Thursday, April 05, 2007

Mystic Art Revealed!

This week, I took so dang long to create my cartoon that I've decided to show you step-by-step what the process is like.First, I drew the President as a little kid throwing a tantrum. This is actually my second try. His face was too fat and the mouth just didn't look. His eyes were open too and frankly, he just looked possessed!
Next, I drew the sandbox. Okay, I'll confess, I pretty much traced some piece of clip art, but I made the shovel bigger and I changed the truck into a tank.
Then, I drew the "Mom & Dad," Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Ried. I started with him first and was a little worried that he looked too much like former Defense Secretary Rumsfield. In the end, they remind me a lot of Grant Wood's Farmer & daughter in "American Gothic." Of course, he always did- he's just too square to represent Las Vegas. As you can see, I had a little trouble with Madam Speaker's hair. For one thing, she has it fixed different in different photos. I also had some trouble finishing her body. She's a very lovely woman, but being in her sixties, I didn't want to overdo her femininity. I think I probably did over do the mascara and the smile, but maybe that will make my Republican readers happy. I had meant to give her a forced grin like June Cleaver when she's really lost her patience with the Beaver, instead it's bordering on clownish. This is when I pretty much decided to put the parents in the foreground, so I could cut off most of their bodies.
I love how this turned out. I wanted to show a child's scream and I knew that neither my pen or any computer font would do it. I thought about a Sharpie marker, but I decided that that would be too smooth. So, I went with a charcoal pencil. PERFECT.
Believe me, this is about as good as MY handwriting gets.
Oops! I can't believe I forgot to just draw a baloon around that. Oops! I hate how I never remember how to spell "b-a-l-l-o-o-n."
Add a little PhotoShop magic and viola! A satirical masterpiece!

See my cartoons and columns at http://tedscolumn.blogspot.com

And if you want to see more of my cartoons- TONS more, visit
http://tmal.multiply.com/photos/album/2

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