Comics: Conversation with Leonardo DiCaprio

Another installment of the Conversations with Deb comics by Deborah Gross. Illustrated by me.
She will performing this conversation plus many more on Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 8PM.

Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
5919 Franklin Ave, Hollywood, CA. 90028
(323) 908-8702

Written and Performed by Deborah Gross
Directed by Kevin Hines
with Josh Feemster, Dru Johnston and Carla Snowden

Reserve tickets here:
http://losangeles.ucbtheatre.com/shows/2297

It's hilarious! Come check it out!
Enjoy!

Stephen Sondheim

While in NYC it would be a shame not to go to a Broadway show or two. An interesting opportunity arose during my summer visit here. A friend of mine whom I used to work with on the TV show "Ugly Betty" was one of the performers in "Sondheim on Sondheim". The end of the run was nearing. So, a few emails later I was lucky enough to have two tickets to the Saturday matinee. Very nice gift and I am grateful for my friend's generosity.
Stephen Sondheim is someone who I was familiar with without knowing I was familiar to him. I love musical theatre and if you love musical theatre you have heard his work. He composed music and or wrote lyrics for, "A Little Night of Music", "Sweeney Todd", "Westside Story" to name a few.
I was pretty blown away by the experience of the show so I thought I would draw him.
Enjoy!

Comics: Conversation at a Hipster Party

Here is another installment of the Conversations with Deb comics.
This conversation, and many others with be performed live tonight at 9:30pm at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
307 W. 26th Street New York, NY 10001
(212) 366-9176
http://newyork.ucbtheatre.com/shows/2297
If you're in NYC come check it out!
Enjoy the comic!

Dad

Happy Father's Day!
I wanted to sketch my Dad this morning and send it to him. I haven't
drawn him in years, but I used to draw him quite often when I was a kid.
My Father has always been a supportive, strong, moral, fun and
positive influence in my life. Some of my fondest memories of when I
was a boy were the days where I just hung out with Dad riding around
in the passenger seat of his truck. I didn't care where we were going,
what we were doing, as long as I was with him. I would tag along with
him to pick-up lumber, plumbing parts, and even elephant manure when
the Circus was in town (great fertilizer for the garden).
No matter what it was, it seemed cool if it was with him.
Enjoy the drawing!
I love you Pops!

Devendra, Your Captions are Boring

This is Telly, and he indeed said this to me.
Telly is one of our Set Production Assistants on 'glee'. He works very hard in a sometimes thankless job position.
I was pleased to see that for the "glee-live" tour, they brought the young Telly with them on the road! It was great to see him for a brief moment in the audience at Radio City Music Hall. The concert rocked by the way!
Enjoy!

New Comics: Conversation at a Party in Los Angeles

I've always wanted to draw comics. During my art schooling I only barely dipped into it. I wrote a comic about skateboarding called: "Fred's Tales of Anti-Skateboarderizm". It was needless to say ridiculous. I love drawing obviously, but lacked any good short stories to illustrate. I found some that are ridiculous in a good way...
These stories are courtesy of: http://conversationswithdeb.tumblr.com/
Real conversations that happen to Deb. These conversations actually happened. Really. To Deb.
I decided to illustrate some of them.
Enjoy!
More to come.

I Feel Like Lady Gaga

First cast member drawing!

This is Kurt Hummel as seen on TV's glee. I think I've promised the whole cast that I would draw them. Four down... like twenty to go!

The way they dress Kurt on the show makes me happy. I was especially pleased to have taken the photo to draw from while he was wearing this snappy suit.

The "Lady Gaga" caption was pulled from one of his lines that really cracked me up in the episode "Hell-O" which aired April 13, 2010.

Enjoy!

Alright Gobsmacker, You and Me

The story behind this is unfortunately at the expense of our wonderful Special Effects Operator on Glee, Leo. I have known Leo since I was twenty-years-old when we met on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He is truly a seasoned pro who has been serving the entertainment industry for at least 35 years. His credits include Pirates of the Caribbean, Van Helsing, Get Smart, and The Blues Brothers.

On an episode of Glee that aired last fall, we had a scene where Principal Figgins enjoyed a "gobsmacker" (a delicious treat from India apparently). As he started to choke on it and received the Heimlich maneuver, the gobsmacker shot out of his mouth and across the room breaking the glass of the office window. Hilarious scene for us... not so fun for Leo. When we did the special shot for the effect, they did not give Leo much of a chance. He had a pretty ingenious blow dart gun that would have worked brilliantly if he had a place to be. Almost nowhere was possible to stand in the room without getting photographed in the reflection of the glass. Several missed shots and partially broken candy glass later... I think we got it. But I was never quite sure.

Months later when I decided to draw him, the memory of this scene came back to me. When I presented the drawing to him he laughed and chuckled as any good sport would. He also called me a jerk.

Enjoy!

This Means We're Back

This is Crotty. He's our 2nd Assistant Director on glee.

Before I drew him I asked: "Hey Crotty, how long are you going to rock the Colonel mustache?"

He told me: "A good while." Perfect time to draw him.

In effort to call the company back from lunch, Crotty would often use his iPhone loaded with sound effects to blast trumpets into the walkie talkies. Woke everybody up!

This prop scenario gave me the opportunity to practice drawing hands again.

One of my personal favorites and a pretty good match of likeness.

Enjoy!

I Like To Make A Big Entrance

This is my good buddy Biff. I drew him the same weekend I drew Joey. The Monday after I realized that this was going develop into an regular expected activity. "It's Monday where are the crew member drawings?"

I needed a prop. Well, Biff is a Set Lighting Technician, so how about 12k fresnel.

He's "backlit" by the light which provided the inspiration for the lame joke that is the caption.

Someone who likes to make a big entrance should be "backlit" while making their entrance, right? hehe? no? Hmmm.

Okay, well enjoy!

Buy It Now

"YEAH, YEAH, YEAH! BUY IT NOW ON EBAY"
This is Joey. He works on glee in the camera department and is the first of the series of glee drawings. Our first day back for our back nine I took a picture of him as he stuck out his belly with hopes that I would exaggerate it. I could not wait to draw him. I mean this with the upmost of endearment that he is truly a character. I am fascinated with his hilarious personality.
For the glee series, I'm no longer looking for obscure captions, but captions that represent things they actually say. There was no shortage of one liners for Joey. "Buy It Now" beat out "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah", "I Got A Guy", Thousand Dollar T-shirt on Ebay" ect.
Enjoy, and check back for more glee cast and crew drawings!

Not On My Watch Mister

This one is also a drawing of a good friend of mine from Nick's movie shoot two years ago. This is Elise. She produced the movie and was the one who hired me. I don't believe she ever uttered the words "not on my watch mister", but the photograph I used included a low key wristwatch that I decided to really feature. Then of course it inspired the always needed obscure caption. To this day it remains one of my favorite drawings. I do feel I captured the essence in her face. I have learned that this can be subjective. I've shown drawings that I don't think look anything like the subject and have drawn praise for uncanniness, and then drawings that I feel are right on the money, someone asks, "who's that?" Enjoy!

I love My Backpack

Two years ago exactly I was on the road with this gentleman doing sound on his movie. This is my friend Nick. This was drawn from a picture I took of him in Paris while we were shooting the international portion of the movie. By April of '08 we were on the road traveling on I-40 across this great country. Many fond memories of the trip and the shoot. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I don't believe I ever saw Nick not wearing his backpack. I thought it would make another funny, yet semi-obscure-random caption. At this point in my newly re-vamped drawing activity, I was becoming more confident that I could capture the likenesses of my friends. It's all I've done since.
Enjoy!

Something Bad Happened

This is the first of my drawings of actual people. This is my friend Chris and it's a direct quote. We were working on a movie and after they called wrap a technician apparently ran over his speaker cables with a condor lift. We love you Chris!

I've Never Touched The Sun Before

This one is fairly random too. I drew it on the plane coming back to LA from Colorado after the holidays. Just sort of re-introducing myself to the craft. This is when I started to see if i could draw hands. When I was younger, hands were always my weakness so I thought I would concentrate harder on them. And yes, another obscure caption inspired by his hand touching a fictitious sun.

I Do Want To Dance

This one is random. I used to try and make the goofiest looking character possible. Kinda goofy like my Dad.
The random captions were inspired by the Tim Burton Exhibit at the MOMA. They displayed old drawings Tim Burton did in his youth and his captions were always so NOT fitting yet fitting.
Enjoy! More to come!

1st drawing in twelve years

I used to draw a lot in my youth. I even went to The Denver School of The Arts for Visual Art. I put down the pen when I started an educational and career path more in the direction of the Performing Arts, which then led me to the technical side of theatre and film, which then led me to sound for film.
I just draw for fun now and would like to share here on my new blog. I am pleased to be improving from this first drawing and you will see the progress over the next few weeks. I will post two new drawings a week.
Here is the first of many:
"Sad Man In Peacoat"
I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to even draw at all. It's not of anyone in particular. Those will come soon too!