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.

Some place new

A long, grey raincloud rolled sluggishly overhead, and in higher altitudes smudges of white broke up the cold blue sky. Standing tall was an assortment of mountainous trees: oak, madrone, pine- the wind raking through their leafy manes like a tugging comb. The rain fell with decreasing persistence, and when staunched finally to a light drip, fell silent on the dewy grass.
A pair of dark, wet birds perched nearby on the black cables of a power line. They passed back and forth in a soft chatter of clicking and squawking as they gossiped together the latest fowl news. The two payed no mind to the trained eye of a neighboring cat. He seemed too lazy to be capable of more than a fierce stare, and the bird pair were quite aware of this fact. They began to sing.
Unobserved, the cat slinks away.

Someone new: Miss Van

I discovered Miss Van in my favorite magazine, Juxtapoz. Doll like figures meet happy forest critters just before being stranded in a dark corner to fend for themselves. Brooding, seductive and (yes), even charming in their very own special way, Miss Van's paintings are fallen angels making their own in the world, and I love it.
One thing I find particularly interesting about Miss Van's work is the way she casts her shadows, contrasting focal points on top of a washed out background. It makes for an impression that something else could be happening just outside of sight, lurking and hidden. I never thought myself much of a macabre fan, but a fan of Miss Van I am.