At this week’s meeting of the Alfresco Art Club, we discussed that we haven’t been able to meet outdoors for over a year. Why? It’s the weather and the air pollution. In the winter Southern Oregon is too cold to sit outdoors, and in the summer, due to summer-long wildfires, it’s unhealthy to breathe. As a result of circumstances beyond our control, we meet inside and sit around the kitchen table.
I’ve been re-reading Prince Valiant this week, and decided to recreate one of the simpler cels from Prince Valiant: Vol. 2: 1939-1940. After a half hour of unprofitable sketching, I decided to focus on drawing the lovely (and manly) witch-woman’s face. Hal Foster’s treatment of eyes is dreamy and hard to duplicate, but I gave it my best shot. Drawing eyes is always perplexing!
In neighborhood news, the bears are back, and one of them took a big dump on the front sidewalk last night. I had to remove it with a snow shovel and a tall trash bag. As winter hibernation approaches, the local bears come into town to graze among the fragrant trash bins that sit year round in front of the houses in the neighborhood. Bears are inconsiderate jerks. They knock over the garbage cans and drag plastic garbage bags full of baby diapers into our yard, where they tear them open and scatter the trash around to look for the edible tidbits. Mr. Bear usually shows up at 4 AM. to wake us up when he knocks over the garbage bin. It’s unnerving to listen to a 400-lb carnivore rummaging around outside our window. We now have a locking trash bin, which we hope will discourage him enough that he will decide to move on to easier pickings.
