Animated and Cartoon Dads

In honor of Father's Day, let's explore animated and cartoon Dads. One of the earliest examples of husband and father is Dagwood Bumstead who first appeared in the Blondie (née Boopadoop) comic strip created by Chic Young in 1930. Over several years, Blondie transformed from a carefree flapper to a sensible suburban housewife, while her (then) rich boyfriend Dagwood went from wealthy straight man to penniless clown.

He was father to Baby Dumpling (Alexander) and Cookie Bumstead. The film series ran from 1938-1950, starring Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake.

Another popular comic strip (turned movie) was called, Bringing Up Father, which was created by cartoonist George McManus and ran from 1913-2000. The strip is about an immigrant Irishman named Jiggs who wins the lottery and can't seem to lose his middle-class ways. His wife, Maggie, wants him to rise to the upper class. They are raising daughter Nora and son Ethelbert.

Films

One of my favorite films, starring Irene Dunn and William Powell, is Life With Father (1947). The film was based on a 1939 play inspired by the 1935 autobiography of stockbroker and (The New Yorker) essayist Clarence Day. Father is a straitlaced turn-of-the-century man living in a household of boys whose mother (Vinnie) rules the roost. You may recall that Elizabeth Taylor played the young girl visiting from out of town who becomes the love interest of Clarence Jr.

In 1950, Dennis the Menace appeared on the scene with his rather innocuous father Henry Mitchell and wife Alice. The strip was created by Hank Ketcham. Neighbor Mr. Wilson is more prominently involved in Dennis' capers and we only see Henry leaving for work or arriving home to hear about Dennis' exploits. The popular TV series ran from 1959-63 with Joseph Kearns and Gale Gordon playing Mr. Wilson. Let's not forget the 1993 film version starring Walter Matthau as Mr. Wilson.

We all remember the character of Peter Pan. He first appeared in 1902 in The Little White Bird by J.M. Barrie, in his 1904 play, and later in the 1952-3 animated version by Walt Disney. Maybe you recall George Darling as the father of the children (Wendy, John, and Michael) that Peter visits and carries away to Neverland. While the Robin Williams 1991 film version, Hook, has George Darling as a grown-up Pan, the father has doubled as Captain Hook in the 1954 musical version starring Mary Martin. For my daughter, we always referred to this as the 'people version' of the Disney animation.

Animation & Cartoon Characters

In the 1956 children's novel by Dodie Smith, Pongo is the dalmatian father responsible for 101 puppies. He also appeared in the 1961 Disney animation and the 1996 movie starring Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil. I'm not sure about the 2021 prequel, Cruella starring Emma Stone as a young Estella/Cruella.

In the 1940s Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Tom and Jerry cartoons, Tom was often tormented by Spike. The American bulldog and his son, Tyke also appeared in (1957) animated short subjects.

My favorite animated dad has to be 1959-61 Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Doggy Daddy (father to Augie Doggie). I think they were Bassett hounds. See my post, Animated and Cartoon Dogs from December 2021.

Talking Great Dane Scooby-Doo (Scoobert "Scooby" Doo) and best pal/owner Shaggy (Rogers) comprise the bungling duo of the Mystery Inc detectives.  In 1979 Hanna-Barbera added Scooby's son, Scrappy-Doo. As with Augie Doggie, Scrappy was smarter than his canine father.

Popeye was uncle to four nephews: Pipeye, Peepeye, Poopeye and Pupeye. He was also father to adopted son, Swee'pea. Poopdeck Pappy also appeared as Popeye's father in the cartoon series created by E. C. Segar in 1936.

Papa Smurf was the patriarch of the little blue elfin creatures that first appeared in 1958. He's the only character who didn't wear white. He was voiced by many talented voice actors, including Mandy Patinkin. There was even a Grandpa Smurf who was voiced by Jonathan Winters.

The Flintstones (1960-66) character Fred was based on bus driver Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) from the Honeymooners. Even the voice of Wilma is reminiscent of that of Alice Kramden (Audrey Meadows). Fred became a father in 1963 when his daughter Pebbles was born. Also in the third season, Bamm-Bamm was adopted by neighbors Barney and Betty Rubble.

The Jetsons began in 1962 with "Rosey the Robot" maid. George Jetson was father to teenager Judy and younger son Elroy Jetson. Hanna-Barbera and Disney were responsible for giving us animated family entertainment.

The Rugrats (1991-2006) was about the exploits of the Pickles kids from their perspective. Big sister, (meanie) Angelica, Tommy (main character), and baby Dil were fathered by Stu Pickles. His father, Lou also appeared in the cartoon series, along with redheaded Chuckie Finster (and his father Chas).

I never got the chance to go to a baseball game with my father. Luckily, I 've gone to many professional baseball games with my daughter.

Mona Lisa -- Mysterious Enigma, Misunderstood Masterpiece?

Mona Lisa (1503-06), da Vinci

While Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is perhaps the most famous painting of all time, attracting tens of thousands of viewers each day at the Louvre in Paris, it is also one of the most misunderstood artworks. Initially, the 3/4-view portrait of the supposed Italian housewife was copied by artists who admired it for its realism and "subtle gradations of light and shadow" (sfumato) employed by Leonardo. The imaginary background is also admired for its smoky quality, making it both landscape and portrait. Viewers are more taken in by her 'smile'.

Da Vinci produced the small portrait of an ordinary woman whom scholars identify as Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. She is wearing a veil which is difficult to make out amidst the rest of the dark shades employed in her hair and costume. Other paintings of Florentine women typically show more opulent dress including jewelry and rosy cheeks. The subtlety of expression and apparent lack of eyebrows make her less interesting, though more mysterious, than her contemporaries.

LHOOQ (1919), Duchamp

It wasn't until its theft in 1911 that the painting began to increase in popularity. Even when I visited the Louvre a hundred years later, people crowded around a small window to view it deeply shrouded inside a secured chamber. Get ready for disappointment!

Perhaps it was Marcel Duchamp's kitschy mustached reproduction, mocking her as 'the ideal of feminine beauty', that reinvigorated its post-war popularity. My March 2020 post about Shamrocks, Bowler Hats, and Irish Artists shows Lisa wearing a bowler hat. I guess it's the mystery behind the painting, its theft, and the desire to see the real painting amidst all the reproductions that fuel the attraction. See more in the article, "Why is the Mona Lis so Famous?".

Girl with a Paearl Earring
(1665), Vermeer

Personally, I much prefer Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, also known as the 'Mona Lisa of the North' or the 'Dutch Mona Lisa'. A young Scarlett Johansson portrayed the subject (Griet) in the 2003 movie. A little publicity for the northern version!

The Cast of Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

Although I've seen several movies depicting Leonardo da Vinci as a character, I've yet to see one about his Mona Lisa. Curiously, there is the 2003 movie entitled, Mona Lisa Smile, which starred Julia Roberts as an educator, along with three other beauties. And a 1986 British crime-drama movie called Mona Lisa about a call girl.

Tomei as Mona Lisa Vito (1992)

In My Cousin Vinny (1992), Marisa Tomei costars as Mona Lisa Vito, the spunky and obstinate fiancée of Joe Pesci. Even the name of the famous portrait subject gets reused, perpetuating the title and its worldwide recognition! Let's not forget the song of the same name recorded by Nat King Cole in March of 1950.

So, would Mona Lisa be as famous without the somewhat anonymous name, enigmatic expression (the smile), theft attempts, or admired painting techniques? Maybe the mystery itself is what attracts us to it!

Pumpkin Carving 2022

My Cheshire Cat (2022), Patterson

More and more I enjoy pealing the skin off a pumpkin to create layers of value for my jack-o-lanterns. The deeper you go, the lighter that area becomes. Completely cutout areas will be bright yellow, while the uncut (skin) areas will have the darkest value. A bonus feature of these shaded pumpkins is that they look good (unlit) in the daylight.

Here's my Cheshire Cat pumpkin. It looks much better with the ears punched through. I also love how leaving the skin around the eyes, nose, and mouth creates an outline, further emphasizing those features.

I carved triangles and diamonds in the lid and on the back side to create chimneys to allow heat to escape. If you carve your lid somewhat symmetrically, then you can rotate the lid to allow for ventilation.

Frankie (2021), Patterson

My favorite pumpkin from last year has to be my Frankenstein head. The lid made for great looking monster hair. By cutting slits in the top edge of the opening the hair was further reflected onto the face, and a larger slit created a gash for a scar. Sometimes the best carvings result from an inspiring pumpkin shape. I didn't need to carve ears, but I did use small scraps and toothpicks to create the electrodes on his non-existing neck.

If you are going to attach ears to your pumpkin, simply cut out an oval shape (or ring) then rotate it and reinsert so that the light can highlight it from both front and back. Notice also how the eyelids are suggested with skin as the outline, while the facial accents are again slits carved all the way through. No shading required!

Every year I search the web for ideas. My Cheshire Cat was inspired by a picture of a pumpkin carving that I found online. The hard drive of my desktop PC before I could get a copy of it on my printer. I also lost MS PowerPoint where I had stored the image. My wife's printer cut off part of the image, so I improvised. I had to figure out how to make the mouth using small triangles on the bottom and larger ones on the top. Everything was carved freehand without using any markers for laying out the lines. For Frankie, I used a photo of a drawing of the monster then made my own inspired design.

Harry (2022), Ken Patterson

I carved a Harry Potter face this year. The example I found has some wonderfully jagged lines and uses peeling for most of the face. The deepest cuts are for his scar (from he who will remain nameless), his eyes, ears, and at his temples. Surprisingly, it only took ~1 hour to complete. I ended up scraping the entire face later but forgot to leave skin for the dark eyebrows. I pushed straightened paperclips through the flesh (from the back) to attach pieces of pumpkin skin above the eyes. Now it looks much more like the young wizard instead of a creepy Chucky doll. It will look even better with glasses made out of wire. The black dots in his eyes are black-headed straight pins. I'm thinking of adding large green sequins for the irises. The entire look is growing on me. It looks better when viewed or photographed from above.

Daytime Harry (2022)

Here's how Harry looks during the daytime and with wire spectacles added. I also added some orange pumpkin sequins (couldn't find green) for irises.

Martha Stewart pumpkin & Mr. Bill

Our pumpkin carving party with the family was a great success. We served pizza and pumpkin pie and take-home caramel apples. We texted photos of our jack-o-lanterns to family members not in attendance and asked them to guess who carved which pumpkin. We also watched the Seahawks beat the NY Giants. Here are two cookie-cutter creations.

Traditional Jack-o-Lanterns

The next two are pretty traditional jack-o-lantern faces. They were carved free hand except for the mouth on the one on the left. He used a cookie cutter shape and repeated it to make the mouth. My sister-in-law got creative and made hair for her pumpkin by carving away the skin and some of the flesh. I like her skeleton nose complete with nostrils.

Symmetric Pumpkin & Chewbacca the Wookie

My sister-in-law's husband decided to carve his second pumpkin by reusing the same cookie cutter for the eyes and mouth. There was lots of hammering going on in order to get the cuts to go most of the way through the flesh. He even inverted the tool to get symmetry in the face. I chose to carve the head of Chewbacca the Wookie from Star Wars, although he could also pass for the Sasquatch.

The Mandalorian (2022), Ken Patterson

We grew two pumpkins this year but didn't carve them. I used another store-bought pumpkin to carve the Mandalorian helmet. It was challenging to carve a black and grey helmet with only little shiny spots on the metal shapes. The deepest cuts were for the eyes and the outside defining the ears and left and right sides of the helmet.

Since my daughter chose not to participate, and her uncle brought a green pumpkin, I carved Grogu ('Baby Yoda') from the Star Wars Disney+ television series The Mandalorian.

Three of the most challenging for me. Mandalorian actually looks best in darkness (below). I love how Baby Yoda looks at twilight (right). Tonight, a 9-yr-old girl told me how much she admired my pumpkins. And she recognized the Wookie! She was definitely a Star Wars fan!!

Here's a photo of my pumpkins all lit up on Halloween night!

My Inspirations for Creating Art

From Fox broadcast at Field of Dreams (8/12/21)

Lately, I have been inspired by what I see on social media, TV, commercial ads, and of course movies. I've even captured images from what is being displayed on my TV using my cellphone. It's overwhelming how many photos I've conveniently stored there. I wonder how the old masters would have used the technology and media of today to capture, store, and manipulate images more readily and without spending hours observing, sketching, and drawing what they saw. Of course, they had to rely much more on their own imagination, models, painting outdoors from nature, and the work of other artists for inspiration.

Paint 3D Landscapes
by Jon Patterson

Producing art can be its own inspiration. Practicing and experimenting with techniques and media provides new ideas and develops new skills. I'm constantly reading, consulting my own library of art books, researching topics and artists online, and journaling about future art posts. I find that my art colleagues and my own brother produce much more art than I do, which inspires me to create more art. I've already completed five new works using Paint 3D. And I'm working on an acrylic portrait of one of my favorite baseball players.

Ballet (after Degas)
Ken Patterson

While planning and preparing to teach art to others, I often get inspired to create my own examples for my students or pull images from online sources. For my pastels class, I tried my hand at reproducing a Degas painting as a way of employing many of the techniques I was intending to share with my students.

Bryce and Friends (2021), Ken Patterson

I am also inspired by things in my own life, including of course my pets. I look forward to our annual trip to Palm Springs and our visits to the California dog parks along the way. Here is a pastel version of a photo I took of my dog and two of his new dog park friends. The gravel surface gave me an opportunity to play with color and texture with a nod to impressionism.

Castle Landscape (2022), Ken Patterson

Sometimes my inspiration is a combination of an example I provided for a class, its rendition created by a student, and the challenge to recreate it in Paint 3D. I included it in my latest 'How To' post.

View from Cedar Butte (2022), Ken Patterson

Probably my favorite source of inspiration is nature. While I love doing portraits, I am learning to love painting landscapes, especially from photos. I plan to do more of these using some of my daughter's photos captured during her visits to Italy and adjacent countries. On our recent hike of the Cedar Butte Trail, I photographed the view from the top and painted it using Microsoft Paint 3D. Pretty good, considering I used a mouse on my desktop PC!

Milo Redwood & Studio

The work of other artists has inspired me in many ways. It inspires many of my blog posts. It's been fun for me to interview local artists and learn what inspires them. I often chat up artists when visiting their studios. I'll even engage with museum curators or volunteers to find out more about specific art exhibitions.

Son of Man (1963), René Magritte

Movies can be another source of inspiration and it's fun to watch for famous art being used in the background sets. I've blogged about that too, as far back as March 2020 with my Movie Art Cameos post. "The Thomas Crown Affair" uses the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a backdrop for its romantic art caper. In it, you will see works by Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pablo Picasso, and, of course, René Magritte's "The Son of Man".

The photography can also be pretty impressive. Many of my brother's paintings were done using professional photographic compositions created by my sister-in-law.

So, what inspires you? Living with intentional observation, reading, journaling, sketching, drawing, taking photographs, taking art classes, visiting museums, and experiencing nature will enrich your life and may make you a better artist. If nothing else, it will allow you to appreciate life and share it with others.

More Artist Jeopardy

Back in February of 2020, I posted Artist Jeopardy. As a follow-on challenge for both Jeopardy fans and art enthusiasts, here are four more categories to test your knowledge of famous artists. I'll start with my own Jeopardy bio-story.

I’ve been watching Jeopardy since Art Fleming hosted it prior to my high school graduation in 1975. I’ve written several of my own Jeopardy answers over the years. My first game was in 1992 in honor of my parents' 40th wedding anniversary; the answers were all about their married life and Mom won. Fun fact: Mom was a 3-day winner on Concentration (with Host Hugh Downs) when I was in the first grade.

My next game was in the late 1990s with several Art categories that I presented on behalf of the Interurban Center for the Arts in my version of their Projects, Projects class taught to prospective elementary school parent volunteer art docents. Then, in 2005 during my City University Master’s Program, I played Jeopardy Host, Alex Trebek in a version of the game devoted to the subject of Project Management. So, I’ve been part of the game for over 50 years! Maybe I should become a writer for Jeopardy!! Do they even have guest writers?

And the categories are...

WOMEN OF ABSTRACT
EXPRESSIONISM

THE ART OF BASEBALL

For the Video Daily Double

ARTIST'S MUSEUMS

(Name the City)

FATHERS OF ART

MOVEMENTS

Avatars, Doppelgangers, and Lookalikes

How They Met Themselves
(1864), Rossetti

One of the few paintings that uses doppelgangers is How They Met Themselves (1864) by English poet and painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. There is some argument over which couple is the unreal pair, although I am guessing the couple on the left because of the glow surrounding them. The fact that the girl on the right is swooning indicates her shock and surprise at seeing their duplicates. However, the other opinion would argue that she is a zombie like that of Boris Karloff's monster. The couple on the right also seem paler by comparison.

Girl with a Pearl Earring
(1665), Johannes Vermeer

Clearly, there has been some spot-on casting of doppelgangers in the movies. For example, the 2003 movie starring Scarlett Johansson as Griet in the Girl with a Pearl Earring. I'm pretty sure that Johannes Vermeer is NOT Colin Firth's double!

She has also been included in several of my other blog posts: Mona Lisa, French & Italian Art Museums, and Masks and other Face Coverings Throughout History, art, TV, and Movies.

Lust for Life (1956)

Kirk Douglas made a perfect Vincent Van Gogh in the 1956 movie Lust for Life. My March 2020 post, Artist Portrayals in Movies – Twelve of My Favorite Biopics also included Andy Garcia as Amedeo Modigliani.

Johnny Depp as
Edward Ratchett

Portrait of Jean Alexandre
(1909), Amedeo Modigliani

Speaking of Modigliani, his 1909 Portrait of Jean Alexandre looks a bit like the victim Edward Ratchett played by actor Johnny Depp in 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express.

The Arnolfini Portrait (1434),
Jan van Eyck

Seen in my August 2020 post, Thing that go Together in Art…, the man resembles Vladimir Putin. I almost didn’t include this likeness for obvious reasons, though there are several others I purposely excluded. Feel free to look them up in the article, Famous People and Their Doppelgängers in Art. on the Daily Art Magazine website.

Schulman

Frazier

Turning to baseball players, and specifically the Seattle Mariners, here are two players with somewhat famous doppelgangers. Recently, I caught an episode of a reality show called Catfish TV with host, Nev Schulman. I thought he looked remarkably like Mariners second baseman, Adam Frazier.

Raphael Self-Portrait

Then, I was looking at my post, entitled 10 Artist with April Birthdays, and found that Raphael’s Self-Portrait resembled Mariners Starting Pitcher, Logan Gilbert. Usually Logan is photographed smiling, so it was hard to find a more pensive Gilbert.

Kal Korff

My own doppelgangers were pointed out to me when I was still working. One of my software development colleagues found a much younger picture of Kal Korff, author of Area 51 books, and posted copies all over our office. Fortunately, it was much more flattering than the photo I found and included here.

Terry Fator

Then, I was in line at an espresso stand on my way to work and someone in front of me told the barista that I looked like 2007 AGT winning ventriloquist Terry Fator. I probably should have kept that one to myself because it stuck for many years. At least it replaced the other one!

Costumed Fridas (2017) care of DMA

Check out this article, Over 1,000 Frida Kahlo Lookalikes Gather in Dallas in a Quest for a New Guinness World Record, on Art Net / Art World about the July 2017 celebration of Frida Kahlo's 110th birthday at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA). The site also photographs everyday people posing in front of their own doppelgangers captured in museum portraits. I chose this photo because Frida often painted her self-portraits as twins.

With today's popularity of video games and the world of social media it seems that many of us are creating our own avatars to represent us. For a while I had a Bitmoji of myself, then I replaced it with another version that I am using with Facebook Messenger.