Riding with the man (This week's Jones strips)

Been a busier summer than I anticipated, and I lost some traction with the strip in June. Seems to be back on track now. I get the feeling I have a few subscribers here so I'm never sure if I oughtta be spamming y'all with it. Happy to bring it to your doorstep as needed, your call entirely:







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Cartoon Thunder; Keeping Up With Jones
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I like these cartoons, especially these about ridin' with the Man. Funny. BTW, what do you teach? I teach woodshop & art to high school airheads. I used to live in Monterey back in the 80's.

I teach digital art, chair the art dept, Saturday School (can you say "Breakfast Club"?), and right now I'm doing a reading course in summer school. Gonna try to take next summer off. This year I worked way too hard.

How's this for alliteration: Summer school sucks (for me, anyway). We get 10 weeks off for summer vacation, just like the good ol' days. More time to work on my shovelhead!

Boy I like that shovel of yours. Nice and bobbed! Lots of cool details, like the boots on the forks, the tanks, lots of engine visible under the tanks. Really clean, too!

I'm not such a fan of summer school. Six weeks of that, a week's gap between finals and the start of it, maybe a week or two off afterwards before I really need to be in place getting me and my department ready. Something like eight or nine weeks off. Some say it flies by if you're not teaching, but I really don't care as long as I'm off. Would love to get ahead on the strip and spend lots of time riding and with the fam.

It looks like you draw the strip by hand - no computer. I like the look of it - kind of rough & ready. The expression in your character's faces says it all. When I was little, I taught myself to draw tracing the Sunday comics like Lil Abner & Dick Tracy. By the time I was in Monterey and later Goleta, Ca., (many years later), I was making a decent living selling seascapes, landscapes and portraits. When we moved to N.C., I started teaching art & woodshop.

Thanks!

When I started doing the strip I did the lines in Illustrator and colors/tones in Photoshop. But it was no fun at all, so I went to paper and ink. Now I use Illustrator only for the panels and text and a one-click processing of the line art. More fun and a better feel to the art.

I started a painting in acrylic a couple of years ago. Made a good run at it but it's still unfinished. This year I'm cutting back on Saturday School and sharing with a good friend fo mine who chairs the voc. ed/Industrial tech department. I hope to have time to re-engage my brushes..

That would be awesome. Most of the art I'm doing these days is in the classroom with "my" kids. Once in a while a commission will come through, sometimes for a painting, but usually for pet portraits in charcoal. Folks around here say they can't "afford" my paintings, so I rarely do them anymore. They used to tell me to lower my "fancy California prices" and I would tell them I already did! My paintings typically start at $500 and go UP from there.

Earn free Keeping Up With Jones goodies by visiting and sharing
Cartoon Thunder; Keeping Up With Jones
Thanks for reading!

Earn free Keeping Up With Jones goodies by visiting and sharing
Cartoon Thunder; Keeping Up With Jones
Thanks for reading!