Rob's Blog

Tag: Rob Smith Jr

My Ha-Ba-Da-Bee live drawing from July 18th: Along the cobblestone road.

by on Jul.31, 2020, under Cartooning, Illusration

My Ha-Ba-da-Bee live drawing from July 18th.
 
This was one of the days I wasn’t feeling well and set aside the usual audience contributions and just started drawing an elephant. The rest I made up as I went along.
 
Someday soon I’ll post a sped-up video of me drawing this.
 
This is 16″ x 20″. Various brush pens on heavy paper.
Drawn in about an hour.
 
Next Ha-Ba-Da-Bee: Saturday at 3pm. About an hour.
Live Warm-Up: Friday, Monday and Wednesday at 1pm.
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My projects in progress: Last minute project! Will I get it done in time?

by on Jun.14, 2018, under Caricatures, Cartooning

Last minute projects are always fun challenges. This one is three illustrations in color by Friday with meetings scattered in between. Let’s see if I make it! 🙂
I’ll post results Friday.
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#MondayMotivation art: My cartoon drawn of a cow, Mars and saving whales.

by on Jun.08, 2018, under Cartooning

Monday Gar Gernstein answered the request with:
“Place: Mars; Animal: Cow; Activity: Saving the Whales.”
This is what i came up with.
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Book: ‘You Can’t Get There from Here’ by Ogden Nash – June 7th, 2018

by on Jun.07, 2018, under Books

You Can't Get There from HereYou Can’t Get There from Here by Ogden Nash
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ogden Nash was so much fun with his verse! This collection is an excellent collection of a joy in verse mostly lost today. These are later works by Nash with wonderful illustrations by Maurice Sendak.

Favorites in this collection are: ‘The Pizza’, ‘A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor’, ‘And how Keen was the vision of Sir Launfal?’ and ‘How to Marry a Husband’.

Bottom line: i recommend this book: 10 out of 10 points.

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Here’s my inked doggie for the Jane Gang Unleashed! – June 3rd, 2018

by on Jun.03, 2018, under Cartooning, Illusration

Here’s my inked doggie for the Jane Gang Unleashed!

The Jane Gang Unleashed sounds like just another of the multitude of vicious gangs that roam all parts of #Florida looking to destroy us all.
In this case the Jane Gang Unleashed is a trio of musicians who play folk music. The leader of the Gang is a pup named Jane.
Thus the illustration of a strumming canine above.
You can hear and learn more about the Jane Gang Unleashed here:
https://www.reverbnation.com/JaneGangUnleashed

The illustration is for their t-shirts & other collateral materials.
A color version is coming soon!

The Gang also includes one of my co-workers at Orlando City Hall from years ago, SusieCool Foster-Trewick.

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ROBbing a Few Minutes: Requests- A pig & a Bicycle. Sped-up.

by on May.30, 2018, under Cartooning

The request: A pig and a bicycle.
The result: Using no pencils. Drawn entirely freehand.
 
Drawn live at the #Florida 2018 Homeschool Convention.
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ROBbing a Few Minutes!: Video of me drawing my #MerMay #cartoon: A Mermaid and a bear

by on May.29, 2018, under Cartooning

ROBbing a Few Minutes!:
Sped-up video of me drawing my #MerMay #cartoon: A Mermaid and a bear as contributed by Hannah from Orange Park.
No pencils involved. Drawn entirely freehand.

#MerMay2018 #NoPencils

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Book: ‘Heart of the Mountain Man’ by William W. Johnstone – May 17th, 2018

by on May.17, 2018, under Books

Heart of the Mountain Man (Mountain Man, #25)Heart of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

The book that preceded this one, ‘Guns of the Mountain Man, was just terrible. A bulk of the book were pages and pages of previous books framed as a flashback. Here the formula continues to a lesser extent.

I don’t know what was happening in the Johnstone Clan stable at the time of the publication of this book. Was Johnstone fighting illness now and unfinished books were filled with other content to beef them up? Was Johnstone thinking such reflection necessary? But why at 25 books into the series such a dramatic change of course? There had been reflection in past books occasionally, but not at the rate of ‘Guns’ and then this one, ‘Heart of the Mountain Man’.

Instead of Smoke’s wife being kidnapped, this time it’s the sheriff’s with not unexpected results ensuing. One plus is references to various characters that populate the town and area usually not mentioned much after their initial appearance. The writing is fine. The characters always good. The settings lacking.

The title stinks and cover art useless. I get the tradition of the one word followed by ‘of the Mountain Man’, but I’m dumbfounded why better words are hardly ever used at this point. That and just any ol’ tin type form hundred plus years ago is tacked on the cover. I know this changes later, but, unfortunately not much for the better.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 4 out of 10 points.

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Book: ‘Guns of the Mountain Man’ by William W. Johnstone – May 14th, 2018

by on May.14, 2018, under Books

Guns of the Mountain Man (Mountain Man, #24)* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

Guns of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I don’t know what was happening within the Johnstone Clan stables in the late ’90s, when this book was published. Perhaps they were grappling with the few series of books they were chugging out at the time or this is when William Johnstone began getting ill, ultimately leading to his death in 2003. Whatever was occurring, this book should never have seen the light of day. As with Mountain Man books just previous to this one, the book stinks.

The worse of this book is re-re-re-re-revisiting the story of Smoke stopping the “tree”ing of a town. As the Johnstone Clan has proven later in the 2000s, as the Johnstone seemingly-nearly-endless series began, there are a ton of other stories to create beyond the treeing of a town. Again, i believe something was going wrong at the time with the Johnstones and these books were pumped out to fulfill contracts.

Next worse, is the horrible & lazy act of filling about 3/7ths of the book with content of other books. As a writer myself, I know it would be easier to write in fluffy filler, than researching sections of older books and cut and paste into the newer. I believe this gets back to problems in the Johnstone stable where multiple people were assembling these books and adding earlier sections of books to fluff out a short story written by someone else, all the while fighting deadlines for their contracts. I’d hate to think the filler was intentional. Filler cheats the reader and is wrong.

Next is the story. No surprises. Nothing new. In fact, an old location is used and a shorter version of the original story with the location is presented. More cheating the reader.

Characters are very good, as, I believe, is the hallmark of the Johnstone Clan series. A huge boo-boo is made involving one main character who’s dialogue is written one way in the actually story, but written differently in section cut in from another book.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 2 out of 10 points.

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A drawing for APEril as April ends! – April 30th, 2018

by on Apr.30, 2018, under Cartooning

Being away from Facebook more than usual during April, I’ve missed much! One is cartoonist John Sanford’s newist challenge – APEril! Drawing our swinging simian pals during the entire month. Thanks to seeing cartoonist Stacy Curtis APEril post this last day, I got clued in and here’s my chimp!

I did this, per chance, last week as a warm up at Lollicup before working on the River Rats comic.

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My finished projects: Watercolor painting for client! – March 28th, 2018

by on Mar.28, 2018, under Caricatures, Illusration

Fiona likes to cook, grow her garden and takes trips back to her native England. The professional organization she is a leader of has a stuffed bobcat mascot, that I added as her helper.
This is watercolor on Crescent board (Now that Arches is gone.)

 

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