Ed Carson on Cartooning
As an artist for more than thirty years, my main focus being landscape and still life painting. A couple of years ago I was inspired by New Yorker cartoons and thought I’d give it a try. I was drawn to the black and white format, as well as the directness of approach. Since I’ve always used a black marker when doing preliminary sketches for my painting, it seemed like a natural progression. I always liked both the immediacy and permanent nature of the black marker, and cartoons have this same kind of feeling about them. The element of humor, of course, adds a whole other dimension. Though visually it seems quite different from painting, the artistic problems are the same. For me, it’s about boldness, immediacy, retaining the initial drawing marks, and design of the space. And since my interest in cartooning has come about in the digital age, unlike the traditional approach of paper and pencil, all of my cartoons are all drawn on my iPad. Carson’s Website.