Please extend a warm welcome to Whitney Cogar. She has come on board to lend her amazing artistic skills to Orion Xia.

Let me give Whitney the mic - take it away Whitney….

“Well as far back as I can remember everyone said I was going to be an artist when I grew up. It’s just the whole part about being a comic artist that threw everyone off. I grew up with a lot of Sonic comics but the first comic I actually followed for an extended period of time was Sailor Moon. That’s right, I grew up on manga. I had a shoujo manga style until a few years ago actually! Now my big goal is to do superhero comics for a living. Quite a change, huh? I guess I just love the sequential art medium so much that it doesn’t matter what genre or style it’s in. If it’s good I’ll read it!

I’m very honored and proud to be working with the people at Shox Studios, and I hope that I can help the group reach its full potential.”

I’m sure we’ll see some really great stuff from Whitney, as a matter of fact, judge for yourself and check her website.

My drawing skills are improving ever so slowly, but surely. The Thor sketch I did for our weekly sketchbook challenge didn’t kill me. I think I might contribute another image to the “Something Norse” theme - maybe Hagar the Horrible.

After all these years I’ve finally decided to do something about learning to draw properly in a disciplined manner. I’ve doodled over the years, but I never really focused on applying myself to developing some skills.

In my association with many very talented artists at Shox Studios, I’ve come to realize that I cannot sit on the sidelines any longer because I have a need to create. I also realized today, while drawing this week’s sketchbook challenge image, that the focus required in detailing an image forces me to slow down - I am a true child of the “everything now” syndrome. I now have to take the time to create what I visualize in my mind’s eye, and that takes patience.

To make a long story even longer - what does this have to do with Philip Tan? He’s a penciller extraordinare who contributed his considerable talents to Image Comics and their Spawn books and now is under exclusive contract with DC comics - FINAL CRISIS: REVELATIONS.

I was researching images for our recent Sketchbook Challenge, “Something Norse” when I came across Philip’s deviantART site.  His pages took my breath away.  I study his pages every day and try to mimic at least one small area on a specific page.  I especially love the way he draws hair and I’ve decided to become adept at doing hair among other things. 

I have chosen Philip’s work as a guide for some of the things I want to accomplish with my art.  Stay tuned.

I start art classes today at the Art Gallery of Ontario.  I’ll probably begin shading spheres and cubes.

Gotta crawl before you can walk or run I suppose.

At long last, I had my 1st art class last night at the Art Gallery of Ontario Gallery School, or the Anne Tanenbaum Gallery School.

I was thrilled to be sketching a white cone and 2 white spheres on white foamcore with charcoal - no, really I was thrilled.

I can’t wait until next week’s class.