For a long time I wanted to draw, but I could never get the proportions right. My still life sketches were the artistic equivalent of someone who has misjudged the space constraints of a postcard, the handwriting shrinking uncomfortably at the bottom.
Color is definitely an important factor for me during all phases of producing a cover. I always start out with a loose idea of what I want to see when I'm doing my initial sketches. This choice can be informed by anything, but I usually tend to lean toward more simple color schemes... something with a very obvious push between warms and cools.
These rough sketches, which are born in an instant in the heat of inspiration, express the idea of their author in a few strokes, while on the other hand too much effort and diligence sometimes saps the vitality and powers of those who never know when to leave off.
Some of these sketches were done at the very beginning of the Pirates project, when I was trying to find a direction for myself. That was the early sixties... maybe 61 or 62.
I don't believe in making pencil sketches and then painting landscape in your studio. You must be right under the sky.
I'm so hard on myself. I play these sketches in my computer for friends and they say 'Gee whiz, the vocal's beautiful.' I hear, 'It needs to be better.'
I can't distract myself enough here, for sketches to a new opera are constantly buzzing around in my head, to the extent that I need all my strength to wrest myself from them.
The more you create, the more ambitious you become with your projects. Short films were a direct result of over 200 web series sketches and vlogs. After you create enough 2-minute videos, you start to wonder what else there is. Deadlines and discipline and quantity with a focus on quality have always been what keeps me going.
I used to do little sketches into my cassette tape recorder when I was a little boy. I would just turn it on and just start doing voices and characters. I just loved it.
My dad would write these sketches for me while I was at 'SNL.'
At any comic book convention in America, you'll find aspiring cartoonists with dozens of complex plot ideas and armloads of character sketches. Only a small percentage ever move from those ideas and sketches to a finished book.
I believe in sketching because there is something very sensitive in sketching, you know, in sketches that you don't have out of a computer that looks the same like everybody even if, later on, the dresses are OK, but I like to sketch, and I like to see trails made after my sketches that look the same. It is you know, what I like.
'SCTV' was the concept of a group ensemble doing satirical things. 'Saturday Night Live's sketches were broader than ours, more universal.
I did a lot of acting, funnily enough, unprofessionally, as a kid. From when I was 10 years old until I was about 19, I was always doing little sketches with my friends, and doing different accents and voices.
Just by nature, I think in comedy. I think in sketches and what have you. In every drama or action movie I've been in, I have to make a concerted effort not to turn it into a comedy. Every shot, before action is called and after cut is called, I'm usually in some goofy head space. It feels natural to me.
Simon Critchley's 'The Book of Dead Philosophers' - it's a quick thumbnail sketches of philosophers through the ages.
I grew up on 'S.N.L.,' doing all the sketches on the playground.
