Adventures in Google Adsense

Recently, my blog was approved for monetization with Google Adsense. I was curious how Adsense worked, so I tried it out. What followed was a comedy of errors.

The First Rejection

I didn’t realize that blogs are frequently rejected for Google Adsense. My first application was rejected due to “low value content”. This surprised me because the Perspective Notes page of my blog received a considerable amount of traffic (more than all my other pages combined), and I received many comments from colleagues, students and aspiring artists who found my content helpful. However, it turns out that Google does not actually evaluate the value of your content. Google bots simply check boxes. For example, the Google bots check to see if you have been posting regularly over a length of time. In fact, when I first applied for Adsense, I did not have many posts on the home page of my blog (all my content was on blog pages, which were serving as a make-shift portfolio until I could build a proper portfolio website). So, after a few months of posting on my blog, I reapplied to Adsense and was accepted.

The “Experiment” That Went Too Far

After connecting Adsense to my blog, I saw a notification that recommended running an experiment to find optimal placements for ads, so I clicked “run experiment”. The “experiment” placed ads all over my blog, literally anywhere an ad could be placed, even in the midst of blog posts. I hate visiting websites where I am bombarded with ads, especially pop-up or banner ads that will not allow me to view content without clicking something. Equally offensive are ads that appear in the midst of blog posts, confusing what is post and what is ad. It was a mess, so I switched off the experiment.

Trying to Play Nice with Ads

I tried to compromise: placing ads discreetly on the sides or below my posts, but no matter what I did, they looked obtrusive or distracting. This might just be my inexperience, but I found the user options in both Adsense and Blogger to be rather limited and disappointing. Eventually, I learned how to limit the ads to the bottom of posts – visually cleaner but terrible for Adsense income.

The Final Straw

I decided to remove the ads altogether - but some wouldn’t go away. Some ads stubbornly remained even after turning off everything in Adsense. Eventually, I was able to get even these ads to disappear, but not without leaving a strange empty block at the bottom of posts (presumably this is the widget in which the ad would appear). For a moment, I thought I would not be able to remove the ad widgets without editing the HTML in Blogger (my feeling at that moment prompted the cartoon at the top of this post). Fortunately, disconnecting my blog from Adsense cleared out the widgets, and now my blog is back to its pre-Adsense appearance.  

Moving Forward Without Adsense

Well, it’s been an interesting experience, but I have decided to stay away from Google Adsense for the foreseeable future. Firstly, my blog is an art blog, and its appearance is important to me. I do not wish to clutter it up with unseemly ads. Secondly, I don’t know if it’s possible to control who advertises on your blog (maybe it’s possible to do this, but I just didn’t figure it out), but I am concerned that the appearance of an ad on my blog might be perceived as an endorsement for a product or service that I do not endorse. Also, during this experiment, I saw ads instructing users to download a file or install a browser extension, and I have no idea what these files or extensions do. People come to my blog for inspiration or information about drawing, and I don’t want to compromise their trust. Perhaps others have had better experiences with Adsense, but for now, I prefer my readers see brushstrokes rather than banner ads.

Homage to Drew Struzan (1947-2025)

The above illustration was my homage to the methods of Drew Struzan (1947-2025), who passed away recently. In my illustration, I started with a pencil drawing (see below) on illustration board of a double-wattled cassowary (a great subject for the exploration of textures!). Over the graphite, I applied ink to refine and darken parts of the drawing. Then I airbrushed acrylic paint in layers to slowly build up the color. Over the airbrushing, I applied color pencils, pastel, and acrylic paint with traditional brushes. I used a variety of techniques, such as splatter brush with masking/stencils, and even from razor blades to scratch out texture effects.

It’s difficult to measure the impact of Drew Struzan’s art. Consider that his movie posters for some of Hollywood’s most iconic films  - Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Back to the Future - were seen by millions around the world, and sparked the imagination of generations of upcoming artists and filmmakers. It’s not a stretch to say that Drew may have had more impact on popular culture than any other illustrator of the 20th century – perhaps even of all time.

I discovered Drew Struzan’s work first in the pages of Airbrush Action magazine, and later through stories shared by my instructors at the Academy of Art (AAU) in San Francisco. Drew taught only very briefly at AAU (back when it was still Academy of Art College), but he left behind a treasure trove of signed prints and posters. I spent a good deal of time feverishly poring over these signed prints, studying every detail in a state of transfixed rapture.   

Drew’s work appealed to me for many reasons, but perhaps the biggest was his emphasis on drawing. I love to draw even more than I love to paint, and in Drew’s approach, the drawing carries the weight of the illustration. Design, composition, anatomy, value structure, and lighting are all resolved in the drawing stage. This frees the illustrator to focus purely on color and finishing touches during painting. It’s a method that resonates with me: I can leverage my strengths as a draftsman, and when it’s time to paint, I can relax, knowing I have a solid foundation of composition and lighting. At that point, I just turn up the music and get lost in the flow of painting.

In an interview, Drew mentioned that once you have a solid drawing, you can get very loose and painterly, splashing paint around the studio like an abstract expressionist. You don’t need to worry too much about screwing it up, because you have that solid drawing underneath, guiding you towards the finish. Well, I can tell you that I screwed up a lot of finishes due to my own lack of expertise in handling color, but I am forever grateful to Drew Struzan for developing this technique and utilizing it so well. Of course, Drew Struzan’s impact goes far beyond developing a technique that I love, but I just wanted to add my own 2 cents of gratitude to the man and his work.

Eye Update: Seeing Faces

“How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?” 

- C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

Since my last update, vision is my left eye is slightly improved (I can almost read the 20/30 line on the Snellen chart), but vision in right eye has become worse (double vision effect most likely due to the cataract).

But the most startling development since my cornea transplants is that I can see faces again, especially the subtleties of facial expressions. As my Fuchs Dystrophy progressed, I stopped seeing faces – all I could see were blurry spots where eyes, noses and mouths should be. Subtleties of facial expression were completely lost on me. Then, about a month or so after the first cornea transplant, I was startled by faces at the grocery store, coffee shop, and around town. Seeing a furrowed brow, an eyeroll, a quizzical look, or a smile – something most of us take for granted – was a novelty to me, a pleasant, and much welcome, surprise. I feel as though I’ve been missing out on a vital dimension of life.

In spite of the progress, my vision is still not good enough to resume my old practice of café sketching (I’ve tried but I need to see at least a certain level of detail in order to capture a likeness or personality in a café setting), so I have resorted to sketching from photographs. The above page was sketched from photos taken years ago of neighborhood kids (back when I was an illustration student trying to build a reference library of poses). I haven’t drawn faces in a while, and certainly not in a sketchbook like this. I am struggling to draw hands, and I don’t feel this page has the energy of café sketches executed on location, but I need to start somewhere. This page was sketched with a BLACKWING 602, a pencil I started using while working at DreamWorks long ago. Drawing with pencil on paper again takes me back to my childhood, and remembering why I wanted to be an artist in the first place. 

Sparring with the Asaro Head

Lately, I’ve been drawing from the Asaro Head – or, as I think of it, “sparring”. Artist John Asaro created various “planes of the head” models, including the classic (or complex) version and the “memorized” (or simple) version. Years ago, I posted my efforts from the classic version. Since recovering from my eye surgeries and getting back to drawing on paper, I decided to start with the simple version (I need to build stamina to tackle the classic version again). I tend to practice drawing like an athlete training for competition. I approach the Asaro head like a boxer stepping into the ring. It’s not enough to draw the Asaro head once or twice; you must draw the head multiple times from multiple angles. It’s a sparring match. You will become fatigued, you will make mistakes, you will need to correct your proportions, and there will be times where you feel like giving up. Drawing a page full of Asaro Heads requires stamina as well as skill. In this particular exercise, you might get one or two good drawings, and then botch the next one, ruining the page. On top of that, you want to compose the page so that all the views of the head look like they were intended to go together in a unified composition. I’m not sure I achieved that here, but the point is to practice. I had to do several of these pages before I felt ready to post one. My life drawing skills have been rusty, and I really needed this practice. The Asaro head makes a great sparring partner.

Below is my studio setup where I am drawing on an old easel build decades ago by my grandfather (a skillful carpenter by trade). The Asaro head is on a camera tripod. 

And just just for old time's sake, here again is one of my efforts from the Classic Asaro head which I posted online years ago. 

Sketchbook Studies of Trees

Now that I am able to draw in a sketchbook again (and actually see what I am doing), I am picking up one of my favorite media: colored pencil on toned paper. I really like the look of burnt sienna plus white on this paper. Studies of trees from around the Lake Tahoe area.

Drawing Kung Fu

As my vision heals and I am able to see fine lines on paper again, I have started drawing with Prismacolor pencils, a medium I love for sketching. My figure drawing skills are rusty, so I am practicing the figure manikin exercises from the Watts Atelier online program. In the online program, students draw using a number of manikins, but my favorite is the skeletal manikin. Jeff Watts did some wonderful demos featuring martial arts poses with this manikin, and I am taking my inspiration from there, although the skeletal manikin I am using here is more based on the one taught by Karl Gnass in his classes at the American Animation Institute many years ago. Perhaps I’ve modified it a bit to fit my own tastes, but I love using this manikin for action poses, especially martial arts. I used to practice martial arts many years ago, especially Tae Kwon Do, but my art career didn’t leave a lot of time for martial arts practice. Nevertheless, I like to pretend that I wield the pencil in the same spirit as the samurai wielding the sword, the mind totally focused at the point where the pencil touches the paper. For inspiration, I have dug up my old martial arts books from the 1980’s and used them as reference for these sketches. Great fun drawing on actual paper again!

Brazilian Jaguar Drawing Step-By-Step

More than a year ago, I drew the Brazilian Jaguar in graphite on illustration board, in preparation for painting. This was one of my last pencil drawings from the time leading up to my cornea transplant surgeries, as my vision was degrading to the point where I needed to wear heavy magnifying glasses to even see my drawing. Eventually, I decided it was too difficult to see even with the magnifiers, so I ended up painting the jaguar in Photoshop. But I did photograph the original graphite drawing in stages, so here is a breakdown of my drawing process step-by-step. I should mention that I used several reference photos of jaguars (including photos I took at the Sacramento Zoo), but the final drawing is not based on any one photo.  

Step 1: Lay-in

I started with the basic layout of the head, focusing on rhythms and alignments. You probably notice the light lines from my previous attempt to draw the jaguar - the head was not quite centered and the drawing wasn't working so me, so I erased it out and drew right over the previous attempt. Actually, I made a number of attempts before arriving at the final version.

Step 2: Alignments, Proportions, Structure

After the initial lay-in, I take time to carefully check proportions and alignments, before hammering out the structures and refining the line work. This is the time to correct any mistakes before taking the drawing too far. If everything is more or less working at this stage, I will develop the structures of head (hammering out the precise shapes of eyes, nose, mouth, ears).  

Step 3: Redrawing/Refinement

If the underlying structure of the head is working, I will further refine the line work. My lines get progressively darker as I tighten down the drawing.  

Step 4: Adding Detail

If I have a solid foundation to build on (proportions, alignments, underlying structure are all in place), I can begin to add detail. In this case, I was not concerned with copying the jaguar spots from photo reference; I tried to design spots so as to create interesting/appealing patterns.

Step 6: Refinement

Periodically, I will take time to check and recheck my proportions and alignments. If everything is more or less working, I will keep developing the structures of the head and refining the drawing. Notice that my lines are getting darker as the drawing develops. 

Step 7: Adding Tone

Finally we get to the part where I start adding tone. Typically, I spend a lot of time on the previous stages because I feel that tonal rendering is wasted energy is you don't build on a solid foundation. If the understructure is working, then the tones should fall in to place.

Step 8: Developing Tonal Range

At this point, I am using darker pencils (6B or even 9B lead) to push the darks as dark as graphite will allow. Also, I try to finesse the line work so that the drawing will look like as polished as I can make it (like a finished illustration, only in graphite).  

Step 9: Adding a Background

Now that I'm satisfied with the drawing of the jaguar head, I need to address the background. Initially, I tried several sketches with different background designs. including many more plant shapes. However, I felt that too many plants around the jaguar head were starting to remind me of the mane of a lion, so I drew fewer plants and added a large rectangular shape to help tie the composition together. I wanted the plants and the ears of the jaguar to overlap the edges of the rectangle, because I have always loved the effect of illustrations that break out of the borders - as if they were escaping the surface of the canvas or paper. 

Step 10: Developing the Background 

I did apply some workable spray fixative to the jaguar head to help preserve my drawing as I work on the background. Nevertheless, I do my best not to smudge the jaguar as I develop the background.  

Step 11: Refinement

At this stage, the drawing is approaching completion. Out of habit, I keep stopping to check my proportions, alignments, etc., making sure the previous steps in the drawing are working before I proceed with the rendering. When I feel the drawing is working, I will use blending stumps and tissue paper to gently blend the graphite. A kneaded eraser helps to adjust and edges, lighten any values that need to be lightened, and generally cleanup the drawing. 

As a final step, I break out the electric eraser to lighten the highlights in the eyes and on the nose. The final rendered stage can be seen up at the top of this blog post.

Eventually, I did paint the Brazilian Jaguar in photoshop. As my vision heals, I may make another attempt at painting the Jaguar in traditional media. Also, I am developing many more animal illustrations which I hope to post here in the future.