Sample Ads and other things that I drew (Nothing posted was done for clients; these are all my own designs)

Drawn in Inkscape. Technical Content and Technical Communication.

Drawn with MS PowerPoint.

Seven small drawings created in Inkscape.

Grasshopper originally done in MS Paint.

This sample ad for a fictious program was created in OO.

A few more drawings--thus rounding out the month of January

Here are some drawings that I have done over the past few years. Most of them were done with the MS Paint - Photo Editor routine.

An ad of mine. Technical stuff. Computer plug was drawn with MS PowerPoint.

MS Paint.

MS Paint and Photo Editor. Eiffel Tower is an imported and enlarged icon from another program. The oval with diagonals is supposed to represent water. Crisscrossed lines and buildings are supposed to represent a cityscape.

Cat on a rock under the hot sun. Inkscape. Motivation for the cat image came from a cartoon by established cartoonist Kevin Brockschmidt.

Young man with huge glasses (like what was popular in the 70s and 80s),

And now it is 'styled' differently -

And now it has a tail -

I drew a tail and added it to the animal. I felt like I was God for a second-but I knew better, because I am not God. I was just enjoying finishing the drawing. I made a few small changes to the original animal, too, can you tell what they were? If you can tell, use the comments facility to describe the changes.

An Image that I Drew Today

This particular drawing of mine was motivated by a cover illustration by established cartoonist Lee Ames (perhaps he is retired now). I used MS Paint and MWSnap. If you know that cover illustration, then it will be obvious to you that this drawing is significantly different in style. Just for starters, the illustration has more of a round shape to the head and the eyes are not perfect ovals.

The book was written by Lee Ames and is called 'Draw 50 Famous Cartoons'.

The website of Lee J. Ames is at http://www.leeames.com/ .

The head of this drawing: I posted it yesterday. What is this drawing still missing? That's right -- it is missing something and that something is the tail.

Another Simple Face Cartoon (Thursday)

This was done in MS Paint and screenshot was done with MWSnap. Inspiration: Cover illustration of 'Draw 50 Famous Cartoons' by Lee J. Ames. He is an established cartoonist and I am not. But our names are similar.

Drawings for Tuesday

Drawn with MS Paint, gif with Photo Editor. Motivation? I like Technical Drawings and I like optical illusion.

Created on wordle.net (which is very easy to use).
Motivation? Interest in Graphic Art.

Drawn with MS Paint, gif with Photo Editor. Motivation? Music.

Drawn with MS Paint. Motivation? An MS icon on my desktop.

Drawn with Inkscape.

Drawn with Inkscape. Motivation? Science Fiction.

Drawn with MS Paint, effects applied with Photo Editor. Motivation? Architecture.

Drawn with MS Paint, gif with Photo Editor.

Motivation? A cartoon by established cartoonist Jeff Willis. His website is at http://www.jeffwillisartist.com/main.htm and today (Jan 30, 2009, Friday) that cartoon of his that was the motivation for this one is still there. Of course it has a style that is different from this one; for starters it has more of a 'sketchy' appearance, which I like.

We are both members of the Yahoo Group called Cartoonists Northwest and I sent him an email telling him about this blog and about this particular cartoon. Here is a partial copy of the reply that I just received:

...I am happy that one of my drawings could be of inspiration to you. It's a very nice compliment. Thanks. Your language and technical expertise looks very impressive too.

All the best,

Jeff Willis

Keep creating.

Styrofoam cup with coffee drawn with Inkscape. Mouse with helmet, trap, mousehole: Drawn with MS Paint, gif with Photo Editor. Motivation? Enjoyment of drawing.

Drawn with MS Paint, gif with Photo Editor. Motivation? A modification of an earlier cartoon coupled with the enjoyment of drawing.

Drawn with MS Paint, gif with Photo Editor. Motivation? Idea for a cartoon for an assignment.

Drawn with MS Paint, gif with Photo Editor. Motivation? Asian and Japanese culture. I speak Chinese and I practiced Judo in college.

Drawn with MS Paint, effects applied with Photo Editor. Motivation? I like animals and I like anthropication in cartoons.

Drawn with MS Paint, gif with Photo Editor. The red thing is a frame for a sign or poster. The forks: The one on the left is an optical illusion called the impossible fork. The other fork is a 'possible fork' that I drew out of the first.

Here are a bunch of drawings of mine.


BTW, they were created with fairly rudimentary software.

Another Simple Face Cartoon

Kind of cute and funny cartoon face. Not difficult to do if you know how to do it, right?

Well, you can describe the basics to yourself: Eyes, nose, mouth, head surrounding. But the eyes have glasses, the nose is big and square, mouth is unusual (Is it a mouth with short beard and mustache?) and head is bald.

Somehow the nose and the glasses are connected.

Visual Design Tool for Building Graphics and Images

Don't know how this is going to render on the page. It was created with Inkscape 0.43.





Some people might find it to be useful. The numbers simply refer to certain values (line thickness, color value etc.) and the listing is not complete of course. You might notice that one figure is angled differently from the other; the angle is 5 degrees.

The 5 really small disks of the image to the right are all the same size and color; the white line around them is 0.75 in weight.

Some More Drawings

Cartoons and Images

The Web lets you publish both information and artwork. Cartoons, and images of various kinds, are a kind of art.

I will be using this blog to tell people more about this form of art. My name is Jim Jones and I am a freelancer. I do many information-related things.

I am a technical writer and editor. I do translation (Chinese, German, and Spanish to English). And I do cartooning and illustration.

I have a resume on Translator's Cafe (http://zxlat.translatorscafe.com/).

I have a blog about modern spoken Mandarin Chinese at http://akn6z.wordpress.com/. (BTW I am looking for Intermediate and Advanced level remote students for private tutoring; also, I seek others who speak Mandarin who are looking for a language coach. I am especially good with standard pronunciation. My Chinese has a mild Beijing, very standard accent).

I also do Phone Interpreting for Mandarin and English. My Wordpress blog has slide shows and pdfs that outline this aspect of my freelance work. It also has a slide show that describes the tutoring. My presentations that outline this are also on slideshare.net.

Now, after the commercial interruption, back to cartooning. A good cartoon is a simple cartoon.

But a good cartoon is an interesting cartoon. Of course a cartoon is different from an illustration.

Some drawings of mine are on this page. Which are cartoons and which are illustrations?