CLICK ESSAY TO ENLARGE.Today’s Quote
May 2, 2017
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Cartooning Tip #5
June 3, 2016
Click image to enlarge. This cartoon tip originally appeared in the January-February 2016 issue of The Cartoon!st, the newsletter of the National Cartoonists Society. All series images and texts are copyright © 2016 by the artist.
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Cartooning Tip #3
April 26, 2016
Click image to enlarge. This cartoon tip originally appeared in the January-February 2016 issue of The Cartoon!st, the newsletter of the National Cartoonists Society. All series images and texts are copyright © 2016 by the artist.
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Cartooning Tip #2
April 18, 2016
Click image to enlarge. This cartoon tip originally appeared in the January-February 2016 issue of The Cartoon!st, the newsletter of the National Cartoonists Society. All series images and texts are copyright © 2016 by the artist.
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War of 1812
March 14, 2016
Click image to enlarge. These four cartoon characters, among others, were created to represent actual people who were somehow involved in the battle to defend Fort McHenry from the British on September 12-14, 1814. Three years ago, the images were published in a Jr. Rangers booklet at the fort. This composite image is now available for printing on mugs, t-shirts, and various other products at: zazzle.com.
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Today’s Quote
January 20, 2016
“Sometimes laughter hurts, but humor and mockery are our only weapons.”
Jean Cabu, 1938-2015
Cartoonist and co-founder of Charlie Hebdo
(Click image for larger view.)
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WPA Color, 1939-1943
February 1, 2015Signs
When my bother, Vernon Leroy (Lee) Sizemore, retired from the military, he earned his living as a sign painter, a skill he had picked up in vocational high school and sharpened by—among other things—painting pin-up girls and fancy lettering on the noses of airplanes. In the years before his death, he was doing broadsheet window signs for grocery stores and night clubs. Some of his expert brush lettering signs were finished with glued-on glitter, especially those promoting bands and singers. Near the end of his life, he fell off a ladder while hanging an exterior sign and wound up with a severe right-side head injury. He was in a coma for months. Once he woke up, I visited him several times in Denver. He always had something interesting to say, riffs that would start O.K., then wander off into fantasy, not making much sense—but to my ears they were weird poetry. And when he drew Picasso-like portraits of people, me included, he always left the right side of the head blank. When I asked why, he said because that was the way they were.
Lee was a wonderful older brother. Because of all the good things he taught me during trips to museums and theaters, letting me tag along when he shined shoes in South Baltimore bars, and schooling me in basic sign layout theory, I’ve dedicated this post to him.
(Click images to enlarge.)
A collection of photographs like the ones above, on a wide range of subjects, are in the archives of FSA/OWI (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information). These rich color images, taken within three years of the invention of Kodachrome, serve to inspire as much as to document. To see more of them on this site, type “WPA color” into the small search window in the sidebar on the right of this page. For the complete collection, visit the WPA site by tapping the link in the sidebar box marked “Photography.”
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Today’s Graphic
July 25, 2014
The FedEx logo is famous among graphic designers. It has won buckets of design awards and has been ranked by some experts as one of the best logo designs in the last 35 years—or as some claim—ever. Nearly every design school professor and graphic designer will praise it as such, and some will then try to draw you into a discussion about its clever use of negative space. Many, though—like me at one time—want to display their design knowledge. But I’ve reformed. Now I only brag about my honesty; about how, until someone pointed it out, I had failed to notice the directional arrow created naturally by the relationship of two of the letters. How about you, do you see it?
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Cover Art
May 3, 2014Below is the base illustration for a Maryland Family Magazine cover. Just below that, we see the published cover. To view more of my illustration examples, click the “Illustration” tab at the top of this page.
Copyright © 2014, Jim Sizemore
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Xmas ABC’s
December 20, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Jim Sizemore.
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Doodlemeister's Weblog 