But skip that, what's this kids' book about?

I've been making a foray back into the world of comics, sort of, by working on a kids book lately. I'm working with Corel Painter 12, which is fantastic for doodling, and I'm using Trello ( trello.com ) for building the plot, which is a fantastic tool for project management, and outlining stories.

But skip that trivial stuff, what's this book about, you ask? Well, it's about climate change and kids. And them talking their daft parents into doing something about it.

It's a pretty scary subject, and although my 4 year old is still a little too young to talk about it, I can well imagine how tricky it's going to be to explain how crappy her future world will probably be. So I'm trying to write a book that will help parents engage with their kids about it. Actually, I'm really hoping that the act of reading it to their kids will motivate parents to do a bit more to solve the problem.

I should really be working on paintings so I can make some money, but this is something I've been circling around for years and I figure it's time that I just get down and do it.

As you can see in the image, it's currently at the thumbnail page, which means that it's pretty much only me who can figure out what's going on with it. Well, actually, if you could see my sketchbook you'd be able to see the plot. Then again, only I know which bits I'm going to keep out of that, so even there it doesn't make any sense yet. I'm sure I'll be posting and writing a lot more about this. Stay tuned!

cheers,
marcel

Painting experiments today

I'm trying to find a drawing style that I can glaze over with oil colour.




I'm narrowing it down to ink markers or traditional India ink.

I really like this pencil drawing though, so I'm not going to ink it or colour over it. Maybe I'll do it digitally later:




Cheers,
Marcel

new robot sketches

You can see them up on my tumblr blog.

cheers,

marcel

Moving photo posts to Tumblr

My work-in-progress photos often look pretty craptacular when I post using Blogpress & Blogger, so I'm going to switch to Tumblr for those.

I'll still post on this blog with announcements and when I post the photos for finished paintings because this feed is what I programmed to show up on my website home page. 

Update: haha, whoops, here's the link for my new Tumblr: http://marcel-g-art.tumblr.com/

cheers,

Marcel

Study: boreal skies

flying contraption still to be added. I think this'll be my next big painting.



Cheers,
Marcel

Canadiana sketches

No lumberjacks, canoes, hockey sticks or maple syrups, unfortunately.








Cheers,
Marcel

So many ideas, so little time! (Which one to do?)

What's my next painting going to be? I've been having trouble working it out, so I redrew all of the better ideas I've had in the last couple of weeks onto one page. Holy schmoly!

I could make a whole show out of just these! A pretty big show at that!

And the reality is that I'll get just _one_ into the next show. :-/

Kind of frustrating, on one hand, great on the other because I have a lot to work with.

Now how the hell do I figure out which one to do?

Cheers,
Marcel

What's next? (With robot doodles)

Now that my show in Toronto is up, it's time to start thinking about my Ottawa show in June. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do, so I'm starting with aimless doodles. I'll find something in one of them eventually that'll crystallize everything. I also really need to do some house keeping like filing and ordering of supplies, etc.













Cheers,
Marcel

Blimp sketches

Designing the blimp for the painting I'm starting:




Cheers,
Marcel

Sketchy doodle robots world takeover

I've spent a bit of time trying to figure out what to do for my next set of paintings, and I've done some doodling as a part of that process, and that included some robots.

While I continue to plot my world takeover, er, I mean, figure out what to do next, here are some of the sketches. Enjoy!

And now for some doodles...

I'm not really sure where my next set of paintings is going to go yet, and I'm a few days away from getting back to the studio, so until I figure that out, here are some doodles for your viewing enjoyment.








Cheers,
Marcel

Monster sketch

One of these days I'm gonna make some full sized paintings out of sketches like this.





Also, it seems the iPhone camera doesn't auto-darken as badly if you put a dark object in the photo, hence the sketchbook.


Cheers,
Marcel