As Seen on TV

Original pen and ink version below

When I finished telecommuting at about 8:00 tonight, I sat down to a microwaved Lean Cuisine and turned on Sunday night’s 60 Minutes which I’d TiVo’d. I watched for the few minutes it took to eat my yucky TV dinner and then decided to do my daily drawing from the TV.

Since I mostly just paused the TiVo on the pictures that interested me with no sound, I can’t tell you much about the show or the people I drew except that it was all scary–the first guy in the drawing is Abu Jandal, who used to be Bin Laden’s body guard. He wants his son to grow up to be a terrorist martyr just like his daddy. The rest of the show was about the rapidly increasing global warming and Bush trying to rewrite the science and play down the warnings. So two of the other guys are scientists who are speaking out and the third is supposed to be Clinton who tried to get the scientists to make the problem sound even worse than it is. The cutest guy of all is a penguin whose environment is slowly disappearing due to global warming.

I drew this with my Lamy Safari pen, Noodlers Ink and my Aquabee sketchbook. The pen kept seeming like it was running out of ink. I think the pen does best on hard smooth paper, not on this. Or maybe it’s the angle I hold it–not upright enough perhaps. But it always seems like it’s not putting down enough ink or it’s putting down too much. Maybe it just takes more practice. The Micron Pigma is definitely easier to use but doesn’t give the variety in lines that the Lamy does.

Update: Next day I’ve added watercolor and deleted in Photoshop two lumps that were supposed to be seals. Which do you like better?