Bert: Friend, Companion, Neighborhood Poodle

This is a self portrait done by Bert the poodle. Bert used watercolor on print making paper for this piece. Who is Bert Poodle? WEll...

Bert is a well known citizen in the area of Los Angeles where I have been living. He knows every baby, toddler and canine pup in the area and has sniffed and licked them all on numerous occasions.

In his free time, Bert is a neighborhood poodle and sits about allowing passers by to stroke and pet his furs.







For work, Bert models menswear and accessories for various catalogs and publications. I caught up with Bert while on a modeling shoot a took a few pics of him.







As Bert drew his self portrait I sat next to him and did my own version of Bert and presented it to him. He licked my wrist in return, perhaps as a way of saying "thanks" or maybe just because my wrist was tasting pretty salty.

Bat Cat: Nobody knows who I really am Process review

Everybody knows BatCat. His heroic feats are written about in newspapers, and blogs almost every day. I recently met BatCat at a feline hero support group where I was working as a caterer (mainly providing Ikura Matzoh Brae and Tarako Spaghetti). The above portrait of BatCat comes from a sketch I drew of him during my break.
After a few shots of rye whiskey and a fair amount of cat nips, BatCat opened up to me and told me his real identity. I promised not to reveal his actual name so I can only write it like this "J**** Th* C*t" (Asterix used to protect BatCat).

He gets invited to fabulous parties and red carpet movie premiers as BatCat but J**** Th* C*t has just a few friends and has trouble meeting new cats. "If I'm out as BatCat and I meet a nice cat, I always feel like they'll never know the real me anyway...so why even bother." Mewed BatCat as he rolled about in a large communal pile of catnip. "But if I go to a party as **** Th* C*t...I feel like nofeline is even interested in meowing with me at all".


I've often longed to be a super hero, but I guess I had never considered it from BatCat's perspective.

I think we all need to put ourselves in the paws of a cat hero sometimes....and understand the sacrifice that so many masked cat heroes make.






Here is the process of making the above BatCat Painting which is Acrylic Ink , Ink Pen and Water Color on Rives BFK paper.




Below is the original sketch.



The next step was to do a color test on white watercolor paper.



Then a full version on white.



Next I tried a color test with orange background.


I decided the body colors seemed too dark and didn't really represent the true bluish color of BatCat's coat...so in the final version I did a more realistic blue grey body. I may still add some ground to the final painting as I did in the above. What do you think? Which BatCat do you like best?

doggy derp

I met JAcob the Dog in San Mateo, California. I was taking a walk and he kept calling me. Arf, ARf, ARf. I'm not sure how he knew my name, but it was clear his arfs meant "Ken-Chan! おいで！” And so I went to him. I petted Jacobs head fur softly, and took this handsome picture of him in fuzziness. I love you , Jacob the dog.

Wonder Con Cosplay in Anaheim

My fellow artist pals Lonnie Milsap and Keith Knight went to sell our books at Anaheim's Wonder Con.

Lonnie does funny single panel cartoons in this two books I hate my Job and My washcloth stinks.


Keith Knight does Th(ink) , The Knight Life, and the K Chronicles which are in newspapers all over.


Of course, I was there selling my book Everybody Dies: A Children's Book for Grown Ups.

It was pouring down rain for the first day of the con, and we were too late and cheap to park in the nice underground parking, so we had to walk for many blocks in the rain. We are not very smart.

This was my first Wonder Con. There were a lot of costumed cosplayers, and some were very well done. I was also impressed by the R2D2 droids shown in the beginning of the video. I would like to have my own R2 unit, but they do break down frequently from what I've seen in the movies.

Japanese passover

I got to go to my first ever passover dinner. A Japanese woman I know married a Jewish American man and invited me to their home for Passover. She made this dish called Ikura Matzoh Brae which combines Japanese and Jewish tastes. It was surprisingly tasty. Ikura goes very well with scrambled eggs.

Passover is a long meal where you talk about stories of Jewish history and each thing you eat has some kind of significance. At one point someone hides a piece of matzoh and the others have to find it. I think this is called the Abbie Hoffman. According to Wikipedia , Abbie Hoffman is the author of "Steal this Book" and also "Hide this Matzoh". He was born in 1936 so this must be a recent tradition.