Friday, October 5, 2018

Blogtober Day 5: The Pumpkining



For today's Blogtober post I watched what I feel is a Halloween staple. Watching it means a night full of nostalgia, reminiscing about the comics and reading them as a child, and it just feels right. It's not October if I haven't watched it.

The fantastic draw to the Peanuts cartoons is that we can all relate a little bit to each character, and it makes it easy to get invested in watching their adventures and interactions. I think I'm mostly Sally and Linus about Halloween, and holidays in general. I don't want to let go of my childish wonder, love for heartwarming traditions, and the search for magic. 

And sometimes I'm Charlie Brown too- I try to go along with others to see if I'll have fun, but I bungle it somehow and end up with a bag of rocks.

Visually it's as pleasing of an animated work as you can get. You see the simple, swooping line art and color blocks from the comic art made into a more immersive scene with the addition of watercolor swirls and patches of color bleeding into one another. It reminds me of the work of another brilliant artist, Eric Carle (you know, of Brown Bear, Brown Bear  and also The Very Hungry Caterpillar). The texture of the tissue paper and watercolors are almost tangible and really a great technique for making a rich background for any scene.

The look of hand drawn comics has always inspired me, and as a kid I spent hours staring at Calvin and Hobbes marveling at the art. I love how they represent real life beautifully without having to be detail accurate. You get the impression of things with a simplistic drawing that in the end is nicer to look at than a picture-perfect replica of life, with too many details and additions and hangups.

I attempted to try a bit of my own Halloween themed comic sketching but really wasn't enjoying how my witch-o-lantern was coming out so I just flipped the page and went with whatever, and ended up creating a full page of weirdness that I now love and only regret having done on lined paper.

























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