Original Art Sundays No. 158: Jury sketches

I'm pleased to report that the next page of The Surrealist Cowgirls is completed, and will be scanned this week for posting next Sunday.
For this week's offering, here are some sketches from the jury box of the trial on which I recently served. I will make a separate post later this week discussing the case itself, with some accompanying comics!
These were all done in ballpoint pen on yellow legal tablets.
There are still occasional illustration jobs doing courtroom sketches. There are some courts (like this one) where cameras are not allowed, and newspapers and magazines still occasionally hire courtroom artists, though the practice is dying out.
I did about 70 sketches during the trial. I may organize them into a comic of the trial at some point down the road. But now, here are the most interesting of them.

Prosecutor, opening remarks

Judge Kyle

Key witness, day six

Same prosecutor

Prosecution Witness, Day Three
(nowhere near as mean as this sketch makes him look!)

Diagram of Ponzi scheme, Day three

Key witness, Day three

Key witness, day three

Key witness, Day five

Cross-examination by defense, day six

Defense witness, day seven

Witness from SEC, day six

Defense attorney

Defense team, day one

Prosecution witness, day two

Prosecution witness, day two

Defense Attorney

Defense witness, June 4

Defense witness, June 4

Defense witness, June 4

Key defense witness Frank Vennes

Defense witness, June 5

Defense witness, June 4
(this was the sweetest guy, just did a bit of accounting work for the defendant,
got no cross-examination, for which the entire jury was grateful!)

Prosecution closing remarks

Defendant during closing remarks

Original Art Sundays, No. 13: so benull...

Well, it was a slow week, art-wise. But I did manage to get some sketching done while my student (!) was taking his exam.
The sad part for me is that while I can do such interesting work with just scrap Bristol from the cutting table and a rather fluid Jetsream brand black pen, so much of the line quality is lost in the scan unless you want a mountain of artifacts. I used to hate that sketchy stuff. Now it fascinates me.
Couple of my favorite experimental things here- the form defined by shadow (beginning of the first tier) and the mood piece drawing on the old saw of doing a continuous line (end of the second tier).
Also, a potential new character sprung out of nowhere- the French skeleton in Tier 1. You can tell he's French by the mustache. I'm sure I've seen something similar somewhere along the way, so I suspect he'll be a spear carrier in a future story.
The alien lovers reaching across space are part of my Poe pastiche. Another one that's been in the works for years.
Finally, a couple pop ins from the happy fish, Maggie's mule, and a VERY loose sketch of The Surrealist Cowgirls holding hands and ready for action!
Eager for 24 hour challenge this coming weekend. This week promises to be quite hectic!