I’ve had the pleasure of doing a couple of pieces of art for stories by author Sam Anderson (www.samscrap.com) this last year, for his new collection “Postcards from Purgatory”.  The book features some great stories, and I was happy to do art for the book.

If you check out my grayscale art page (I’ll wait….), you’ll see an image of a man falling.  I did that art, for Sam’s story “to die dreaming”, from Dark Animus #5 (quite a few years ago). It will be reprinted (with the story of course) in Sam’s new book, along with another new image of one of his other great stories.

After a couple of setbacks (including a new publisher), Sam’s book will be coming out soon. Keep checking his website (above) for more information, and definitely pick it up.

I created one other image that didn’t quite make it into the book (not enough room), and that one is below.  It’s based on a fun story called, “If Mama Ain’t Happy”, and I pretty much refer to it by the same name so that’s now it’s official title.

The original version was grayscale, but through the Magic of Technology™ (aka, Photoshop), I gave it some more texture and color. As always, let me know what you think, either here or my various Twitters, Facebooks and emails.

As you may have read from a previous entry here (you do read EVERYTHING of mine, right?), I recently paid a visit to the Wadsworth Atheneum Art Museum in Hartford, Connecticut.  One of the nice things about being in an art museum is the chance to take in a surprise painting, one that you didn’t expect to see.

That could mean quite a lot of things, from a new piece or new artist you’ve never come across before, to a famous piece that’s just sitting there waiting for you to walk by it.  It’s the latter that happened at the Wadsworth Atheneum (ok, it was both, but that’s for another day), and here’s what I found snuggled in amongst the other pieces.

This is Norman Rockwell’s The Young Lady With the Shiner (1953, Oil on Canvas, 34″ x 30″), one of Rockwell’s obviously humorous pieces. That’s certainly why it caught my eye when I was at the Atheneum, I’d seen this particular piece in plenty of books and magazines before.

Seeing it in person really gives you a different idea of Rockwell’s styles and techniques, something you can’t get too well in a book or just on the web.  I’ve said it before, when you are at a museum seeing a work in person you just get such a different idea of what the artist was really going for, and how they made it to the finished piece.

So, take a real close look at the image above, which is typical or slightly larger even than the average web version.  I’ll wait.

…Aaaaaand we’re back.  You start to get certain ideas and assumptions from seeing the piece at the size above, but you get more of the idea of the piece (especially the humor) and not much of how Rockwell pulled it off.

Here’s a close-up of the girl, the centerpiece not only literally but emotionally as well:

What you immediately notice now is that the girl isn’t smoothly skinned, and the art isn’t glossy like you’d expect from the typical magazine illustration.  Her skin is made of quite a lot of colors, all blending together in unique ways to give her a certain look.

There are the normal reds and skin tones you might see, but there are also greens and blues in her skin. The different colors give her a uniqueness, one that not only sets her apart, but gives her a life of her own.

At this close too, you can see where the ribbons in her hair are thick with the paint. At that thickness, the light is not only created by the artist, but there is also a new light introduced when you are standing in front of it, a different feel that a scan in a magazine might miss. A texture that Rockwell purposefully left in to give those parts their own believability.

You can also see how artists often deal with objects (and people) that are in different areas of the image.  In the full version onscreen, you notice that the principal and the woman are looking on, and your imagination takes it in.  On a closer look, you can see that, while there is plenty of detail, Rockwell also left this area quite a bit less defined than the rest.

Rockwell doesn’t really skimp on the image, but he also understood how it would be recreated and at what size it would end up.  It of course saves time to do less detail in this area, but also when it’s reproduced much of that detail would be lost anyway.

By leaving this area less defined, it also sends the viewer’s eye back to the girl for more information. Sure, the principal and the woman help set the stage for the gag, but they are the window dressing to the image.  Rockwell leaves them slightly less detailed, and in the long run it works to help highlight the girl even more.

It’s that seemingly high detail that often makes the images look so fascinating. But it’s interesting to see artists that know where that detail needs to be exacting and where it should be looser, to give it the idea of detail.

The viewer’s brain will fill in that this is a bulletin board, and that it’s a combination of work by children and adults. Your brain sees it, makes note of it for the overall image, then moves back to the girl.  It helps sets the stage, but doesn’t interfere with it.

It’s a trick of the detail that works well, and it’s only upon close inspection in a museum that you can really see how an artist like Rockwell creates his work. You can also see a texture in the real painting, something you can’t get very well from a computer. You can see the roughness of the canvas where the children’s drawings are, and the note pinned to the wall, the drip of the green paint under the note.

For me, that’s the most important part of the museum trip. This isn’t just a picture of something, or some image to fly by on a website.  I can see the individual strokes that someone’s love put on this canvas.  I can see a line that, close-up, is a little crooked.  I can see a big glob of paint on a manufactured note on a fake billboard in a painting, and know that the artist was a living, breathing soul too, and not just a machine.

Opinions?

I’m not sure if I want to call this new piece a full piece of art or just a color sketch, but it apparently is the mood I’m in tonight.  Dark and depressing (and possibly a bit creepy I guess) seems to rule tonight, but I think this is one of those “art imitating life” moments.

It’s been a long week, and, as I am not one to herald the holidays, I feel this sort of thing has only just begun. I suppose at best I’ll at least get some dark art out of it.

This one I call “the night of the innocents“, and there’s a better close-up at the end.

night of the innocents

Since November has just been a crazy month, I only managed to sketch here and there.  Partly that was due to time constraints, and partly due to the idea that I like to practice sketch on a larger 9″ x 12″ Strathmore sketch pad.  That’s normally fine, and here’s an example of one page of that:

I know, random as always.

When I’m not at home, either out around town or on a plane or whatever the case might be, I try to have my Moleskine with me.  For those not in the parlance, a Moleskine is a particular kind of small journal, in my case the “storyboard” version.

To be honest, I resisted having one for a long time because I like to sketch all over the page, using nearly every spot I can. But over time, I’ve really come to love having my Moleskine.  For one, it’s a great size (5 1/2″ x 3 1/2″) to carry in my pocket. I’m also getting in the habit of jotting down those pesky ideas that usually fly away, which I can then revisit later.

It really does end up with the similar, scattered feel of my normal sketchbooks.  For example, this one is about to become a much larger, apocalyptic piece. It has a different, experimental style for me:

The odd rounded squares are the background of this particular style of Moleskine (there are many). In my case, with a big comic strip project and a kids’ book project coming, having the storyboard version made a lot of sense.  The boxes (despite my scanning) are actually fairly light lines, and haven’t really interfered with any of my ideas.

Some of the ideas I am jotting down are of current projects, and I can sit anywhere I get a chance (plane, coffee shop, you name it) and play with some ideas:

Other times, I just get a chance to practice what I want to, where I want to.  Some ideas may continue on, some not.  Some ideas are sketched out pretty well, others are left pretty open and are mostly just quick lines:

Overall, the Moleskine has been a very handy thing to have.  I know for sure I’ve had a number of ideas that otherwise might’ve gone lost, quick sketches that really do become the basis for something greater.  If you see one in your local store, give it a try.

In commenting on another blog about Russian artists (which I’ve featured here before), I noticed that somewhere along the lines I’d lost the blog I wrote on one of my personal favorite artists.  Seeing the need to remedy that situation, I went and found one of Vasily Vereshchagin’s most famous pieces, one of my favorites.

This is Vereshchagin’s The Apotheosis of War (1871, Oil on canvas), one that gets your attention almost immediately thanks to the skulls.

Vereshchagin was a war artist, and at the time (late 19th century) even fairly well known outside of Russia. Many of his works involve being within the battle, or in the moments right before or after.  In this case, Vereshchagin takes the other route, with a battle (and war) long over.

I find it interesting that the palette he used was actually fairly bright, not the dark and fairly depressing muted palettes that seem more commonplace with ideas like this.  It’s not unusual for Vereshchagin’s work, many of his works are very bright, but for the tone of the piece it makes it a little more interesting.

As noted on several sites (among them this one), pyramids of skulls like this were left near destroyed towns by conquerors such as Tamerlane, and Vereshchagin uses the idea to reinforce the ideas within the image. The skulls, the destroyed town in the background, and the skeletal trees all show not just a war, but a destruction of life itself.

I find it interesting too that Vereshchagin imparts uniqueness to most of the skulls, and yet at the same time there are just so many of them.  He seems to be adding that not just the sheer numbers of the dead are striking, but also driving it home that an individual life was taken as well.

Vereshchagin (noted on that site above and in a number of other places) etched the phrase, “Dedicated to all great conquerors, past, present and future”, into the frame of the work.Vereshchagin, in not a terribly subtle way, is showing that war is evil, and ultimately completely destructive.

Opinions?