Author: liza

Grammys 2015

IMG_0306I love watching the Grammys, and I love drawing them even more. It’s a whacky night of strange outfits and performers for every taste.  I had gotten used to not seeing a lot of Prince, but lately, happily, he has been at many of these shows.   Annie Lennox killed it, she was the outstanding performance of the night.  And I love, love, love Stevie Wonder–there wasn’t enough of him.  Discovered some new performers and I was forced to remember some I did not want to remember. But all in all, it was a very entertaining night.  Including Kristen Wiig as a dancer! WHo knew?

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So I Drew The Super Bowl

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I am not a fan of football, to put it mildly.  But, along with most of America, I watch the Superbowl.  I do like a good game, whatever the sport is. As long as its fair and no one gets hurt. Which doesn’t happen often in football, but that’s another story.

Unsure if I would feel motivated to do so, I had my ipad at the ready to draw during the game.  I did.  Here are the sketches, along with my few words of commentary, published on my regular spot on Medium.com’s section called The Nib.

 

 

 

Football

watching too much footballI don’t do many football cartoons.  I am a baseball person, I love baseball.  But every year, I watch (most of) the Superbowl, just because its partly my job as a cartoonist to know what’s going on.  So for the Superbowl on Sunday, I post one of my non-political football cartoons.

State Of The Union Drawing and Tweeting

-12I love the pomp and circumstance of political tradition.  Our government’s rituals. My favorite part of every State Of The Union, and I have seen a lot, is when a guy comes out of the hallway and yells, “Mr. Speaker!  The President of the United States!”  This year, that man is Paul Irving, the Sergeant at Arms of the U.S. House of Representatives. He has the distinction of being one of only three people to speak during the State of the Union address besides the president and the House Speaker. I drew him quickly as he bellowed his introduction.

I also drew some other people at the SOTU. It’s hard to draw this event, because the camera focuses mostly on the President, of course. If it does show people responding in the audience, it is often for seconds and so it is hard to capture. I don’t like to prepare and draw ahead of time–I like the spontaneity of not knowing what I will see or experience. For instance, this year a Congresswoman waved a pencil in solidarity with the deaths of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in Paris a few weeks earlier.

My cartoons were collected also on my Huffington Post blog, and Medium’s The Nib.

Live Drawing The Golden Globes After Tragedy

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I often draw political events and awards shows on television. It seems to be something I enjoy and people enjoy seeing my quick sketches.  I have done it for a few years now for The New Yorker, BET, Theatermania, Fusion and Medium.  This time I did it for myself and my own personal audience….as I wasn’t even sure I could do it at all. The Golden Globes this year followed an incredible tragedy: it was so close to the deaths of the four cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, and I was in such a fog about that, and still very sad. It seemed odd to being doing something so frivolous. But I decided–or imagined–that the four irreverent cartoonists who were killed would approve of my lampooning Hollywood. They would have done a much more forceful job of it than I, but that’s neither here nor there.

Above and below are the results.  I have a feeling that cartoonists were on people’s minds as they watched the Golden Globes (some actors commented on the tragedy), because my work got more attention than usual.  Cartoonists are being thought of.  It’s nice, I hope it lasts, but for better reasons.  Cartoonists are a wonderful asset to our society, I must admit.  I like cartoonists: they are, generally speaking,  good people. And we provide a much needed service.

My tweet drawings for the Golden Globes got a shout out on twitter from @NBC, and Retweeted and favorited by thousands of others.  The following day, my drawings were shown on the Today Show, I was profiled in People and also on USA Today.  Quite something.

It seems that people like cartoons, no matter whether they are hard hitting or silly. We all need to laugh.

 

The Dove Of Peace As Cartoonist

dove as cartoonistI don’t see my pen as a gun. It is tempting to draw it as such, a pen or pencil is pointed, and cartoons can be very sharp  and sometimes hurtful. A gun can be a symbol of defiance and power, so can a pen.  But can we think of power another way?  Not as something that hurts or kills or maims, but something that persuades, talks, helps and cares.

A pencil and pen can be just that.