This is how a page of Ghiroy is supposed to go: fast. Sometimes I think I spend too much time on the pages for this. It was meant to be a quick, dirty bit of fun, nothing else. Sure, there can be more serious content in the story, I just didn't want it to become a chore, and it did, here and there. Made for some good pages, sometimes but slowed me down and kept me from doing them, much as I'm having trouble with City Silent right now. When making this, there was a REALLY weird 3D effect going on with the text at the bottom. That blue was shooting forward of the red like the old red and blue glasses. The most weird part is that I have a cataract in my right eye so 3D stuff doesn't tend to work for me at all. This was burning right through it. Doesn't seem to be doing it in the jpg version, which is probably a good thing. I've never seen just straight color do that before. Otherwise, Crow and his brother don't get along, and Ricken has problems with elves. Or guys getting too close.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Another portrait abstract style. These are harder than they look. This is my third attempt. There's a balance between the aesthetic of the big, splashy marks and any kind of attempt for likeness. This one almost succeeds. If anything, I think it's a little too close to realistic. Might work more with this, might not.
Monday, February 25, 2019
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Was thinking about or looking at some Franz Kline and missing playing with real paint. Decided to take the iPad in hand and play about somewhere near his sandbox. I think I'm too representational for real abstraction (number 3 anyone?) but I could easily see making some big work with paint like this. It's really down to the joy of making marks, of paint. Trying to paint something utterly non-representational is harder than people think. Every time I've tried, there's usually at least one kind of obvious suggested subject. Even if I wasn't thinking of anything, there it is. One of my earliest abstracts, maybe my first still hangs on my wall. I remember bringing it along to a furry convention of all things and someone there offered to buy it. Didn't want to sell it. Still don't. I had "Pollock" on in the background and had just finished some other representational work and suddenly wanted to do SOMEthing else. I did that. Just fingers. Still like it. These are all about texture. Maybe if I do more, I'll work more on subject or lack thereof. Til then, there's these.
Friday, February 22, 2019
Screwing around with nothing. I haven't touched real paint in a very long time. There were some unused canvas boards in the closet and I got an itch. The pencil sketch wasn't even preparation for this, it was just sort of the catalyst. I just had a want to feel paint again. Because of this, the first layer of the painting (red background) was done just with my fingers. Subsequent layers were done with brushes that shrunk in size though I tried to keep from getting too detailed, wanting to retain that rough texture and feel. This is a lot like how I was painting 20 years ago. There's no pretense of this being anything worthwhile, I just wanted to paint. And I don't hate it. It's fine. I then decided to try and replicate this whole thing on the iPad. I will say it's a lot quicker process. It also yields different results though equally satisfactory. There is still something luminous about the paint that I can't get from the iPad, but there's a cohesion I don't quite get from the paint, either. A waste of time in one sense but a nice diversion in another.
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Cheating? No. Yes, I reused most of page 59 in page 60 but I did it for a specific reason. I wanted there to be a paused moment. I could have reinked the pencils or something but that felt like busy work just to be busy, or perhaps to assuage my conscience for repeating images. And yet, would it have really done what I wanted? By reusing the same images, I remove excess focus on them. If they were noticeably different, I think the reader would start visually poking about, looking for more than just the subtle changes in inking to see if they missed something else or there was another small detail that mattered that had been changed between the two pages. Since they're not, I think the eye of the reader will not linger more than I want it to and go right to the text, assuming that Silas is 'taking a moment to wake up,' or come out of dream. That's what I wanted. I could even see the argument for putting another copy of the artwork without any text at all between 59 and 60. That felt excessive, but I'll revisit it when I compile the song. I did draw a new element; the ladder. First thing I've inked by hand in like three months. Why is there a ladder in his bedroom? Is he still asleep? I guess we'll see.
I've been dragging my feet on City Silent. No idea why, just haven't felt the motivation to work on it. What a nice surprise when I opened the folder this morning and found that I'd already completed the next page, hadn't posted it and had forgotten all about it. That being said, now I have to work on the next page. The song is at least a little more clear in my head. Doesn't mean that the rest of it is magically done...
Thursday, February 14, 2019
The earliest piece of fine art I remember seeing is "Christina's World," by Andrew Wyeth. It had a strong effect on me and I thought about it often, even as a kid. The board game "Masterpiece" was full of real paintings to be bought and sold. All of this and being brought to the MFA as a child made a lasting impression. I'm glad I got to tell my mom before she passed away. You never know what a kid is going to remember and latch onto, so expose them to all sorts of good stuff. Something will stick.