Blogger Dad » drawing

When You Care Enough…

Blogger Dad — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:14:11 +0000

I got an email the other day which really touched me.

It was from a reader, a guy named Freddy in Ireland. Not a reader of Blogger Dad, but of the comic strip I used to do, Todd and Penguin. A comic I did with some regularity for most of the decade until Blogger Dad came about. In his letter, he told me that he was introduced to the comic by his girlfriend. He wrote to thank me, even though I haven’t updated the comic in more than a year, for all the years I had put into the comic, which helped him get through a job he utterly despised.

“So cheers for helping out man (even if you knew very little about it!), I hope you get everything sorted for yourself and you can return to Todd and Penguin with regular updates. I can’t wait anyway! I picked up “Embrace Your Inner Dork” for my girlfriend (and me!) for Christmas, I hope this helps you out in some way, and if there’s anything I can do to help and repay you from way over in Ireland, do let me know!”

His letter touched me deeply.

One of my favorite things about being an artist is when people take the time to appreciate my work. Drawing and writing are often thankless tasks, particularly in the early going when you don’t have a whole lot of readers. You plug on as a matter of faith, perhaps to stoke your ego a bit, and in hopes that you can connect to others in some way. So when people comment or email about why my work touched them in some way, it’s an awesome feeling.

His letter also touched me for another reason.

Even though he recently lost his job, he bought a book of mine for his girlfriend. Not only as a way to thank me, but also as an expression of love for his girlfriend. It’s been a while since I’ve had this experience.

During my years of drawing Todd and Penguin, I was asked regularly to draw custom art for people who were fans of the comic.

It began, somewhat out of the blue, several years ago when a reader contacted me asking if I’d draw a custom gift for their spouse, who was a big fan of my comic strip. A few years later, the spouse returned the favor and a little tradition was born. I’ve been asked to draw everything from memorials to anniversary gifts to birthday gifts, usually with my Penguin character.

While it thrills me to no end that my Todd and Penguin book can be found on book shelves throughout the world, it warms my heart even more to know that something I’ve drawn is sitting or hanging in a special place and was given as an expression of love from one person to another.

So I am emailing Freddy tomorrow and will, even though he didn’t ask me to do so, draw something for his girlfriend. My way of saying thank you to his thank you.

While I don’t draw Todd and Penguin now and the requests for related custom comic art have more or less vanished, I talked with Sean Platt over at Writer Dad and we are going to do what we did last year. We’re going to offer custom art and poems (or just plain prose, if you prefer) for you to give to another this holiday season. You can (or we can) send custom art and words to a loved one or even use it for business purposes, as we did this year for Collective Inkwell, as a way of saying thank you to our clients.

Because time is limited and the holidays are fast approaching, we can only make this offer to a limited number of people in order to get them out in time for the holidays.

If you’d like us to help you express your love, or thanks, to someone in your life, email us. We’re only able to offer this for the first 20 people who order, though. So if you want to take advantage of this offer in time to get your gift prior to Christmas or Chanuka, email me right away at idrawcomics (at) gmail.com and let us know what you’d like.

Prices for the art are as follows:
Custom drawn art and words: $60 via Paypal
You tell us what you want drawn and what message you’d like to send and we’ll craft the perfect custom art and words for you. Prices are slightly higher for complex drawings. Email us what you have in mind for an exact quote, but $60 should cover most orders.

We’ll send the file to you or your loved one in whatever formats you prefer – JPEG, TIFF, PDF or PNG. We will send both low resolution for inserting in email or sending via the web and high resolution (for printing) images.

For an additional $20, we will also send you a print of the file in the mail (U.S. only).

As always, thank you for reading,

David

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Making time for routines

Blogger Dad — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:02:26 +0000

I’m kinda’ disappointed.

I expected my sister-in-law’s visit with her four girls, aged two to nine, to produce some humorous stories in which I lost my cool or mind or perhaps a little bit of both. While there were a few moments of insanity which made me question why anyone would choose to have four or more kids, for the most part, the visit went smoothly. In fact, I kinda’ miss having them around because I really enjoyed seeing E interact with other children. Well, when they weren’t fighting over toys, anyway.

One of the good things to come from the visit was a new routine E and I have, coloring.

While we have colored before, and I often draw for him, the routine was sporadic at best. Mostly because he grew bored quickly.

However, while the girls were here, they colored at the table on a daily basis and E thrived on the interaction. So much so that he is now asking Blogger Mom and I to color several times a day. Being a cartoonist, this is all kinds of awesome for me. For one, I get to impress my son with a talent I have. For two, it’s nice to see him get lost in the act of coloring.

I probably got into drawing in order to connect with my mother.

When I was a child, my mom used to draw in a tablet all the time. She was really good, too. I remember her drawing animals, cartoon characters and pictures from greeting cards we received. She usually colored them in with colored pencils, something I was never really good at doing. I remember looking through her book on almost daily basis, wishing I could draw the things she drew. I tried, I mimicked several of her drawings. Then I progressed to tracing images from a Spider Man coloring book until I was able to train my muscle memory to draw Spider Man, or at least a seven year old’s version, on my own.

So it is interesting that my son is taking to drawing at the age of two.

Saturday, he grabbed my hand and said, “color, daddy?” and led me to the kitchen table where we sat next to one another with a box of well worn crayons and a stack of paper.

He asked me to draw different things, including a penguin or a “pen-pen” as he calls them. I quickly drew a crude crayon penguin. You have to be fast with E, because he is chomping at the bit to get his hands on the picture. Once I was done, he asked, “I color penguin?”

So I handed him the penguin, he scribbled circles all over my drawing, then handed it back to me.

“I colored pen-pen,” he said.

And my heart melted.

My drawings are not art until E has taken a crayon to them.

click to make bigger

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Everyone’s a critic

Blogger Dad — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:35:24 +0000

I’ve been drawing comics since 2000. My comic strips have loyal readers and have been published in a book, my editorial comics have generated buzz and been mentioned by elected officials and I’ve had my work published in a number of publications. However, the highlight of my drawing career has only happened recently, when I started drawing for my son, E.

We’ve spent a lot of time recently bonding over the Doodle Pro, a magnetic drawing board. Think Etch a Sketch but with an easier-to-use pen tool.

One of my favorite routines is when E climbs into my lap or lays on the floor next to me as I draw things and ask him to tell me what they are.

“Moww” he says for cat, “ba ba” for bottle, and so on.

All of these things bring a giant smile to his face, which is the coolest feeling in the world.

Soon, I started drawing his favorite TV and movie characters.

“Cars?” E says and I draw either Lightning McQueen or Tow Mater, which elicits a huge smile or laugh.

One time, I drew Elmo driving Lightning McQueen with Tow Mater besdie them. E LOVED it! All his favorite things together! Soon, he began requesting that Elmo always be in every picture with the Cars characters.

As much as he loves the drawings, he loves the Doodle Pro’s sliding eraser even more!

What took me five minutes to draw, he erases in one second with a quick swipe.

Then, he hands me the Doodle Pro and asks me to draw Elmo and Cars again! We repeat this process about a dozen more times.

Usually, he’ll take the pen from me before I can finish. He scribbles and dashes (something he picked up after watching me make cross hatches) over my drawings, adding finishing touches, if you will.

Then he’ll point to the drawing and proudly exclaim, “Cars!” as if he drew it.

Time for some old school drawing

On Wednesday, I decided take some pen to paper and draw another of his favorite characters, Curious George. I figured he would probably appreciate a more permanent drawing.

It was a pretty good George, if I do say so myself.

I handed him the drawing, he looked at it and said, “George!”

Big smile on both our faces.

I told him to go show mommy and he shuffled into her office and held up the paper.

“George,” he said, “daddy (indicating that I gave it to him)!”

It was one of the happier father-son moments I’ve had. I was able to use my drawing skill to make my son happy. E walked out of the room, holding his drawing, while my wife and I talked about something. I imagined him holding tightly to his new drawing, like a prized possession, perhaps putting it with his book collection.

As I was talking to my wife, I heard the unmistakable sound of a trash can lid slam shut.

Hmm, what did he throw away?

I went into the kitchen and saw that he was empty handed. I walked over to the trash can, stepped on the button to flip the lid open and there, on top of the trash, a crumpled up Curious George.

And while I know he didn’t know any better and it wasn’t a personal rejection of my drawing, it stung worse than any critique I’ve ever received.

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