Kats, Paintings and Fun


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Here are eight, count ’em, eight KKs.  10-14-1938 and 10-15, then 10-17 thru 10-22. I am tired of splitting up the story lines on these dailies, so I’m going to try to post them a week at a time, just as they were originally published.  We have the end of Ignatz’s trickery from last week, and a new (komplete) story in which the feminine side of Krazy is featured. She finds a butterfly’s cocoon on her front step and has a few anxious moments taking care of it. Garge really gave a gentle side to his Kat in these strips, he is fully involved in the lives of every Coconino citizen and especially wants to shelter and protect the Kounty’s little ones. During 1936’s “Tiga Tea” storyline, Krazy falls in love with little “Kitten Ket” and wants to help him and his father, another instance of the mothering side of his character.

I have figured out some sort of scanning of a few of my watercolors I have talked about in past posts. Above is the swimming pool from the mansion on the Arroyo in Pasadena, and the old canning factory at the E. Waldo Ward ranch in Sierra Madre, Ca. I thought the swimming pool would be an especially appropriate subject for these “dog days” we are going through now. You may jump in, vicariously.

Last week, Cathy and I painted out in Descanso Gardens in La Canada. We arrived a bit late, Cathy painted some close-ups of Koi in a pond with a beautiful waterfall. I tried to paint an ambitious study of the whole pond with the waterfall in the background, but made it too monochomatic and the composition wasn’t focused right, so I’m not posting that one. Descanso Gardens was very therapeutic for Ken Anderson, by the way. If you look at the Disney Family Album episode he is featured in, he talks about how after his stroke, his wife took him to the Live Oak Grove in the Gardens. She placed him on a bench, folded up like a suitcase. As Ken recalled it, looking at the spreading branches of the oak trees made him want to spread his own arms and legs and get up and walk again. That’s a beautiful story and a great visual image to think about, even if it didn’t quite happen that way.

My natal anniversary was last week, Cathy and I celebrated it with our dear friends, Vincent and Hiroko Davis out in Shadow Hills at a little Chinese restaurant there. They served a Chinese birthday cake called the “Chinese Well”, which had a well of chololate cake, surrounded by ice cream and frosting. The whole meal was very good, I just had some of the leftovers tonight, and they were still tasty. It’s wonderful to be remembered by good friends like Vince and Hiroko, love you!

I am still enjoying the Woody Woodpecker DVD set, haven’t found one cut scene yet, except for the print of Banquet Busters not having the UA titles. I haven’t been able to see any DVNR in it either, and I have been looking at a lot of the shots one frame at a time. The 1940s Lantz animators were very innovative with their comic, stylized animation. If you look at it a frame at a time, you appreciate their achievements all the more. I laughed at La Verne Harding’s animation in “Fish Fry”.  Her best scene in that picture is the last one of the cat beating himself up for joy. The scene’s concept couldn’t have been easy to put over, but she made it look easy, supported by the great voice of the cat screaming “I made it, I MADE it, I MADE IT!!!” The cat’s Paul Terry-ish run to the horizon is funny and quite convincing; it’s a great example of the “successive breaking of joints” Art Babbitt principle. His feet contact the ground, his knees break on the next frame, then his hips “break” after that, following thru very loosely. The bulldog just sitting there through the whole performance is very wry and makes the cat’s demented ravings seem even more demented. Have fun watching these folks, they are worth looking at!

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