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Sam Brownback sketch 2

I think this is actually further away from a good likeness, just moving in another direction I guess, around him rather than getting closer. But I liked where this sketch was going and worked on it as a character study as much as a Brownback likeness. I think I need to go back to my reference and work up some new quick sketches though. This is my second attempt (not including my first set of quick studies) and still it's missing something. But again, I like this as a character study, a bit of a Tales from the Crypt reaction (maybe the blood-red tie?), shows some buried influence from Alex Toth's line work. I really enjoyed his comic art in the 70's Warren magazines I collected as a teenager, Creepy and Eerie. Here's a link to one of his Eerie stories, from 1975. What I like about his line work is his use of short direct strokes that quickly, succinctly state details, referring to representation in a short expressive manner; abstraction of details that allow us to recognize and complete them.

Sam Brownback sketch

Here is a sketch for Sam Brownback with some quick color and texture tossed in. His eyes have a slight bulbous shape to them, a little too big but squinty at the same time. And he has an approachable serious look to his brow. Other than that, no other characteristics that stand out, any that I've noticed anyway. I think this is close but needs something, maybe more work in the eyes. The mouth looks a little low as well.

(I've added additional sketches, some of these investigative scribbles are horrid, but their purpose is just to get a grasp, an understanding of the reference.)

A JibJab movie

Having a spare moment, John McCain sketch and I, along with Tommy Thompson sketch, Barack Obama sketch, Clarisse art, Anger art, Texas Steer art, and GI Joe starred in a JibJab film called Night of the Living Republicans.

Sam Brownback is out.

Sam Brownback will be dropping out of the race according to CNN and The New York Times. The official announcement will be tomorrow. So if I go back to my previous plan, working on them as they drop out, he would be the next to sketch.

I'm going to get as much sketching in as I can before our Pasadena contact session. So far I have a good beginning for three of the candidates and will add Sam Brownback to that list. I should arrive in Pasadena with final sketches for at least four images then which I think will be healthy progress although I had hoped to have one final image finished by then.

I'm not quite sure how I want the final images to look though yet. McCain's sketch feels closer than Obama's to where I hope to be, a better merging of my style with my reference.

And another...

Steven Colbert has entered the race, I think. His response to John Stewart's question (actually written for John Stewart by Colbert) was a long announcement to announce and then mentioning South Carolina. And then he said he would hope to officially announce on "a more prestigious show," I guess he meant his own.

A new candidate?

Robert Haines, don't know too much about him yet but would make for an interesting portrait, unfortunately another Republican/ 50-something/white/male candidate, nice beard though. Here is his announcement video.

John McCain sketch

Here is an initial sketch study for the John McCain portrait. He has this
intense yet perplexed look to him often, hunched shoulders. My sense from him during this campaign is that he's a bit lost, not quite as focused as he was in his 2004 campaign. This is just a sketch study that may progress into the image, just tossing down lines and some initial color although the red and blue will likely change. I plan to add more lines to his face like the smile lines off his eye on the right. His other unique features that I've focused on are his small brushy eyebrows and his jowly cheeks (or cheek, his left one on our right seems bigger than his other one).

Tommy Thompson color study

Here is a quick color study for the Tommy Thompson portrait. I'm not quite sure about background or concept yet, my intial approach or mood is to show a faltering nature, unsure, a subtle sense of defeatism. I never quite felt Tommy Thompson's campaign would go very far, maybe influence from the media opinion. And I had the feeling that he would have agreed. So I have tilted his head, lowered his gaze slightly, offset his coat a bit, to give a sense of unbalance.

Tommy Thompson sketch 2

Here is a set of refined sketches for Tommy Thompson. I like to take my rough pencil sketch and move things around a bit in Photoshop, sometimes resizing, rotating, and distorting parts here and there. The top two sketches were created this way from the third image which is the original scanned sketch.

After scanning, I strengthen the contrast of my pencil sketch by using Auto Levels sometimes with an additional Levels nudge to further darken the blacks, and then I use Threshold to convert the pixels to either black or white. Making sure the Magic Wand's Contiguous and Anti-alias options are off, and Interpolation is set to Nearest Neighbor, I select and delete all of the white pixels and then begin to move things around. If I get one version I like, I flatten the image, copy it, undo the flattening, and then paste the copied version back into the file. Even though I've chosen Undo, the copied image stays in the Clipboard memory so I can paste it back in.

The top two sketches are getting a bit closer a good likeness. Tommy Thompson has a swoop nose (actually kind of like Nixon's) and heavy eyebrows that almost looked dyed black sometimes. His neck is fairly heavy with abundant wrinkles. These are the features I'm focusing on to get the likeness.

John McCain's age

I'm not sure how related this is to my project but John McCain's age is becoming a potential issue for him; he turns 71 on Wednesday. So, in case you were wondering, here are the ages of the top 17 candidates as of today, youngest to oldest (I'll keep Tommy Thompson in for this one). These are only as accurate as my quick addition math skills by the way but I'm pretty sure I've got them right:
Barack Obama- 46
Sam Brownback- 50
Mike Huckabee- 52
John Edwards- 54
Duncan Hunter- 59
Hillary Clinton- 59
Bill Richardson- 59
Dennis Kucinich- 60
Mitt Romney- 60
Tom Tancredo- 61
Chris Dodd- 63
Rudy Guliani- 63
Joe Biden- 64
Tommy Thompson- 65
John McCain- 70
Ron Paul- 72
Mike Gravel- 77
As you can read in the McCain article and for comparison, Ronald Reagan was elected to his first term at age 69, Bob Dole was 73 when he lost to Bill Clinton who was elected at age 46. John Kennedy was elected at age 43 (I had a 45 vinyl record when I was a kid called "John F. Kennedy" with lyrics that began, "John F. Kennedy, a remarkable young man was he. At age 43, elected to the Presidency." For some reason, this lyric is permanently embedded in my memory, a catchy tune I guess although I can't recall much more of the lyrics, something about commanding a PT-boat.)

Tommy Thompson study

Here is a first sketch study for the Tommy Thompson portrait. Not quite sure if this would be the pose, just a quick study of his features. I don't think the likeness is quite there yet.

Tommy Thompson's out

I have been thinking about what order I should do the portraits in, should it be random, or one Democrat than one Republican than one Other. But I think one method would be to do them as the candidates drop out. So I will return to Barack Obama later and now will focus on Tommy Thompson. If there is a mass withdrawal, I will come up with some type of order. And if there is a lull, I will bring in a third party candidate. I plan to produce 8 or so final portraits but would like to do some concepts for each of these original 17, if not more.

Iowa results

Here are the results (NYTimes):
1. Mitt Romney – 32%
2. Mike Huckabee – 18%
3. Sam Brownback – 15%
4. Tom Tancredo – 14%
5. Ron Paul – 9%
6. Tommy Thompson — 7%
7. Fred Thompson – 1%
8. Rudolph W. Giuliani – 1%
9. Duncan Hunter – 1%
10. John McCain (less than 1%)
11. John Cox (less than 1%)

Iowa straw poll & Yaphet Kotto too!

The Iowa Republican Straw Poll is here, we are sure to lose some candidates this weekend. I plan to keep this group in the mix though and will add anyone who jumps in late (Fred Thompson, Al Gore, etc.).

On that note, according to Project Vote Smart, there are currently 195 announced candidates for President: 46 announced candidates in the Democratic Party (plus 3 potentials), 57 announced Republican candidates (plus 4 potentials and 3 running, whatever running means). There are also 92 announced candidates registered as Independents or Other (plus 10 potentials). It seems my meager number of 17 misses quite a number of candidates.

I was surprised to see Yaphet Kotto's name listed as a Republican candidate. I'm looking for some verification since his site is down at the moment. Here is some cached text from his site:

Dear Friend
At this pivotal and dangerous time in our Nation's history, there is a wide spread commonly held apprehension that our country is heading in the wrong direction, and the equally powerful sense, that there is nothing that any one of us can do to stop it

The other Running Man may be running
America's ideal
Governor Schwarzenegger and Yaphet Kotto in Running Man

At times like this, the overwhelming urge to remain apathetic and hope for the best must be overcome by the courage to come together and to take a vocal position on the issues of our day

That is why the Kotto For President Committee has formed to promote a new beginning in political thought, and a new direction for the economic, spiritual and political healing of our land. The Kotto For President Committee has reached out its hand to political and social activists and leaders across the country, and currently has the endorsement of many key individuals in the arenas of entertainment, business and industry. The movie actor Yaphet Kotto, has recently agreed to become a national spokesperson for this political coalition, we believe he has a number of assets which would stand him in good stead over the professional politicians as the campaign for the Presidency develops, we hope to announce a Yaphet Kotto for President exploratory committee in the very near future.

Complete petition text.

Mr. Kotto, is best known as a stage, television and motion picture star, with over sixty major motion pictures to his credit, the world knows him from such well known films as the James Bond classic, Live and Let Die, Alien, BruBaker, Midnight Run, The Running Man and television credits such as Homicide life on the streets. As many do not know, Mr. Kotto has also been politically active over 35 years. Before becoming an actor he served as co-chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality in New York during the early 1960`s,

He advanced opportunities for people of color by assisting Congressman Adam Clayton Powell in the foundation of his CENP and helping to establish such groups as the Watts Writers Workshop, providing jobs for minority actors, script supervisors and writers in the motion picture industry proving himself to be a national leader as well as a internationally respected personality. Yaphet Kotto started taking acting classes at 16. He made his professional stage debut at 19 as Othello, and has been a pioneer for African American performers in the motion picture industry ever since. our petition urging him to run by forming a Presidential exploratory committee, and he is set to announce his final decision in early May 10th. His momentum has continued to skyrocket in the weeks from the millions of fans who have watched him over the years. The response has been overwhelming and staggering! since we first launched this petition, and you can help us keep it up by urging Yaphet to run for President today!

Dear Yaphet
Not only are you do a brilliant actor representing the best of Hollywood, in the many years on the screen you have proven yourself to be a for real inspirational national leader. From your work in the African American community, establishing a workshop in Watts, Los Angeles, and opening doors for many people before and behind the camera in the motion picture industry to your work in the congress of racial equality, winning thousands of jobs, even feeding and helping the poor people in Leyte, Philippines in their time of grief from a mudslide, you were right there digging people out of the mud and feeding them you have shown you have the best interests of all Americans and all people all over the world.

That is why I want to see you run for President in 2008. I believe that you are the right man to lead our country at a time of such turmoil around the globe, bringing Americans together at a time in our nation's history when we need unity more than ever.

I know that you stand not only for freedom; but for the fundamental moral decency and dignity of our way of life, you understand that our government must once again become the servant of the people and not a boss of the people as some leaders seem to believe they are The situation at this time for those of us in the middle class is ominous, the economic tax program that is in place has been wonderful for the very rich, For millions of hard-working middle-class families, life under Bush rule has grown less affordable and less secure. President Bush's record of fiscal incompetence and mismanagement, and the administrations' close ties with special interests, have helped lead to both lower wages and skyrocketing costs for basic necessities like gas, health care, and college tuition.

With a unifying leader like you in the White House, I know that we can produce solutions to the problems facing the middle class, Bush Republicans are ignoring them and pushing for policies that will make matters even worse. That is why I hope you will run for President in 2008.

So I can't add all of the announced candidates in the voting poll but will add any announced candidate that is nominated and seconded through a comment to this post.

Gloves off, cleavage, and Obama vs. terrorism

As part of this project, I plan to keep track of events as well as work on the portrait series. I should have sketches for these events but wanted to at least list them with links to keep track of them.
July 20: "Washington Post article on Hillary's neckline"
July 23: "CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate"
July 25: "Clinton and Obama spar during debate"
August 1: "Obama vs. terrorism"
August 1: "Fox loves Rudy"

Portrait sketches for Barack Obama

(This is backdated to fit the sequence.)
These are sketches for a Barack Obama portrait. The shirt sketch resulted from a suggestion from Bunny and Doug to go more conceptual. But a part of this project is to be less conceptual actually. I do plan however to have these portraits be something more than just a likeness, we'll see where it goes.

Barack Obama: more color comps

Barack Obama: color studies

These are three of the color studies I did tonight for the Barack Obama image. The graphic quality may not be in the final but was done to speed up the color changes.

Final sketch for Barack Obama image

This is the final sketch for the Barack Obama image. There are still a couple of spots that need to be resolved; the angle of the table, the left sleeve, the neck area. But it's ready enough for the color comp stage, six color comps of this sketch are due tomorrow.

Thirty thumbnails: Barack Obama

I'm starting out this series with Barack Obama. Our first exercise was to develop fifty thumbnail sketches for the image. One of these we will then refine into a color comp.

We were asked to describe our project using five words or less. Mine are, "Portraits documenting the Presidental race." For the Obama piece, my words are, "Seen as answer but unproven." I was asked by one of my instructor's, Bunny Carter, how I saw Barack Obama. I said he is propped up, new, high expections, viewed with caution (can he do it?).

My thoughts now are to take one of the thumbnails and use his white shirt (business, serious, white collar, respected, etc.) and enlarge it to contrast his thinness and to question his ability to fill his expected role.

Welcome...

...to my Hartford MFA blog. Here you will post my project process including research, sketches, preliminary art and final images.

Thesis: Political Portraits
My figurative work has mostly been stylized, iconic, and graphic. With this project, I hope to bring in a more representational look to my stylized images through a series of political portraits of the 2008 Presidential candidates.