Happy Pirate Day!

It's International Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day! To participate, all you need to do is speak as you normally would, as pirates are a cosmopolitan bunch and are no more likely to say "arrrr" than the average member of the populace. Peg legs and black flags are optional.

The crew of The Maelstrom offers you their fondest wishes this day. Everyone from The Gladiator, to Piggyback Peter, The Night Scowl, Missus Mace, The Leopard and Her Handler, Jake the Gnome, The Sea Witch of Ste Marie, and even Distracted Samuel, the Manual Man-Damager.

I've been reading (listening to) THE PENGUIN BOOK OF PIRATES (Libby, Amazon, Bookshop.org). Based entirely on the title and the cover, my expectations were low. I thought it would be old and superficial. Instead, there's a lot to recommend it. It's a recent publication, so the sensibility is modern. The editor, Katherine Howe, has pirate blood in her veins. And the bulk of the book is made up of written accounts from pirates themselves, sailors who encountered pirates, and other documents from the era. It's straight, uncut pirate juice. And it's available as an audio book, too, which is well-read.

Unfortunately, I am not drawing any pirates right now.

But, I am looking forward to how this panel will turn out (below).

File this squarely in the category of "drawing a crowd is hard work, but when you need one, you might as well make it count and try to enjoy it." There's a lot of that right now.

I noticed I've been getting more fiddly with my drawing lately, especially when it comes to getting the characters looking right. Ideally, I'd be drawing in smooth, unfussy strokes. Except I like how my pencilled characters have been looking lately, so maybe it's time to set aside my desire for unfussy strokes (arbitrary) in favour of doing what I need to get the results I like (practical).

On the topic of "smooth, unfussy strokes," are you familiar with Al Hirschfeld?

 In animation school we were all agog for his work because A) it's expressive, beautiful, and full of character, and B) Disney's Fantasia 2000 had recently come out, and Hirschfeld either participated in or was a clear influence on one of the sequences. I think all of us students assumed that his long, swooping lines were the product of a steady hand and much practice. Clearly each line must have been executed in one movement, right? I just looks like it.

Then we saw a video of him working, and I know I wasn't the only one whose jaw hit the floor. His long, swooping lines were actually the product of many, many very careful, very precise little strokes. It was exactly the opposite of what we all expected. His drawing method was fastidious, not bold and sweeping.

This is all to say that sometimes I get in my head about what the ideal way to work must be. "Draw from the shoulder, not the wrist," etc. etc. In the end, though, the audience doesn't know, and it's only the results that matter.

(Which is not to say that practising different techniques is not valuable in many often unknowable ways, but that's a tangent on a tangent.)

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Back to drawing! Everyone please enjoy the changing of the seasons and continue being perfectly lovely to one another.

Until next week,
I remain,
uncut pirate juice,

TC