New artist: Takashi Murakami

Check out the YouTube video on Murakami here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWup2H5wb-Y

"Drowning Girl"

Artistic father: Roy Lichtenstein

This is Roy Lichtenstein's "The Kiss", an oil painting done in 1962. This was the first of many comic strip style paintings he is now famous for, including "Drowning Girl". Lichtenstein described his pop art as "actually industrial painting" referring to his trademark use of techniques and images taken from comics, especially in the use of Benday dots. His lines are thick and defined, and the backgrounds often are nothing more than large bold colors.

New artist: Alphonse Mucha

I've seen some of Alphonse Mucha's work before, but I never had a name to attach to the works. The pieces he made are fantastic poster images of mainly women in almost tarot like settings. Like Gustav Klimt, his females have fine, delicate faces against patterned backgrounds.

Artistic father: Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt paintings and drawings are beautiful in their depictions of the female body and frank eroticism. He's known for his gold techniques and Byzantine images with lovely patterns and intriguing subject matter.
I love the mix of flat colors and dark shades, with blurry outlines and finely lined faces.

Project Proposal

Project Proposal

0.) Project Title : Other Realm

1.) My goal for Other Realm is come up with an interesting storyline, and draw it up in a lively manner to the best of my abilities.

2.) Other Realm is going to be the story of a boy and his search for meaning in a world of dreams and false realities. He sets out on a journey of self-awakening in a place where being alive means looking with one's eyes closed.

3.)The sort of references I'm going to need are basically pictures of everything that will be drawn in the entire comic. Not to worry; that's what the internet is for.

4.)Other artists I might draw inspiration from are the inhabitants or Professor Inada's comic cabinet.

5.)Visuals for Other Realm will not be appearing online but in my folder, because I hate using computers.

6.)I'm working with marker and watercolor pencil, the first being not very forgiving and the latter being much more inclined to forgive mistakes. Between the two I will eventually develop some sort of style, I guess.

7.)Timeline for Other Realm:

October 7th- Decision making
October 21st- First chapter made up
Nov. 18th- Second chapter made up
Nov.30th- Third chapter made up
December 4th- Finished?...

New Artist: Gustaf Tenggren

Gustaf Tenggren I've just only realized is the mastermind behind the cover art of Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth", a personal favorite book. His other illustrations are not so graphic but much more realistic, though still maintaining the universal clean lines that Tennggren is known for. His images are romantic and heroic in their subject manner, reading back to a time long ago.

Artistic father: Harry Clarke

I first discovered Harry Clarke and his beautiful illustrations in Tales of Mystery and Imagination by E. A. Poe. An illustrator and stained glass artist, Clarke's use of negative space to create interesting and but not too busy patterns is a fascinating take on the pen. Though his illustrations came second to his stained glass, the pictures he made for contemporary writers of his day to me are more beautiful than any window he ever could have made. A particular favorite of mine is the illustration of the doomed men upon a seafaring vessel. He uses a number of techniques - hatching, stipple, graphic - to create a crazy image.

Treatment for project

Plot outline: Adventurous boy cannot keep reality and dreams seperate, must go on journey to right the wrongs in the dream world.
Main chars: Boy, fellow traveller, villian.
World:
Boy's world- reality: dorms, school, town
Dream world- other realm: mythological and imagined scenarios/legends sort of setting

Page analysis

3) On your blog, visually analyze a page of a book that you like. Look at type choice and size, use of white space, relation of pictures to images and the like. If you're doing a comic, note the lettering and gutter choices, panel breakdown, etc. Approach this not as a critic, but on a functional "how does this tick?" level.

This is a page from the online comic, Directions of Destiny. I'm not particularly interested in the lettering (it's a simple computer font, no handwriting) but in the page design shown here. The artist is very careful to keep the page balanced. Note the larger character drawing counteracted by the speach bubbles, leaving not one side too heavy or bare. The bubbles also provide a smooth flow for the reader's eyes to follow. Here there are no blank gutters but a continuous background filling in all parts of the page- visually there are no empty, boring spaces. I admire this artists concepts of harmony within his drawings.

My creative process

4) Blog a bit about your creative process. How are you going to get this project done? Some things you might think about: Where do you like to work? Do you have a ritual? A schedule? What distracts you? How can you deal with those distractions?

Who/how: I work best from refrences: pictures, models, that sort of thing. This is why I'm so pleased to have a boy toy at home who I can pose for my comic.
What: What distracts me? My kitty. How can I deal? Catnip for the kitty.
Where: I have a studio at home, but somehow I usually end up sitting on the floor in the living room. It's what I've always done and having a set workspace doesn't seem to be changing this any.
When: Whenever inspiration strikes. This is usually from late afternoon to early evening.
Why: What am I getting out of this comic book? I'm hoping to develop some discipline and a better scheduling habit.