The Distant Future. The year 2000.

Happy New Years everyone. What better way to kick it off than with robots (and Flight of the Concords).

Opaque watercolors, caseins, and safaris

Wanting more strong, bold color in my watercolor work (colors that don't require layering and layering to build that color), I'm exploring using opaque paints more now. A couple years ago, I think I mentioned that I avoided the opaque watercolors colors with the large particle size (to get the sort of transparent colors I wanted). Well, it looks now that I'm swinging back the other way towards opaque paints again! Colors like Cerulean Blue and French Ultramarine make GREAT opaque colors. So either with little water or the addition of a filler pigment like titanium white, there's now a new way to get opaque, matte colors that wasn't achievable before.

But even building that matte colors can lead to fun results. The koala hut image also employs not just watercolors, but some casein paint as well, a new fun medium. Then lastly, some safari sunsets. Some great colors to consider moving forward with my work.

Bedtime story

As I drew this, I wondered why do robots have tongues?

Inking (Inktober)

A lot of people are participating in Inktober, that magical month of vampires, monsters, ghosts, and inking. I've haven't done it myself, and probably should at some point. But I thought that I'd share my inking at least for one day.

The drawing above is done with the Winsor Newton Series 7 brush size 1. Fancy, I know, but this brush is probably the most exciting aspect of making art for me. I absolutely love drawing with a brush. The amount of energy and variation that can be captured with the one tool surpasses all others. What is particularly great about the series 7 brushes is that amazing point that they make. That point enables me to get from the thick lines to razor thin lines. Even with the brush, I can get thinner lines than a crow quill pen. This brush makes my day.

Afterword

Normally the posts are in the same section as the artwork, but since the last post was a complete story in itself, here is an afterword. This story was a personal project, for no one in particular other than me drawing it. The idea grew from personal experience as well. Missing out or not being included as part of the group has been a common occurrence since childhood.

From this kernel grew what came to be an unexpected party for Artie thrown by Merlo the wizard. Since conception, the self-imposed limitation of making it 8 pages proved challenging, since the first draft of the story ballooned to 8 pages of writing in itself. However, it helped cut as much fat as possible to the story giving it a very brisk pace. The story was not intended to be riff of the beginning of The Hobbit, but when it took shape, I was curious to see how a bunch of dwarves would interact with a shy kid and a carefree wizard.

In the end, I found that even dwarves can be as exclusive as a bunch of kids. At least kids won't throw down their axes wherever they find convenient (at least I hope not!).

Artie, The Master Party Pooper

Tribute to Richard Thompson

 Yesterday, Richard Thompson of Cul de Sac fame passed away at the age of 58. 

Richard Thompson's work was very influential to me. First there was the artwork. His drawing skills are ridiculous. How can so loose a line be so exact and right? It's amazing how much the line quality can say about the artist. What sticks out most about his drawing is the blend between excitable nervous energy and also pure joy. There's always a happiness permeating his drawings that you don't need words to say. That joy infiltrates its way into his editorial illustrations and his comics and his characters.

His watercolors then… I'm not even going there how good THEY are. 

Lastly, his storytelling and characters. Richard Thompson is one of the last standard bearer of the traditional newspaper comic strip, and while the newspaper industry and the comics that are in it are on life support, it may be a long time until we see his likes again. But even as the newspaper industry is gasping for air while the internet came of age, along came Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac.

His writing alone would have made an amazing comic strip. Even if you took away his irreplaceable art, you'd still believe Alice and Petey are real. They were real kids. Richard Thompson somehow knew how kids talked (Not what they said, HOW they said it). The joyful banter back and forth, the seemingly non sequitars between Alice's preschool friends, the incessant worrying of a milquetoast brother. It's crazy how talented this guy was.

The mark that he made on my work (and on countless others!) is incalculable. It's upsetting that he was taken away so fast from Parkinson's, and my thoughts and prayers will be with his family and friends as they grapple the loss. I want to close this by emphasizing to everyone what joy he brought to the world through his art. Thank you, Richard!

His blog to see a lot of his amazing artwork.

Medieval Robot

Beep. Boop. Bop.

Silent Films/ Flying Robot

The past couple years I've had an idea percolating in my head for a picture book that somehow takes inspiration from the silent films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. In a way, old silent films employ the same storytelling aspects as do some picture books.

One example is the use of the film card. Is the separation of words and visual storytelling that much different from the separation of words and image in picture books?

Modern Times. Such a great movie. The first fifteen minutes is magic.

Have You Seen My Hat? A modern take on the classic picture book layout. Used to hilarious effect.

Another way (which a lot of modern TV and film constantly abuse to death) is the placement of the camera (or shot). In older films (because the industry is just figuring out how to edit and didn't use multiple cameras yet), camera shots were set in one place. Kinda like a stage play. It was the film director's prerogative to capture as much as possible in one shot. Just like a picture book.

So I'm thinking all these thoughts the past couple years and only now I may have discovered a little scamp of a robot to start playing around in these ideas. Mashing of ideas. More to come.

NJ SCBWI conference work.

I updated my website just now and thought I'd share a couple pieces prepared for the NJSCBWI conference this past weekend. Enjoy!