picture pages - nine

s.d. smith sent me another chapter of the fledge chronicles to provide an illustration. this chapter is called the soft, gooey insides of affection. when i saw that title and read the text i knew that i was in for a stretch. sure, s.d.'s work lends itself to some obvious graphic work (that's a good thing from the cartoonist's perspective!) but this story is different. just the title alone ups the ante but the tone is this chapter is tense.

fledge's protagonist is ben gray. he is in love. the girl he is over the moon for is sarah watson. miss watson knows what's up with ben but isn't really rushing into anything, she's smarter than that. ben isn't being strung along but certainly is more emotionally invested in this relationship than the lady. because of this situation, s.d. smith is able to write truly hilarious, odd-ball tales concerning this relationship that seems destined for the annals of romantic history but must first scale, inch by inch, the rocky cliff that is love. while the payoff is huge, the build-up is tense.

so my illustration must convey that tension. my artwork needs to show ben's obvious love for sarah and sarah's desire to simply enjoy the moment while keeping her head on straight. going in i knew i would struggle with this one.

about this drawing: i decided that i would illustrate the title of this chapter, the soft, gooey insides of affection in a sort of esoteric way. when you glance at the picture you see a smashed pumpkin. but i want to your eyes to linger and get an idea of where this relationship is between these two. sarah watson is looking gleefully at a shattered pumpkin while ben gray's expression comes from knowing that he made sarah happy. the two are enjoying the same experience but are experiencing it from two very different places.

i began with the smashed pumpkin. that was the easy part. i found a photo of a smashed pumpkin (google images is a treasure trove!) and sketched it out with a non-reproducible blue pencil then inked it with micron art pens of varying thickness. my wife and s.d. himself gave me some great perspective on making the pumpkin look best. then i scanned it in and started work on the faces.

the faces took hours to complete. i have page after page of floating heads from where i was just trying to get it right. i took what i thought were the best two heads and scanned them in to place them with the pumpkin. after working with the drawings in photoshop i went back to my sketchbook to make more faces. i settled on another pair and scanned those in and proceeded to spent several hours tweaking those faces in photoshop. i repositioned eyebrows, i tilted smiles, i reconstructed jawlines...i even gave ben a nose job. eventually i was pleased with the outcome. looking back at my work progress is hysterical because the end product is nowhere near where i started. more importantly i did all the refining on photoshop with my wacom pad which is a huge step for me.

after i sent the final artwork to s.d. for approval i spent another hour or so free-handing the title in photoshop with my wacom pad. i've never drawn letters in photoshop. while they look pretty rough, now i know that i can do it.

in all i spent the better part of two days on this illustration, fourteen hours of draw time and more than a few good lessons learned.

this illustration is due to be published in west virginia south magazine in another several months.

picture pages - five

s.d. smith has been writing a series of short stories for a regional magazine here in west virginia. all of the installments have been illustrated by some very talented artists. he asked me to illustrate the two most recent stories, the first of which was published this month and is featured in picture pages - one. i've really enjoyed the work and, along with some other projects i'm working on, i can really see how i should start taking art classes to better refine my work. as eric can attest, it has become increasingly more difficult to put down on paper what i see in my head. when writing my thoughts for this blog i make sure i pick my words carefully to properly convey my thoughts. i'm doing the same thing with my illustrations but it feels as if my vocabulary is limited. i'm trying very hard to expand the vocabulary of my art and you, my faithful readers, get to see the progress.

about this drawing: this is an illustration for the latest installment of s.d. smith's fledge chronicles published in west virginia south magazine. once i chose a scene to illustrate (which is not easy because s.d.'s writing is so ripe with imagery) i made a rough sketch of the angle from which i would draw. i then made a series of more defined pencil drawings that i would use to compose the final artwork. the man holding the cat is cyclop sammy (for obvious reasons) and i wanted to make sure that he was the center of our attention. i sketched him first and tiled the restaurant floor for perspective and then on a separate page sketched two additional characters (heck davis and the owner of the "grit-r-done" diner, hilda) along with various spilled dishes and utensils. i knew from my initial layout that i wanted to include an overturned chair but i wasn't sure where i would place it. once these sketches were complete i was able to start combining the elements on a finished page. using my light box and some micron art pens i started with cyclop sammy and then added heck davis and hilda. lastly, i placed the "carnage" on the floor...positioning the dishes and utensils along with a triangle cut piece of toast, a piece of bacon and a bunch of grits. at this point i knew where i wanted the chair so i added it and the tiles and i was done! all of the inked worked was done with the light box which has become an integral part of my toolset.

during the inking and finishing work i listened to my old small factory records; i do not love you, for if you cannot fly, and the industrial evolution.

from start to finish i spent five hours on this project.

picture pages - one

so having as much free time as i now have i've been feeling ultra-creative...i've had time to write, record and draw pictures. the picture included here really excites me because the drawing was commissioned with a deadline that i was able to meet and was satisfied with the result. i can see that some technique i used could be refined (i should definitely start using a straight edge) and with more projects and more practice i could see more development as an artist. i've already set my mind on several projects that i wasn't able to work on while so engrossed with my store. i'm looking forward to the work that could develop.

when i was in jr. high (yes, there was a day when our education system used a junior and senior high set up) we were required to take a vocational exploration class. i remember sitting in the class while the majority of the students were complaining about the usefulness of the course. our teacher argued that the class was giving us exposure to the various possible careers we could choose and someone pointed at me and said, "why is chris here? we all know he's going to be an artist." well, to this point in my life that just hasn't been true. i'm not convinced that i have been called to be an artist but i feel a satisfaction knowing that with some discipline and refinement of the craft, i could make a living with my art.

susen has encouraged me to submit t-shirt designs to threadless.com and she even gave me an idea. my wife is always looking out for me...i like that. i'm sure future picture pages will contain those designs. i've also been gathering old notebooks to scan and post. i know it will be interesting to me, i hope someone else out there with find it to be edifying.

about this drawing: this was a combination of three sketches. my initial sketch of the subject (fictional character sarah watson from s.d. smith's fledge series) was included on a page with several other attempts. i liked the head, mainly the expression, but wasn't satisfied with the pose. a second sketch yielded the couch and teevee but the figure was woefully inadequate; i hadn't gotten the pose right, the face was bad, it just wasn't right. i decided to make a third attempt similar to the first in that i only drew the figure, not the setting. in this third sketch i was most pleased with the pose but liked the first head better. this problem prompted me to pull out my light box and, starting with the scenery, i traced from the second sketch adjusting it marginally. i then traced the pose that i liked onto the couch and finally traced the head from the initial sketch. i'm sure that with the right equipment this is done frequently in photoshop, etc. since i am not very adept with photoshop i was thankful to have tools on hand that would expedite this process.

after finishing the final sketch i used micron art pens of varying thicknesses to ink the drawing. i defined the sofa and shaded the teevee. i intentionally gave the subject minimal shading so that she had more of a "cartoon" look. finally i went to the internets to find a photo of the new river gorge bridge which i then freehanded onto the picture behind sarah on the wall.

while completing this piece i was listening to switchfoot's hello hurricane and the david crowder*band's can you hear us?

from start to finish i spent four hours on the piece.