Category: Liza Line

Live Drawing The 2017 Oscars On Location!

I didn’t realize how much I needed to take a few minutes from reality (i.e. politics) and celebrate great storytelling and great performing. I love movies, and I love watching the Academy Awards every year. This year will be my second year attending them in person?—?this time, as resident cartoonist for CBS. I will be behind the scenes, on the red carpet and in the media press room.
As always, I draw what I see, and more often than not it’s the behind the scenes. That is perhaps what I love to draw most. People working away at this great show, usually without recognition. It takes a lot of people.
I attended the rolling out of the red carpet?—?a wild event with press dashing after the rolling carpet with their cameras and microphones (and me with my iPad and stylus). I was invited into the Dolby Theater to watch the Oscar production designer, Derek McLane, work on the construction of his set. And I got a peek at the food that will be served by Wolfgang Puck and his staff at the Academy Ball.
Security, as always, was very high. Scanners, barriers and men and women in dark glasses wearing badges were everywhere. The Academy appears to run a tight and smooth ship?—?and everyone is in a good mood.
There was the actual red carpet, with gowns and tuxedos and cameras. It was mobbed with people?—?actors, writers, producers, and all their family and friends, decked out in their Oscar finest. I didn’t see any really strange gowns or tuxedos, but I saw some beautiful colors and shapes and people.
The show itself was great, and Jimmy Kimmel a wonderful, genuine, funny host. Ultimately, it will be one to remember because of the snafu at the end, giving the best picture award to the wrong movie!
It’s really fun, here they all are. Continue to follow me and CBS This Morning on twitter and Instagram for more adventures. @lizadonnelly @CBSThisMorning

The News Is Hair Raising: The Evolution of a New York Times cartoon gif

Cartoons often evolve from real situations or emotions. I want to show you how a recent drawing happened.
The other day,  I came home to find my husband, Michael Maslin, glued to the television set, sitting on the edge of the sofa close to the screen.  We are both riveted (and not in a good way) by the news that is emerging at a fast clip out of Washington as of late.
The next day, another news story broke about the Trump administration, and  I decided to draw a cartoon about this because I could feel it was something our country was grappling with in various ways on many levels. There was drama happening on an hourly basis.  I thought of Michael and I drew this:
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When I drew it, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I was going to do with it. Looking at my sketch above,  I thought I should simplify it. And make the person a woman, because, well, why not. I try to make my protagonists female when I can. In this instance, gender had no meaning.IMG_3401
I looked at the hair that I drew and thought:  it should go straight up!   I drew this:

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I thought:  I can make it a two paneled cartoon with these two images. But then wait!  I remembered that I now know how to animate!  So I will just animate it!  I opened my animation app and drew this video. Then….

 

 

 

… I sent it to The New York Times to see if they wanted to run it, mentioning that I could also do it as a gif. They said yes,  they wanted to publish it with Nicholas Kristof’s column, which was about to be published.  After an hour of fine tuning about where my signature or credit line should go, I made a gif and it ran with Mr. Kristof’s column, “What Did Trump Know, And When Did He Know It?” 
It was an honor to have my gif on the front page of the New York Times with Mr. Kristof’s Op-Ed piece,  in commentary about an historic time in our country’s history.  Bottom line was: this gif represents exactly how I feel right now. It seems to represent others’ feelings.  And for an editorial cartoonist,  that’s often the best place to find ideas: in your heart.

The 2017 Grammys: A Visual (and Musical) Treat

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It was a thrill to go to the Grammys this year with CBS News as their resident cartoonist. I was on the red carpet with the team, and drew people who stopped to talk to the CBS correspondent Vlad Duthiers.  The outfits were great, I couldn’t catch them all by any measure. The men in particular were using the opportunity to go wild with their outfits.  No chance to draw Adele or Beyonce, for while they “did” the red carpet, they whisked by so fast, I couldn’t even get a photo!  Grammys 2017 - 7
After the red carpet, we went to the Media room, where we watched the proceedings on large monitors with tons of other journalists hunched over computers. They gave us boxed dinners of sandwiches and cookies, and coffee of course. As for the show itself, the highlight for me was the Prince tributes and the Carpool Karaoke in a fake car with numerous celebs and James Corden (whom I find adorable).
Below are the drawings I did before and during it all and some are also in a slide show on CBSNews.com

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#ShePersisted: Women’s Voices

COretta and Elizabeth

While taking a walk yesterday, an image for a cartoon came to me and I seized it. I stood on the sidewalk and drew it on my phone. Sometimes I feel an idea has to go out right away and be a part of the national (or global) conversation. To wait is to lose an opportunity, a chance to hopefully contribute to the conversation. It depends on the idea of course, but this topic was one that I wanted to be a part of.

While giving a speech in the Senate chambers, Senator Elizabeth Warren read the late Coretta Scott King’s letter critical of Jeff Sessions, Trump’s nominee for Attorney General. Senator Warren was told to stop talking by Senator Mitch McConnell. McConnell’s reason for instructing Warren to sit down and stop talking was based on a Senate rule from 1902, wherein members are not supposed to speak ill of other members?—?however, there are many examples online of just this being done at other times by male members of the Senate, and not being censured. This act on the part of Senator McConnell?—?a white man shutting down two women, one black, one white?—?was so odd and alarming that it immediately gave Warren and King’s words much more power. Even though Sessions was confirmed the next day.

Their voices were amplified.

Bravo, Elizabeth Warren and Coretta Scott King.