Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 29: Snoopy

On today's Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle, my friends at the Charles M. Schulz Museum teach me how to draw Snoopy.

The museum offers a lot of fun homebound activities like this on its "Schulz Museum at Home" webpage. Check 'em out!

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 28: Trees

The joy of drawing happy little trees, on today's Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle. Happy Earth Day!

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 27: Dr. Xandra

Today's Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle is one of my favorite evil geniuses. No, not that one, the other one.

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 26: USS Enterprise

Today's Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle is a tall ship with a star to steer her by: the best make-believe vehicle this side of a Tardis, the USS Enterprise. Second star to the right and straight on til morning.




In today’s doodle, I call the Enterprise’s design “iconic” and say that a child could draw it. I want to explain that better. I don’t mean that a child could get the tricky perspective right, nor get all the fiddly spaceship bits in their proper places. I mean that any sketch of three cylinders and a disk arranged in about the right way will instantly read as “Enterprise” to a lot of people around the world.

Here’s an example I cropped from an old “New Yorker” cartoon by Jack Ziegler (no need to show the whole thing; suffice to say the gag’s set in a sci-fi fan’s room). That’s the Enterprise, everybody knows it, and a child could draw it. Iconic.

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 25: A Minion

Juvenile, always cheerful, with the sense of humor of a 6-year-old boy. What's not to love? Today for your Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle: a Minion.

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 24: Mom

Today's Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle is a drawing of the person without whom I would literally not be here today.

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 23: A Superhero

Today's Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle is a bust--you know, a drawing of someone's head and shoulders. In this case, a superhero's.

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 22: More Cartoon Expressions

You thought yesterday's doodle faces were expressive, just wait until we add mouths! Again, feel free to try this yourself: draw some simple circle faces with different combinations and permutations of eyes, eyebrows, mouths and other features, and see what emotions they suggest.

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 21: Cartoon Expressions

The doodles are a bit more "How To" than usual today and tomorrow. If you're at all interested in cartooning, I'd encourage you to do this yourself: draw a bunch of circles on a piece of paper, add two dots to each circle for eyes, draw a bunch of eyebrows over the eyes in different positions and angles, and see what emotion that "face" looks like it's expressing. You'll probably surprise yourself.

 

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 20: The Easter Bunny

(A conversation with my wife, exaggerated for humorous effect.)
Karen: You should draw the Easter Bunny next Friday.
Me: I already have something planned for Friday.
Karen: But it's the Friday before Easter!
Me: Yes it is.
Karen: And it's the Easter Bunny!
Me: Curse your infernal Vulcan logic.

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 19: A Daffodil

In case you've lost all track of time, it's spring! Which means the return of one of my favorite flowers, not least because it's a bulb that pops up year after year with no effort on my part: daffodils! Right now our yard is full of daffodils that we dug up after the fire and replanted around our new home. That's another reason they're one of my favorites.

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 18: Karen

Today's Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle: my wife Karen, as seen in my graphic novel "A Fire Story" and not necessarily real life. Watch the one-minute doodle to see what I mean by that.

Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle 17: Return of the Robot

Today's Sixty-Second Sticky Doodle continues yesterday's appreciation of the Robot from my webcomic "The Last Mechanical Monster," a sequel to a classic Fleischer Brothers cartoon from 1941, which is still considered one of the most beautifully drawn and lushly produced cartoon shorts ever.

Here is that original cartoon, "The Mechanical Monsters," still considered one of the most beautifully animated and lushly produced cartoons ever. Among their other good qualities, these Fleischer shorts are credited with giving Superman the power of flight. In the comic books to this point, Superman could only jump great distances, but the animators couldn't figure out how to show him doing that without looking ridiculous. Very influential on generations of creators...



...including the animators who did beautiful work like this in the 1990s...



...and the filmmakers who made movies like "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and other retrofuturistic fare.