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My New Mailbox . . .

July 22, 2010

Why It Makes Those Sounds

By Jacquie Roland

Today, for some reason, I decided to redo my mailbox. (As if I don’t have enough other stuff to do.) However . . . When I came in to get out of the heat and have a cool drink, my phone rang. Not unusual. Except that I couldn’t find it. I could hear it, but . . . Well, as it turns out—in a fit of artistic madness—I had epoxied my live phone into the assemblage. (The old phone had dropped out of sight behind my work table.) And now my good Ma Bell is glued into the sculpture. Forever. *sigh* I guess it will just have to keep ringing until the battery wears out.

Copyright © 2010 Jacquie Roland.

This post was adapted from an e-mail I received yesterday from my friend Jacquie, who, as you can see, keeps very VERY busy in upstate New York. This 3-D doodle was too good—and the story of its creation ‘way too funny—to keep to myself. Click images for larger views.

4 Comments | art, doodles, humor, media, photography | Tagged: photography, composition, doodles, summer, cartoonist, humor, e-mail, doodling, art, artist, images, Jacquie Roland, upstate New York, sculpture, U. S. Postal Service, U. S. Mail, mailbox, heat, cool drink, artistic madness, eploxy, glue, epoxied, assemblage, work table, Ma Bell, ringing, phone, battery, 3-D doodle, story creation funny | Permalink
Posted by Jim

Crow Happy Hour

May 19, 2010

Photo Doodle

For me, the interesting thing about this picture is what you can’t see—and, perhaps, just as importantly, what you can’t hear. On a trip last fall to visit relatives in my home town, I spent two nights in Lexington, Virginia, which is 40 miles east of my destination. When I’m down that way, I camp in Lexington because it’s a small town situated in a beautiful spot just off I-81, in the gentle foothills where the Shenandoah Valley narrows between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains. There are lots of things to see and do nearby, in contrast to where I come from, which is also situated in a beautiful area much deeper into the mountains. My birthplace is a depressed (and for me, somewhat depressing) paper mill town very near the West Virginia line. Lexington, being a university town (Washington and Lee, Virginia Military Institute), has all the amenities that come with that, including many good restaurants. It’s a wonderful destination and not just a stopover. On my first evening there this trip, while killing time before dinner, I wandered around town with my new digital point-and-shoot camera and soon found myself in the graveyard in which “Stonewall” Jackson is buried. The historic site is in a residential area on Main Street, just a few blocks south of the business district.

I shot several pictures in the graveyard, but the one above is my favorite. I love the way the late afternoon light comes through the silhouetted trees and creates those long shadows, the darker edges of the image framing some of the gravestones. Of course I was thinking about that when I composed the picture, and that’s also when a sort of eerie-beautiful event took place. As I stood there (and I stayed in that one spot for at least five minutes), a large flock of crows began to swoop in and out between the trees, caw-cawing the whole time as they cavorted. I had seen this sort of “happy hour” bird behavior before during the “golden hour” just before sunset, a favorite time of day, it seems, for birds, photographers and cinematographers. But I had never witnessed it in quite so dramatic a setting and with such loud sound effects. (Imagine being in the middle the gathering-of-the-birds scene in that Hitchcock movie, but experiencing it as pleasant rather than threatening.) This may have been the only time while out and about photographing when I wished that I had video instead of a still camera. Another disappointment: I had hoped to catch a bird perched on the foremost gravestone, but no luck. Not one bird landed while I was there, and even if it had I doubt I would have been quick enough to capture the image. You see, I was still a pretty slow photographer at that point, consulting the instruction book for just about every move I made with my new camera.

Copyright © 2010 Jim Sizemore.

Leave a Comment » | media, non-fiction, photography, travel, vacation | Tagged: animals, photography, composition, food, restaurants, vacation, birds, image, picture, travel, sunset, dinner, graveyard, Today's Pic, pictures, crows, fall, relatives, photographers, West Virginia, Virginia, trees, video, Lexington, Virginia Military Institute, Stonewall Jackson, main street, Blue Ridge Mountains, home town, Shenandoah Valley, Alleghany Mountains, university town, Washington and Lee, digital camera, buried, business district, afternoon light, golden hour, gravestones, flock of birds, cinematographers, sound effects, Hitchock movie, new camera, Photo Doodle, photo comments | Permalink
Posted by Jim

Famous Artists Schools

May 7, 2010

On July 29, 2009 I did a post titled “Cartooning Lessons,” in which I described my experiences as a Famous Artists Schools correspondent student back in the early 1960s. The post featured my first FAS cartooning instructor, Randall Enos, who is now a famous illustrator and cartoonist himself. Somehow, Mr. Enos came across my little blog memoir, liked it, and in a comment suggested that I—but wait, let’s let him explain what happened next in his own words, which I copied from his blog post. If you’d like to check out the original Enos post, here’s the link: http://www.drawger.com/bigfoot/?article_id=9751

“Between 1956 and 1964 I worked at The Famous Artists Schools in the correspondence art school. I worked on the Cartoon Course. We would get a student’s assignment and put overlays on it and point out various “trouble” spots and sometimes re-draw the whole situation and then send a letter to accompany the crit. The letters were standard form letters (after all everybody would make the same “mistakes”) but we would “personalize” the letter by inserting certain words that applied specifically to the student’s particular picture. We had lessons on inking, heads, action etc.. There were 4 or 5 of us doing the lessons and we would bounce the student around between us so he or she would have the advantage of more than one point of view. I was the youngest, being hired at the ripeness of twenty years. The others were pretty much retired guys in their 60′s having had careers in the field. One of them had and continued to draw Popeye, another had worked on the Lone Ranger, another on Katzenjammer Kids, another on Captain Marvel Jr. and Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang and Playboy girlie cartoons etc..

“So . . . the other day I’m surfing the web and I come across a blog called “Doodlemeister”. The fellow that runs it named Jim Sizemore had a post where he, in great detail, described critiques of mine he had received when he was an FAS student. It was a trip down memory lane alright. He complained that I had always given him high grades and flattery when he really wanted tough criticism. He pointed out that my overlay comments were a little more to the point than my letters (form letters). I made a comment on his blog post and invited him, if he wished, to send me an assignment NOW and I would give him a free crit. He was 25 then and is in his 70′s now as I am. I promised him, in addition, that this time I definitely would not give him a good grade. Here then is my crit of his “assignment” because he took me up on it.” (Click images for larger views.)

The one disagreement I have with Mr. Enos’ critique is not visual but verbal—his suggested caption, making it about the mythical memory powers of elephants instead of cross-species relationships. In the writing process I considered the memory angle but quickly rejected it as too much the cliché. I think the relationship idea is the more original—and funnier—choice.

Mr. Enos ended his blog post with these kind—and much too generous—words: “Y’know, the more I look at it . . . the more I like his cartoon better than mine.”

Copyright © 2010 Jim Sizemore.

4 Comments | art, cartooning, essays, gag cartoons, gags, humor, illustration, non-fiction, writing | Tagged: actrion, animals, art, assignment, blog, blog post, Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Captain Marvel Jr., cartooning, cartooning lessons, cartoonist, cartoons, composition, corresopndence course, couples, criticism, dating, domestic conflict, DoodleMeister.com, elephant, Famous Artists Schools, grade, heads, humor, illustration, illustrator, inking, Jim Sizemore, Katzenjammer Kids, Lone Ranger, love, marriage, memoir, overlay comments, Playboy, Popeye, Randall Enos, relationships, writing | Permalink
Posted by Jim

Fort McHenry

March 31, 2010

August 13, 2009

Leave a Comment » | holidays, photography, travel, vacation | Tagged: photography, composition, vacation, summer, Baltimore, travel, Fort McHenry, harbor, history, patrol car, Maryland, National Park Service, U. S. Department of the Interior, Law Enforcement Park Ranger, national monument, historic site, Park Ranger, cannon, cannonball, War of 1812 | Permalink
Posted by Jim

Jefferson Rock

March 26, 2010

March 20, 2010

To celebrate Spring last weekend, my friend Mary and I headed to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. (Click the images for larger views.) Harper’s Ferry is about 60 miles west of our homes in Baltimore—a short and a very scenic drive, especially if you tend to get lost and have to take two lane roads to avoid backtracking—which no self-respecting day-tripper would even consider. After all, getting lost—assuming it isn’t overdone or dangerous—is part of the fun. Once at Harper’s Ferry, we drove through the town and up the hill to the graveyard overlooking the valley and the rivers. After hiking down to Jefferson Rock—so named for Thomas Jefferson who visited the spot in 1783—which is on part of the Appalachian Trail, we made a few pictures of the area and each other. That’s me atop Jefferson Rock, taken by Mary; and Mary below, taken by me—mutual muses.

I love the first photograph not because I’m in it (trying too hard to pose like Gary Cooper in the 1949 film “The Fountainhead”), but because Mary composed the image so beautifully. The shot is full-frame, just as she snapped it—complete with simple shapes artfully arranged, the sky area above, the boulders and hills below taking up most of the frame, each odd shape with its own look (personality), each contributing to the overall design. Most of the time when someone sends me a snapshot I immediately want to crop it to give it more unity, make it visually stronger, but in this case I didn’t even consider doing that. In my opinion it was already picture perfect. One way to better appreciate the aesthetic eye that made the composition is to reduce the image to lines only, as I’ve done here. Then it’s easier to understand how Mary arranged the photographic elements so that no two areas of the composition are the same size or shape (variety = visual interest), and the focal point—the human figure—is off to one side rather than centered, the saturated blue sky acting as its frame.

Meanwhile, in photo three, over Mary’s left shoulder, there is a partial view of what Thomas Jefferson would have seen—including us happy day-trippers—had he been there last Saturday.

In case you’ve never visited Jefferson Rock (and if not, we recommend the trip), here’s a bit of what Wikipedia has to say about the Harper’s Ferry area. The National Historical Park is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers in and around Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. The park includes land in Jefferson County, West Virginia; Washington County, Maryland and Loudoun County, Virginia. The park is managed by the National Park Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Originally designated as a National Monument in 1944, the park was declared a National Historical Park by the U.S. Congress in 1963. The park includes the historic town of Harper’s Ferry, notable as a center of 19th century industry and as the scene of John Brown’s abolitionist uprising. Consisting of almost 4,000 acres, the land marks the site on which Thomas Jefferson said after visiting the area in 1783, “The passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature.”