those tones in a tube or paint set. What I do is, I mix primary colors with their compliments:

Red + Green
Blue + Orange
Yellow + Violet/Purple

If I want something a little more "orangey," for example, I add less blue. Then, I take the mixed gray tone and dilute it with white paint. I rarely use a "pure" tone, meaning red or some other color right from the paint set or tube, unless I want something significant to really stand out. Also, I never use black...surprise.




Coming up on Bibliowhining:
An old friend of mine may have outgrown his "Almost Invisible Boy" alter ego, but if Madonna, The Backstreet Boys, the New Kids, and Michael Jackson can return from the 90's with brand spankin' new hits, than so can he. One of my classic, post-grunge-era muses returns in an all-new, true yet exaggerated storyline. Look for it soon, probably in the entry after next.

Gone Too Soon

All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
The lord God made them all.

Above images from Pound Cake, (c) 2006, Chrissy Spallone

Anyone who knows me personally knows how much I loved my little miniature schnauzer, Peppy. Last May, I was right beside him when he passed away after a year-long fight with mast-cell cancer. He would have been 15 years old today, and sometimes I still can't believe he's gone. In college, and last year in graduate school, I always thought, "No matter how tough this semester is, I know I'll feel better when I go home and see my little dog again."

And he was always happy to see me, too. With the exception of our last visit, he always shook with excitement whenever I came home, whether I had been away for three months or just returned from fetching the mail. He had the best life and was the most beloved pet of any dog I've known.

The New Jersey Pine Barrens is made up of millions of acres of forest, part of which is literally in my backyard, so Peppy enjoyed regular off-leash walks through the trails to the nearby lakes. He's crossed the lake on logs, and later was trained to just walk through the water, with wild blueberries on the other side as his reward. He's come face-to-face with skunks, beavers, ducklings, and dirtbikes, barking at most of them but jumping in fright at the toads that would pop out of nowhere in early summer. There were always amusing adventures to be had in this special part of New Jersey that nobody outside of a 40-mile radius has ever heard of.

Peppy and my dad in the woods I described earlier

Indoors, I would brush Peppy's fur every day, check him for ticks (those ticks are nasty, and gave me Lyme Disease as a child), brush his teeth, and fix his dinner, which would consist of dog food mixed with chopped up broccoli or tomatoes or brussels sprouts. He was always very relaxed with me, and would rest in my lap for hours sometimes, belly up. He didn't let anyone else hold him like that until he was very old.

Excerpt from "American Idling," 2008

In addition to featuring him in my artwork, I've written songs about Peppy, and my brother Steven wrote a poem about him entitled "Oh Peppy, My Peppy," though he was actually my dog, not Steven's.

Sometimes it seemed like Peppy was my only friend. I never had to worry about him finding a girlfriend and not being able to hang out with me anymore, or saying the wrong thing around him, or embarrassing him in front of his friends, or what he thought of my physical appearance. Dogs don't judge like that, they only care whether or not someone is nice.




We'll miss you, Peppy.

Who Is It?

If you were planning to enroll in the fine arts program at a small liberal arts college, save your money, bookmark this page, and buy yourself a new Mercedes Benz instead! In this entry, I'll put on my teacher hat again and show you how to draw (theoretically) like Michelangelo. It's true! In my mission to draw the finest quality comics, I've studied the techniques of master draftsmen and developed technical skills which, in turn, have been invaluable to my cartooning process. Earlier readers may recall that I observe people and capture gestures of them in action. But since people move around a lot, such drawings must be done at rapid pace.

This time, I have a model: a geeky-looking iSchool student who promised to keep still for a few hours if I promised to do her homework for the rest of the semester. So now I can get into some real sensitive detail and pass my knowledge onto you!

Don't worry--I won't give you a shopping list with $300 worth of unnecessary art supplies you will never use. We can keep it real here at Bibliowhining with pencils, paper, a pencil sharpener, and an eraser ONLY. If you want to get fancy, I recommend those nice woodless pencils (below) in varying degrees of hardness.

You know #2 pencils? They have a hard, light-colored "lead". A higher number means a softer, darker lead that is easier to blend and smooth around with your finger, so you can get some really nice tones and depth when drawing black hair, for example. The softer the lead, the more difficult or impossible it will be to erase it. I also recommend a soft, kneaded eraser, since it can be molded into various shapes depending on what you need to erase, and also doesn't tear up paper as much as traditional "Pink Pearl" type erasers. An X-acto knife, or just a razor blade if you're responsible, is a great pencil sharpener, as it allows for really sharp points. The tools I just mentioned run for about a dollar each, I just checked it out at the S.U. bookstore. For my drawing, I used pencils of the following level of hardness: 8B, 6B, 4B, and HB (#2). But whatever varieties of pencils and erasers you use, it's all about the patience and sensitivity you put into your work.

What I do first with these fancy-pants life drawings is lightly pencil over the entire surface of my paper with a hard-lead pencil. This makes the "drawing canvas" less intimidating than a white, blank sheet of paper...it's a psychological thing. Some art students would stop right there, call it a day, and make up some thesis about "aggression" or "chaos" or "process". And they would probably receive honors in their program for understanding the philosophical concepts of art-making. But we're old-schoolers, right, gang? "No pain, no gain" is my philosophy.

Now see what I am doing? Many people, when drawing faces, start with the most "important" features, such as eyes. But to get all the anatomy down correctly and make a nice composition as well, everything should get equal time, no matter how painful. Even those books and junk in the background. Trust me on this -- it's important to start with a few simple shapes, and just keep building the drawing equally all over. By the way, can you tell who this is just by the androgynous, 1940's fashion sense and severe black-and-white contrast? Why, it's our racially ambiguous friend Chrissy! We'll continue the drawing under the cut.

I made a mistake initially by drawing my collar too low. See how easy it is to correct since I didn't draw it elaborately at first? It's easy to correct things as you go along if you start out with simple shapes. You won't be broken-hearted like you would be if you focused on one specific part early on, "perfecting" it in fine detail. Also, have you noticed that I'm not outlining anything? In nature, there isn't a black outline drawn around everything. "Edges" are created by differences in shade between two adjacent objects. So when drawing something realistically, keep this in mind.

When drawing a mouth, people sometimes draw an outline around the lips. But the foundation of a good mouth is to draw the bird -- draw that area where the lips meet as though you were drawing a bird in the sky (above), then shade under the bottom lip. Does that make sense?

The eraser acts as a highlighter to create shiny spots. Think about the direction of light, too. If you're working with natural light, the shadows will keep changing around. So sometimes it's better to invent where the shadows would make sense to be. Don't create shadows and light shiny spots on the same plane, because that's unnatural. If you highlight something, highlight the entire plane. And same with creating shadow.

Build up, blend, and correct when necessary...just keep following these steps. Every so often, step back and take a look at your drawing from a distance...just to make sure everything's in its place, perspective and proportion-wise.

For really dark areas like the sweater and hair, use a soft lead like I said before. But use a light touch and keep going over the area over and over again with more layers. If you press down too hard when drawing, it will flatten the fibers of the paper and create a big, messy-looking shiny spot. The goal is to get a rich, matte darkness and a nice texture.

I've done this before, and as a result I know and am incredibly self-conscious about each and every one of my flaws! My slight cross-eye, how low my obnoxiously-shaped ears sit, the little horizontal line that forms between my top lip and nose when I smile...I can see my signs of aging, too. I recommend getting a model who isn't yourself.

One of my art teachers once told a raunchy little joke that I always thought was obnoxious:

Q:How do you know when you're finished [drawing]?

A:How do you know when you're done having sex?

Ugh. Well, I think I've engaged in enough self-abuse for the night. I don't want to overwork this thing to death like I usually do with what I draw. So, even though I know I'll look back on this drawing in a year or two and recoil in disgust at my horrid technique, this is it.

After awhile, dystophile.

Heal the World

We hear a lot about "going green" these days. I believe I've been doing my part for the last 6 years at least, just by virtue of my spartan lifestyle. I walk everywhere and never drive -- not just because I don't have a driver's license, but also because I don't want to carry a spare tire around...

I also try to stick to a vegan diet and never eat meat, meaning I don't contribute to the agricultural nightmare of factory farming at all. This choice has everything to do with my personal morals and nothing to do with the environment, but, hey, I kill two birds with one stone. Figuratively speaking.

Additionally, I live in this soviet-era throwback of a studio apartment, in which the electricity goes out every time I run the microwave and blow-dry my hair at the same time. Every time. Still, students who nagged me endlessly at my small, academically prestigious but socially limiting liberal arts college might have you believe that I'm not quite doing my share. Either that, or my sophisticated fashion sense and desire to secure a permanent job in the near future -- which prevent me from sporting giant buttons and badges proclaiming my lifestyle and political/moral views -- mark me as an unsavory yuppie in need of environmental sustainability training.

Well, as it turns out, I'm not so green when it comes to saving our Mother Earth. I have tons of ideas for arts and crafts that anyone can make simply by digging around in their garbage or under the bed. I've saved the best for last, and you can see them all under the cut.



1. Reuse Old Containers As Places To Put Stuff.

A penny saved is a lesson learned -- about environmental sustainability. As you can see, I have reused this empty applesauce jar as a holder for spare change. There isn't a lot of change in there, since I often need to use it. Also, I could have put this glass jar in the recycling bin and said "peace," feeling no guilt or sense of wastefulness. However, I used it as a place to store change instead. I used to drop change randomly on tables or wherever convenient, but I've since learned that some people have a little issue with this. So in case I ever have company, this change jar I invented will hopefully make my home marginally less gloomy.

Yes, any object with an open top, sides, and a bottom can be recycled into a place to put stuff. Try using an Altoids tin as a place to hold paperclips or less expensive mints. Use a nail and hammer to bang holes in the bottom of a can, fill it with soil, and plant a seed in it to make a little flower pot. Use an old bag-balm tin as a receptacle for loose-leaf almond black tea (above). How about serving up some ice-cold soy milk in an empty jam jar (below)? The possibilities are endless when you recycle containers as places to store things.

2. Reuse Bags as Bags, Places to Put Bags, etc.

Some days--like yesterday, when I went to the co-op to buy some inexpensive, cheaper-than-Price Slashers apples and tomatoes--I carry around a cute tote bag which can be reused for future grocery trips. But what about those days when, on the way home from work, I feel like picking up a few things from the Central Vitamin Station? I don't have a car, so unlike many others, I don't have 6 totes permanently stored there for any occasion. Also, though I am a juggler, multiple items can prove unwieldy for me to hold exposed in my bare hands/arms, or-- in the case of, for example, toilet paper--embarrassing.

So: should I carry around 6 empty tote bags wherever I go "just-in-case," and, in my busy, city CVS store, make a conspicuous dork of myself by telling the cashier, "Excuse me, I don't need a bag -- I brought my own."? I shouldn't and I don't. I accept the plastic bags that are given to me, and use them as -- trash bags!

It's true! Some things--used Kleenex, the paper towels I needed to use to absorb the orange-tinted water from my molding carpet after the washing machine next door overflowed and flooded into my apartment--need to be thrown in the trash. Guess who never wastes money on trash bags?

As for paper bags, take your pick of two uses:

Plastic bag cache, or...

Book cover. You're welcome for the elementary school memory. At university, the government doesn't issue your texts anymore (not in this country, at least), so what's the motivation for continuing to cover books like this? Well, in my case, the IST 605 text has a tacky, red-and-green design, and I don't feel so cool carrying it around. With the new book cover, I can be the toast of the town! And when my homemade, environmentally sustainable cover inevitably wears out, perhaps the original cover will be seasonally appropriate. It's a good thing.

3. What Can You Do With Old Shoes?

I have about ten million pairs of busted Converse Chuck Taylors in the above condition. They look so cool and simple and match everything, and because of this I never learn these shoes are the most raggedy, non-weather-resistant things you can buy. So, over the past ten years, I've simply purchased a new pair in the same style of said shoe every time the sides and/or soles inevitably gave out. So what could one possibly do with this broken-down footwear? Even the Salvation Army would throw this junk in the dumpster. I will wear a pair of shoes until they are completely dead, even on occasion using duct tape to patch up holes and broken seams. If there is a homeless man out there whose feet are as petite and dainty as my own, I doubt that even he would accept the used shoes I have to offer. Instead, I have a better plan.

Have a crime to commit? You'll be the bomb, or, rather, the Unibomber, if you perpetrate a crime wearing these "trick" shoes! Simply put on a pair of shoes that are in acceptable condition for walking, then tie your old shoes in the opposite direction on the bottom! This way, anyone following your tracks will think you're walking in the opposite direction. However, if I wore this device while committing a questionable act (which isn't my style; I'm completely clean cut), my trailers would still know my shoe size and the fact that I wear Chuck Taylors. Eek! And yet, if I would give this device to my favorite sociopath, who would then proceed to commit an unsavory action, detectives would identify the suspect as someone who wears size 5 (Womens) Chuck Taylor All-Stars.

Hmm, I guess you could just be a bum for Halloween. And if Halloween is still too objectionable, try being Charlie Chaplin in a school play or something.

See you later, perpetrator.