joe malloy: June 2013

DRAWING TREES

(PART ONE)

Catatonic Ode, from the Fan Free Funnies

Back in art school, I was enamored of artists such as Winsor McKay, Heinrich Kley, and Walt Kelly. One of my earliest art memories was watching my dad draw characters for me from an evening newspaper Pogo strip as I curled up beside in my pajamas. I was especially fond of Kelly’s trees.

Here’s an example of my work for the Fan Free Funnies back in Richmond, Virginia in the early ’70s. That's me in Little Nemo's bed (Winsor McKay) in the final panel. The tree with a door is heavily influenced by, if not drawn directly from Walt Kelly.

It is highly appropriate that I am dreaming of trees in Nemo's bed. I grew up wandering through Jefferson National Forest which was just over golf course hill by our house. I've lived for a time in cities but always return to the woods. I live now surrounded by a California Coast Oak forest nestled on hills above the beautiful Elkhorn Slough. I've always gotten a straight answer from a tree.

Here's the trees of Pogo's Okefenokee Swamp from Walt Kelly:

Mickey's Tree Acrylic and Ink on Bristol Board

In the sixties and seventies there were a number of artists who used cartoon and graphic illustration in their art & as inspiration, centered around the art school of Richmond Professional Institute which became Virginia Commonwealth University. Many have gone on to great things: Phil Trumbo (who won an emmy for Pee Wee's Playhouse), Charlie Vess, who is a renowned fantasy book illustrator (and draws great trees), Michael J. Kaluta who drew The Shadow and Starstruck comics, among others. I worked in a similar vein for a time but moved into a more fine arts/painting direction than graphics. Here's another tree from that period.

Here's a penciled illustration from a couple years later. Don't know why that pencil lady is planting rows of pencils. I recognize the character's pose from a large 1930's era poster that I bought around 1975:


Pencil Lady, graphite on Reeves BFK

Untitled, undated Tree, Ink

In the 80s I went back to school to study Architecture and went to work for the Virginia Department of Parks and Recreation, then Baskervill and Son, the oldest architectural firm in Virginia. But on a weekend gig as an extra on a film being shot in Richmond, I caught the movie bug. I worked a few productions in Virginia, then moved to L.A., working as mainly a Propmaster but also as a Scenic Designer for the better part of the decade following.

Malibu State Park on the set of 50 Simple Things. ink

Most of my creative energy was swallowed up by the industry but occasionally I picked up a pencil for my own art. And unsurprisingly, trees were my subject matter. A few from a sketchbook of that period.

Tree, Zen Center of Los Angeles, Ink with white highlights

While trimming a tree (!) at ZCLA, I fell off the edge of a roof and landed on cement, shattering my right foot, effectively ending my Propmaster career. In a way it was good: I was ready to leave propping as a career, but probably would have continued since the money was so good and the job so involving.

Walter White, Architect, Pastel

Not being able to touch my foot to the ground for eleven months confined me pretty much to my little monk's apartment. But it renewed my art. I mostly worked figures, hiring models or imposing upon friends to sit for me. Drawing the human figure has always been my joy. I have taught and drawn figure drawing and painting for the past 40 years, no matter what other art I was working on or what job I held. Here's examples of what I did while laid up:


Pastel Demo

These two were done as demos in a Pastel Portraiture class in the extension of Santa Monica College while I was on crutches. The reason I mention figurative work in a blog about trees is that the drawing and painting of the human body and tree forms have a lot in common. It is not for naught that arms are called limbs and our torso is a trunk. Moreover, the rounding of limbs and branches are the same in tree or human. The lessons of delineation of form through shadow and shading, of proportion and scale are the same for both, and from drawing one, we learn to better draw the other.