From a quick exchange in the office.

I bought some white board sheets off Amazon the other day, because I enjoy standing up to do creative work. I wanted white board paint but this is not available. The white board sheets . . . enh . . . they tend to rip when peeling them off the stack, and after a few days they start to roll up and fall off: better with tape! But the real bummer so far is that they really don’t erase well . . . I had to do windex on a paper towel and then scrape the marker off with my thumb. Too bad . . .

If you would like to understand the Chinese, check out “Do you have . . . ?” from ChinesePod.com.

有没有笔?
(yǒu méiyǒu bǐ?)
Gotta pen?

没有.
(méiyǒu.)
Nope.

好吧.
(háo bā.)
Okay.

It is neat how the asking works: yǒu méiyǒu literally means “have not-have.”

Incidentally, if anyone knows how to type the pinyin with the accent marks, please clue me in. Thanks!

Lately I have taken to reduced caffeine. During the week, I drink tea. On the weekend I head out to the cafe and enjoy a chocolate croissant and a black cup of coffee, which leaves me bold and reckless. Last weekend I picked up some paints at the hardware store, with no clear goal in mind. I used up the yellow painting the wall of my dining area, then felt inspired to render a Swedish Flag with the blue. I’m pretty pleased with the result. I think there may be a bit more to come.

Dating is an adventure, for sure. I went for a more “informal” feel here, doing the text all freehand. I have mixed feelings about the result, but it is better to produce than to procrastinate.

And since you bought the DVD, here’s the bonus material–the “making of” the above comic:

A few weeks back I trekked over to Japantown to pick up some good pens at Kinokuniya. I pencil the thing in, then go over it with ink. In this case, I settled on a 0.7mm Zebra Hyper Jell for the text and a finer 0.5mm Sarasa Stick for the figure. I have a 0.8mm Uniball Vision Elite but that is complete crap compared the the fancy Japanese pens.

And yes, let the ink dry before erasing the pencil. Unfortunately with these finer pens it takes some off the ink out too.

The first page is just practice drawing a simple character from repeated elements: nose, eyes, chin, ear, hair, smile. Then he gets a trapezoidal boy, simple arms, easy legs . . . . then we try posing him. On the next page we try to bring in some action.

A healthy reminder as to how you can achieve a great deal with simplicity, and that I should practice.

This is the first contemporary “doodle” that I’m posting. I hope there will be more. I have long had a crush on the word “iconoclast” which basically means non-conformist, someone who marches to their own drumbeat, conventions be damned. I like it because it kind of sounds like “ironclad”. The “ironclad iconoclast” chugging along the seas blowing up wooden preconceptions!

Yeah, anyway, that crazy guy with the mug is me. Seriously, I can drink coffee from a paper cup if I have to but why should I have to? So, if I’m headed to a cafe I pack my own mug. Of course, Starbucks will still hand me my pastry in a bag, like I’m some sort of cretin.

I don’t actually talk as much as “Mr Iconoclast” but I have smiled and answered “MUG SIZE!”

Also, that overly-wide middle line could be considered a bug, which I could have fixed on the computer, but have chosen to preserve for posterity. Nyah!

She’s not as pretty as last week. Next week is my first attempt at publishing a cartoon.

My other favorite. She kind of came out of nowhere, and for me evoked Jordan while doodling in Thailand.

Inspired by a guy in Hat Yai, Thailand, but all mixed up, Picasso-style.

Yeah!

Done in Thailand. I don’t recall if this was before or after I got sunburned. Pretty colorful for a white guy!

I was sitting in the Danish cafe in Kata, Thailand. I was thinking of the rhinoceros I photographed two months before at the Berlin Zoo. I drew him from memory, so this guy is one horn short and has floppy ears like my old dog, Max. I did try to move him, in my fantasy, from institution to the great outdoors.

This is a favorite of mine.

Looking kind of Greek, I think.