Ken Burns Does World War II

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This should be good.

If you are familiar at all with the work of Ken Burns, you know that he is a master of the historical documentary. His greatest and most well-known film is an award-winning series on the Civil War. You can wait for the 9-episode series to pop up on PBS, which it does from time to time, or you can buy it on DVD. It’s not exactly cheap, but well worth the investment.

I hated history in high school. It was a dull and tedious journey from one meaningless event to another. That’s why I appreciate the work of Ken Burns. In “The Civil War” he draws you in to the issues and events of the day, making the war feel less like a list of dates and battles and more like a dramatic personal event. He places the war against the backdrop of human stories, quoting actual letters and journal entries from the people who lived through it — both slave and free. It’s a cliche, but he truly makes the history come alive. If only we could have watched videos like this when I was in high school, I wouldn’t have dreaded going to class.

Burns has also created documentaries titled Baseball, Jazz, and Ken Burns’ America, and you can buy them on iTunes. The ones I have seen are fairly entertaining, but “The Civil War” is still his crowning achievement.

Now, Burns has completed a series on World War II called “The War”, which will begin airing on PBS Sept. 23. If it is even half as good as his Civil War series, it will be worth watching. Burns tries to be as objective as possible, steering away from any politics and propoganda. I find that refreshing in today’s heated social climate where so many topics are fiercly debated and everybody has an agenda. Burns says about his new series, “We wanted to tell the real stories, from the bottom up. No experts, no Monday-morning quarterbacking. You had to be in this war, or be at home waiting for somebody who was in the war, in order to be in this film.”

Visit the official website to watch video clips from “The War” and get more info.

Schoolism.com: Jeckyll and Hyde Part 2

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As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been taking a character design class online from Stephen Silver at Schoolism.com. Part 2 of this week’s assignment was to continue exploring possible designs for the story of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde.

This was a crazy busy week for me deadline-wise. I burned a lot of midnight oil, and having a storm knock out our power for a day did not help. So I didn’t get a chance to sketch these until late at night on the day they were due. I’m not happy with them, but I still want to post all my work for this class if for no other reason than to keep myself accountable and make sure I’m doing the best job I can with the limited time I have.

Hand-y Drawing Exercise

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As I’ve mentioned before, I’m taking a character design class online from Stephen Silver at Schoolism.com. This week’s assignment was another two-parter. Part 1 was to sketch a page of hands.

Next to the face, the hands are the most expressive part of the body, and therefore one of the most important features in any drawing. Its easy to get lazy with the hands, because they can be so stinkin’ hard to draw. I think there are two reasons so many artists struggle:

1. Hands are incredibly complex. I think there’s something like 27 bones in the hand and 15 joints, not to mention all the little muscles, tendons, etc.

2. Hands are always moving, and they can move a zillion different ways. There is no “standard” hand pose.

Stephen spent a significant portion of his video lecture analyzing the hand and pointing out how to break it down into manageable parts to make it easier to draw. Then he told us to go draw a page of hands, using either our own hands or photos for reference. I did my sketches from this book.

This was a great exercise and I highly recommend it. It made me realize how lazy I’ve been getting with hands in my own drawings.

Tomorrow: Part 2 of the assignment.

Stormy Weather

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Yesterday in the wee hours of the morning a nasty storm ripped through our neighborhood. My neighbor on the left had a tree fall into her back yard, my neighbor kitty corner from me also had a tree knocked over, and the neighbor on my right had a giant branch take out his telephone and TV cable lines before smashing into his fence. Another branch fell into the power lines, caught fire, and then the line snapped.

Fortunately I dodged the bullet. I had one branch down in my front yard, and in my back yard my gas grill was blown ten feet across the yard and then knocked over by the wind, snapping the handle off. Considering the gas tank was nearly full, that gives you an idea of how strong the wind was.

I’ve been swamped with projects lately, so I was up working on a deadline at 2am when the storm knocked out our power (our second power outage in two weeks). It would really mess things up for my client if I turned the project in late, so I had to pack up my computer and Cintiq and drive over to my mother-in-law’s house across town to keep working. The power is back on now and I’ll be heading back home later today.

All that to say…I’m behind on my blog posting. I usually write posts ahead of time when possible and then schedule them to publish one a day. I’ll have new content tomorrow, something actually worth reading, but for now I invite you to visit some of the excellent links listed over on the right side of this page (“Art Blogs”, “Fun Stuff”, and “Podcasts”).

Free Self-Promotion Calendar

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Self-promotion is an essential task for any freelancer…and the need for it never ends. The other day I was reading an interview with the very talented Peter de Seve, a top-tier illustrator. Even with his stellar career, he acknowledged that art directors will soon forget about you if you don’t remind them that you are still out there.

Unfortunately, many art schools don’t do a very good job of teaching their students about self-promotion. So a freelancer just starting out might feel lost, not sure what to do or how to go about it.

The established professional often has a different problem: Finding time to self-promote. The cycle looks like this: You advertise, clients start to hire you, you get busy (too busy to advertise), new clients stop hearing aobut you, work slows down or even dries up completely. And there’s no guarantee that the cycle will start up again.

Thanks to the folks at HOW magazine (an excellent magazine, by the way), now you can have a plan. They’ve just published a free 2008 Marketing Calendar. The calendar has two tracks, one for “Rookies” and one for “Veterans”, and tasks are broken into simple bite-sized chunks to keep things easy and manageable. Just download the calendar and tape it above your desk. Or, if you are more digital-saavy, you may want to enter tasks from the calendar into your computer (I use iCal) to help you stay on top of things.

Download the free 2008 Marketing Calendar here.

Airplanes Are Turning Into Subways

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Advertising is everywhere. You can’t escape it…even at 30,000 feet.

According to the New York Times, airlines such as US Airways and AirTran are getting ready to plaster ads all over the interior of their planes. The overhead compartment doors, the tray tables, even the napkins are all for sale to any advertiser who wants to shove their message in front of your travel-weary eyeballs…and keep it there for the length of your flight.

After all, buses do it. Subways do it. I guess it was only a matter of time before the airlines got into the act.

I understand that many airlines are running low on cash, and advertising brings in the bucks. But this is too much. Flying is already a hassle, and slapping ads all over the interior of the plane will only make the experience even less enjoyable.

It would be nice to find a public place where you could turn your head and not get smacked with an advertisement. These days you can’t even go to the bathroom without staring at an ad. Even my daughter’s diapers are stamped with licensed characters. An airplane was one of the few places where I thought I could give my eyes a rest. America is running out of blank surfaces. What’s next? The Amaco logo painted directly on the freeway pavement?

Maybe its time to start an anti-ad campaign. Hmm….now how would I get the word out?