Ballet Sketches

This past spring and summer, my daughter, Molly Palmer, performed in a ballet, Circus Polka, in workshop performances for the School of American Ballet.

Circus Polka was originally choreographed by George Balanchine for elephants at the Ringling Brothers Circus, to music composed for the occasion by Igor Stravinsky. Jerome Robbins later choreographed the present version for little girls, which became part of the SAB repertory.

Molly performed the dance at SAB´s spring showcase in June and then again at their summer residency in Saratoga Springs, New York. During my turns escorting her to rehearsals, I managed a few sketches of the dancers and their families, which I made into a souvenir booklet to share with the kids and instructors. They all seemed pretty pleased with it.

These students and their teachers work unbelievably hard and the result was truly amazing. Backing them up are whole families bending over backwards to make it all happen. They have my gratitude and respect.

Convention Sketches

For me, the highlight of last month's Big Apple Comic Con was that on Saturday I was seated next to the table of a lovely model named Marissa Jade. On Sunday, I had to content myself sketching the crowd.

Mot's Comics and Cartooning Students are Rocking the Indie Comics World

These artists were already brilliant, but I'm pretty sure I taught them each something.
Follow the links to see Brooklyn stories, dysfunctional crime fighters, comics as poetry, sexy suicide girls (& other cool drawings), cocktail bar reviews, stupid inventions, drinkers and inkers, Tapir Tooth, ... and that's just the tip of the iceberg!



There's still time to enroll in my summer courses, Cartooning Basics and Figure Drawing for Graphic Novelists. Tell your friends!

Convention Appearance This Weekend.

If you're in Manhattan this weekend, May 21-22, 2011, come see me at the Big Apple Comic Con, lest I feel lonely.

I'm out teaching on Saturday morning, but plan to be at my convention table by 2 pm Saturday and staying 'til they close at seven, and all day Sunday (10 to 5).

I'll have some misc, comics and artwork for sale. Mostly I plan on sitting and making sketches of goofy monsters and/or sexy girls until somebody decides to talk to me. Do swing by and say hello.

Penn Plaza Pavilion, 401 7 Ave @ 33rd St. Table #1008.

Dr. Sketchy's Sketches

I've been uploading my drawings from Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School along with other life drawings to my Deviant Art site, then submitting them to Dr. Sketchy's Tumblr blog and reblogging them to my own Tumblr site. Confused? No less than me. Next, I guess I'll announce this post on Facebook. Oy!

Figure Drawing for Graphic Novelists

This summer, in addition to my long running Thursday night Cartooning Basics course, I'm debuting a new continuing education course at the School of Visual Arts titled Figure Drawing for Graphic Novelists, Wednesdays, 6:00 t0 9:30, June 8 through August 10.

We'll alternate between life drawing from models and figure construction from imagination, to refine techniques for staging expressive figure drawings in the comic book context. Beyond the usual figure study issues like proportions and muscle groups, we'll be exploring some concepts that might sound esoteric but are actually important for comic artists to grasp: tactility, congruence of forces, shape integrity, joint breaks, feature wrapping, and more. We'll try out some different drawing styles and get characters moving through comic story situations.

I'll present a slide show about it tomorrow night (May 9, 2011, 6:30-8:30 pm) at SVA's Cartooning and Illustration Information Session.

This will be enlightening and fun. Come sign up. Tell your friends. Thanks a bunch!

Demons on the Subway

Okay, maybe I've been hallucinating, but this time I don't think so. Has anyone else been spotting these characters on the trains late at night? If you sight one, please send me a cell phone photo so I can feel vindicated.

Best American Comics "Notables"

I see that the Made Out of Mac comic was plugged on the Drawing Words and Writing Pictures blog. Please have a look.

Doodle Diary

What's with all the birds, doctor? How come none of them are flying?

Illustrations for an Online Zine

I just had a couple illustrations posted in an online zine called the Mad Hatter's Review. They're in the fiction section, illustrating stories by Edmond Caldwell. Have a look. You can click on the pictures to view them larger.
Here's one they didn't end up using, for whatever reason:

What Would Caniff Do?

One of the assignments I give in my Inking Comics class is to finish these unfinished Male Call strips by Milton Caniff. It's a fun exercise in the strategy of organizing black, white, and gray. Below are some solutions by students Daniel Pucca, Adam Markiewicz, and Earl Barrett-Holloway.

Class starts next week, January 25, 2011. Come get inky with us!

Sketches and Notes from the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival

12/4/2010:


The Art of Editing-- Sammy Harkham, Bill Kartalopoulos, Francoise Mouly.



Taking Inventory: The Story of Things-- James McShane, Jungyeon Roh, Renee French, Leanne Shapton.



When Comic Books Were New-- Evan Dorkin, Paul Pope, Dan Nadel. Also Anders Nilsen, Q & A.



How Nancy Is-- Johnny Ryan, Bill Griffith, Mark Newgarden, Bill Kartalopoulos.



Chaos and Pattern-- Mark Alan Stamaty, Jordan Crane, Keith Jones, Brian Chippendale.

Classes, News

This Tuesday, I'll be presenting slide shows about my upcoming classes, Cartooning Basics and Inking Comics, at the SVA Cartooning and Illustration Information Session.

Come hear me rant about line sensitivity, composition-driven distortion, temporal cubism, and other crackpot ideas. 6:30-8:30 pm, Tues. Jan. 11, 209 East 23rd Street, room 311, 3rd floor. Free!

In other news, my dear friend Jason Little was kind enough to drop my name on the Comic Book Resources site (scroll way, way down). Asked about overlooked cartoonists, Jason sez, "T. Motley immigrated from Boulder to New York a few years ago, and brought his brilliant formal playground 'Tragic Strip' to The Brooklyn Rail. It’s worth subscribing to this paper for Tom’s comics alone. Read more at tmotley.com." Actually, I came from Denver, but Boulder's close enough. Thanks bro!

Classes Future and Students Past

This amazing "Noodling Worksheet" is by the amazing Daniel Pucca,
rendered over a line drawing by yours truly.

This spring, I'll once again teach the Inking Comics course, alongside my regularly scheduled Cartooning Basics class at SVA, making this a good time to follow up on this earlier post. An impressive number of former students are making me proud and making their excellent work available online.

A group of inking students, notably Daniel Pucca (above), Van Hong, and Ken Frederick, continue their studies on the Drinking and Inking blog.

Ken Frederick is also active in Pronto comics, along with Earl Barrett-Holloway and Dominic Sparano.

Zachary Snyder's web comic Stupid Inventor, was a finalist in The Washington Post's America's Next Great Cartoonist contest. Zachary also has a YouTube channel, Stupid Inventions.

Meanwhile, Bill Roundy has a strip running in The Brooklyn Paper, Bar Scrawl, that combines cartooning with bar hopping. How fun is that?

Mark Weisner, aka Max West, has a blog and website of his Sunnyville Stories.

Adam Markiewicz' "The Insomniac" blog features must-see comics and sexy pin-up girls.

A personal favorite: Alexander Rothman makes poetic broadsheet comics on his Versequential blog and participates in Tapir Tooth along with Andrea Tsurumi.

Have I forgotten anybody? Send me a link!