SPE 370 Blog Post #2



I chose this cow cartoon for my blog post because I couldn’t resist how cute he was! This cartoon is by Curtis D. Tucker. As I was searching online for the perfect cartoon this particular cow stuck out the most. I read about Tucker the cartoonist who drew this image. It was so interesting to read all the steps and processes that go into drawing this little cartoon cow. From deciding what to draw, to researching image, sketching, scanning on the computer, and much more, I never realize how much work goes into this art form.

After learning in class about art and lines and many more fascinating art facts it is intriguing to look at this cow cartoon. I see it in a new light. The gestural qualities are done very well. For instance, the tail really does look like a cow tail. He made this believable because of the gestural “jagged” tip of the tail. The contour line or the essential shape is rather smooth looking. The cow’s stomach and back look very soft. As Tucker mentioned on his website he did not want extremely hard edges on this cartoon and he worked very hard to try to make sure the contour lines were all relatively soft around the cow’s body. As for eye lines, it looks as though one eye is closed and the other eye closest to the viewer is open. I think Tucker tried to get the cow to look like he was blinking. Either way you look at this cow the eye is looking at you which I think is exciting and makes it fun to look at. When looking at this black and white cartoon cow I can see some texture. If you look where the cow’s skin stops and feet begin you can see a good divider between the two. For a cartoon drawing it looks extremely exceptional and gives the person looking at this cartoon a sense of where there feet are in relation to his legs. In class we learned about texture and we viewed a picture of two men in a field working with a shovel and we said how it looked calm because of the texture of their outlines. I feel the same way when looking at this cow cartoon. Since his texture is relatively smooth it makes him look like an overall friendly happy cow. When looking at this picture I see representational and non-representational. It is a cow and most of us would realize that right away which makes it representational but on the other hand it is not a picture of an actual cow (considering cows do not have hands) which would make it non-representational. I really enjoyed looking at this cow cartoon and breaking it down into sections and using new information I learned in class to analyze this cartoon.

Fun fact: this cow picture was originally made for a t-shirt company logo but was not purchased. It was later sold to an up and coming search engine website.



The picture above I found while researching a cartoon. I thought it represented positive and negative space very well. It is a picture of two zebras. The left side with the white background looks very calming to me and shows the zebras in a happy light. I believe this is because there is more negative space then positive. The right side with the black background is the same exact picture just with the black and white colors switched. I think the picture looks completely different. I see the zebras looking more dark and mysterious since there is more positive space. It is really neat to see the same black and white image and how it can turn into a completely new picture just by switching the positive and negative space around.