NewsNewshttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011-10-25T20:26:05ZSquarespacewhen the cats come out the bats come outhttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011/10/25/when-the-cats-come-out-the-bats-come-out.html[Your Name Here]2011-10-25T20:21:38Z2011-10-25T20:21:38ZA batch of spooky images for October:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

]]>sacred & profanehttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011/8/3/sacred-profane-1.html[Your Name Here]2011-08-04T00:24:21Z2011-08-04T00:24:21Z

                  3 ways a noir: Ida Lupino, Jane Greer and Michèle Morgan

                         "Cleanliness" Acrylic, watercolor and ink on paper

 

 

]]>kimbra & debucourthttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011/7/22/kimbra-debucourt.html[Your Name Here]2011-07-22T20:29:05Z2011-07-22T20:29:05ZA couple of little sketchbook paintings, one of the New Zealand pop singer Kimbra and one from Debucourt:

 

 

 

]]>friend cloudhttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011/7/21/friend-cloud.html[Your Name Here]2011-07-21T07:15:29Z2011-07-21T07:15:29Z

 

]]>Midsummer Day Dreamhttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011/7/9/midsummer-day-dream.html[Your Name Here]2011-07-10T02:59:10Z2011-07-10T02:59:10Z

 

]]>Newspaper Arthttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011/7/9/newspaper-art.html[Your Name Here]2011-07-10T02:58:10Z2011-07-10T02:58:10ZI don't do a ton of commercial jobs, and those which i do are often not-completely-mine-enough to merit posting, but I thought this cover for a weekly paper turned out ok. Here's the original watercolor I did for it: 














And here's it was post-editing on the stands:








It was illustrating an agricultural story about using only natural rainfall for wine crops, which is I guess the old-timey way. A detail in the story about how deep the roots will go in search of water when they have to stuck with me. I tried to strike an emotional tone that wasn't the default editorial cartoonist glib condemnation, which unfortunately is usually my first instinct. Bone-deep from growing up reading editorial cartoons. I tried to aim for a bit of compassion, this being a world we're all stuck making and living in, and not always aware of other  possibilities beneath our feet. 



]]>from the watercolor padhttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011/7/6/from-the-watercolor-pad.html[Your Name Here]2011-07-06T22:40:20Z2011-07-06T22:40:20Z

 

]]>SPX in Stockholmhttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011/5/23/spx-in-stockholm.html[Your Name Here]2011-05-24T06:02:18Z2011-05-24T06:02:18Z I just spent a week in Stockholm, Sweden for the Swedish SPX and it was a great experience and a lovely city. I always expect that I'll do more drawing on trips than I end up doing and I'm frankly baffled and envious of those who manage it. It's like people who can get a bunch of heavy reading and writing done on long plane rides, I think they must be in business class or something because the best I can manage is some squirmy sleep and heavy-duty dissociation.  But I did do a page or two of doodles in my sketchbook. Here's a triptych of Stockholm street fashion:
I did a lot of photo-taking, most of which ended up on Vanessa Davis's great flickr set of the trip.  There was really too much great stuff and great people to go into all of it in what's essentially a sketchbook-dump-blog, but we were super grateful to our SPX-hosts Kristiina Kolehmainen, Johannes Klenell, as well as our house-hosts Austin English and Clara Bessijelle Johansson for letting us stay with them.    Some good accounts of the show here:  http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/05/13/convention-report-swedish-spx-2011/ http://www.topshelfcomix.com/blog/690
Vanessa Davis, Dash Shaw & MK Reed
Simon Gärdenfors, far left
Shannon O'Leary, Gabrielle Bell
Eric Reynolds, Shaw
]]>Pin-Up Processhttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011/4/20/pin-up-process.html[Your Name Here]2011-04-21T00:01:34Z2011-04-21T00:01:34Z

A couple of weeks ago I drew a pin-up gag cartoon for Jim Linderman's Vintage Sleaze blog. Jim is a folk art collector and general cataloguer of weird-time Americana, on Dull Tool Dim Bulb and historical books like the Grammy-nominated Take Me To The Water , so it was a real treat to do something for his site. This cartoon was a bit more involved, process-wise, then my usual doodles, so I thought it'd merit a process blog.

I'm an admirer of gag cartoonists like Bill Wenzel and Dan DeCarlo, as well as the classic illustration chops of Russell Patterson, so I decided to draw suitably ribald, but hopefully a bit lush and colorful too. Dancing girls are a staple of those strips (along with such staples as workplace sexual harrassment, infidelity, and wardrobe malfunction) The vintage burlesque is full of pattern and pageantry that is fun to draw. I did some hasty research for old time showgirl images:

 

I roughed out a pose in my sketchbook before I really knew how the joke was going to be executed:

(note the 3 Patterson studies in the center)

I drew it first in pencil (which I seem to have misplaced, but trust me that it's frustratingly superior to the final inked version).

I then used a light box to ink the pencils:

...I mainly did this so I wouldn't have to fuss with erasing. After scanning the above image, just to have a record, I watercolored the page. Then I had to figure out what actual the gag would be, after hemming and hawing on the exact wording I settled on the final caption, which I lettered in Photoshop, using the Futura bold font, a go-to type for pulp tabloid editors (and Barbara Kruger):                                           

                                                            (click it to see it at actual size)

 
]]>New comic: Boetimus and Paulushttp://www.alixopulos.com/news/2011/3/4/new-comic-boetimus-and-paulus.html[Your Name Here]2011-03-04T17:35:50Z2011-03-04T17:35:50Z

 

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