Talmud Funnies #1

[avram]

Talmud Funnies (First in a series of one!)

Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sanhedrin Folio 65a:
Mishnah. A ba’al ob (He that hath a familiar spirit) is the pithom (ventriloquist, necromancer) who speaks from his armpit. The yidde’oni (wizard) is one who speaks from his mouth. These two are stoned; whilst he who enquires of them transgresses a formal prohibition.

Foolin’ around with watercolors, the Winsor Newton enamel box. Very, very portable, but I find myself missing the control I had with the Inktense pencils. I probably just need to keep working with them. And rose doré plus yellow ochre make a nice flesh tone (I laid in some gold ochre too, and it got too dark).

Comments

[eurotard.livejournal.com]

Well-managed. I can't wrangle things that clearly with a brush. Particularly like the blue on his robe. I'm personally more fond of watercolor pencil than plain ol' watercolor, but that's because I'm a control freak. I like having it more or less established where the density of color's gonna go. (That said, there's a certain frission to watching an unintentional bleed occur, particularly when it works. Sometimes I miss the art of accident.)

The lettering's a kick, too. Something pleasingly cartoony about simplified, skeletal fonts. Makes me envious, because I'm stuck doing fuddy-duddy lettering.

[avram]

Thanks. Actually, I'm kinda ambivalent about it. The drawing itself is lazy, like something I'd have drawn in college. Three years ago (my last long stretch of unemployment, when I used to go down to the local coffeeshop every day and draw) I was turning out stuff like this, and this, and this, and this.

And man, I screwed up his leg.

Yeah, I totally know what you mean about the uncontrolled aspect to watercolors, and the control freak aspect to watercolor pencils. That's the same thing I'm going through. I'm trying to force myself to loosen up.

[eurotard.livejournal.com]

While I LOVE all that stuff, you have to stop being hard on yourself and admit there's a certain pleasure to doing a Smooth Cartoon. Most of the other examples you have to hand possess a lovely scratchy quality, but what you've drawn here is more of a storybook illustration, or (more appropriately) a cel from a Fleischer Bros. cartoon. It's a different kind of thing, with its own beauty, so leave the leg alone and lay on the love.

Cheer up, li'l cartoon... He didn't mean it...

[batyatoon]

...

*dies and is ded*

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

We want more Talmud funnies! Damn. I need a geeky Jew icon.

[mister-wolf.livejournal.com]

Slick!