John Tynan's Daybook

A friendly journal for inspiration, wonder and bliss.

[johntynan]

I put together this fake answering machine message for the "Builders of America" so that my son could call them and tell them what toy or toys he wanted them to make for him.

[johntynan]

Keep Your Nib Above Water - All day, I wanted to draw. Among all the other things that were going on around me, that I had to do or that I was plain distracted by, I couldn't take a moment to draw, which was just what I wanted to do. At the very end of the evening, I read and was inspired by James Sturm's chapter on on drawing a Panel per Day in the book Drawing Comics Lab. Finally, I made an initial sketch of this illustration before bed.

[johntynan]

Drawing myself and Rene into an imaginary cafe along the Seine (an homage to the artist Sempé). A lot of what I do (either with music or coding or creating comics) has something like a an altruistic component, in this case, I'm championing open source software, SVG graphics and the time-tested art of tracing! What I found I could do is use a small rectangle of tracing paper (or a similar index-card size piece of opaque notepaper for original drawings), trace a drawing, then tape the trace directly onto a Wacom tablet, then re-trace the drawing looking mostly at the paper (not at the screen on my laptop) using a Wacom stylus and the open source illustration software Inkscape (I also have to make sure the tablet settings are in absolute mode not relative mode). This gets me a sketch as an SVG file. I then "simplify" my drawing, edit some of the bezier curves, then create some layers for foreground and background and color the drawing on those layers. This is one of the first drawings that I've gone through this complete process successfully. Do any of you reading this know of other artists who have a similar process to whom I might turn for inspiration or guidance? Do you, perhaps, know of a place online where other artists would be open to discussing this kind of thing? Or perhaps you might know of a book discussing this kind of work which would offer suggestions for refining my craft? Either way, I'm excited to create more work like this and to better understand and to refine this process along the way.

[johntynan]

Mao and a Me

I've been working to improve my hand at illustration and I think I've found the right combination of tools to get the effects I'm after. Here's a little sketch (trace?) that I did using a page from an old Chinese propaganda pamphlet, a Wacom tablet, my laptop and Inkscape.

[johntynan]

For my wonderful wife!

[johntynan]

My Chinese word of the day is Chu Ko! It comes with a story and a picture. Here is a drawing of me shouting what I think are the words for Exit 4 into my phone so that the contract driver will know where to pick up me and my kids in the freezing cold. I kept repeating "Wo zai Ren Ko si!" which translates to "I am at population 4. I am at population 4!" The word for population is Ren Ko. The word for exit is Chu Ko. What I should have been saying is "Wo zai Chu Ko Si." Finally, the driver handed the phone over to some random English speaker on the street. She asked me what the heck I was trying to say and so I told her that we were at Exit 4. After not too long, the driver found us and were able to all go home. Sometimes I think I have little business being here.

[johntynan]

Here is a little comic that I made for our sons. It's a silly storyline, but I think you'll find the illustrations entertaining!

It makes use of the format called the "one sheet" where you take a single page and fold it into your own 8-page comic.

For details on how to make your own "one sheet" here is a good blog post from the Schulz Library at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont: http://schulzlibrary.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/ccs-at-spx-the-one-sheet-workshop/

[socialmediadesk]

I’ve been at NPR for four months now and wanted to highlight a couple of neat projects that I’ve worked on so far. I should say: my gig is not all lollipops and roses. Sometimes it’s quite stressful (which is the nature of this daily, deadline-driven business…), sometimes I’m completely...

[johntynan]

Great work Mel (and everyone!)

Please feel free to touch base if I can help/be involved with these:

2. Improving the way we crowdsource sources and information externally

4. I’d like to work on something large and involving our audience and open source-y. Some ideas are percolating in this arena. 

Wishing you all much success in 2014!

[andywarnercomics]

Science: Australia is a gigantic sponge.

Click through to read the whole comic!

[johntynan]

Nicely done. I especially like the kangaroo with the umbrella.

[johntynan]

Two Bicycles and a Blackboard - Shenyang, Heping District

[johntynan]

Here is my first full page comic. Inspired by public radio!

[johntynan]

In response to NPR Radio Pictures call to make a Cinemagraph, here is my animated gif of a moose. The original photos were taken by my friend Nissim Schaul ( http://www.nissimmusic.org/ ) on his and his wife's recent trip to Nova Scotia.

[sequentialnews-blog]

This story, from the excellent history podcast The Memory Palace, is a really good story about an escaped slave. Maybe it’s Lincoln being in theaters, or Assassins Creed III (set in the Revolutionary War), but I’m really in the mood for this kind of story.

[johntynan]

Hey Josh, I've newly been introduced to your work and really like what you're doing. I also am a big fan of the Memory Palace; it's been a big inspiration for me over the last few years. I especially like the way Nate DiMeo gets at the personalities and personal stories behind the events in a way that I've never heard before.

I'm working on an idea for Magic Bullet #7 which involves history and comics in an interesting way... I wonder if we could talk sometime?

Great work!

[audiovision]

Hello world. This is AudioVision. We’re new! Check out our GIF-tastic spinning logo.

We’re here to bring you pretty pictures from Southern California and beyond. Check out audiovision.scpr.org for the full experience.

Love,

Mae Ryan, Grant Slater and Maya Sugarman

[michalva]

NY Donut Map by Jim Datz 

[hman]

Why People in Cities Walk Fast

[johntynan]

NPR is doing a series on cities (#nprcities).  I was reminded of a great RadioLab episode which talked about the different average speed that people walk in some of the world's largest cities:

http://www.radiolab.org/2010/oct/08/its-alive/

The post below links to an article by Eric Jaffe which contains links to some of the original sources.

I was hoping to find a spreadsheet of the original data, but could only find a link to a listing of the 32 fastest cities here:

http://www.richardwiseman.com/quirkology/pace_home.htm

[johntynan]

Miles, Me, Oliver and his family at Parc Rothschild

IMG_2129, originally uploaded by johntynan.

How wonderful it is to meet my friend Olivier, his friend Chris and his lovely family at the Parc Rothschild this past Sunday. I hope we can do this again sometime...