pantagruel

cintiq

Realized I'd not posted any photos of the Cintiq I recently got. It's beyond awesome to be able to draw directly on the screen; I can move from my shoulder, not just my wrist. I love it.

the humble pencil

In this week's issue of The Economist is an article about the future of the pencil, of all things. Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell is interviewed; his family's been making pencils since 1761.

Faber-Castell pencils are my favorites. I once had a set of four pitch-black pencils, with silver-capped ends. Those pencils gave such a rich black, it was astounding; so unlike those crap No.2 pencils I was plagued with in school. I've been looking for replacements for years, but been unable to find them. Until now:

It's called 'The Perfect Pencil,' and I cannot wait to buy one. I don't know that I strictly need the platinum-plated pencil extender/sharpener version. But ooh, I want one. And once I have them, I will not stick them up my nose, like Blackadder's doing above. Not even if I do want to be considered insane to get out of being sent to the front.

art, pencil

redesign

I've been kicking around the idea of redesigning pantagruel.net -- by doing the entire thing with Drupal.

You know how some people, in the face of impending deadlines, suddenly decide that they've just got to vacuum the baffles on the fridge right this very second? And then they have to scrub their floors with a toothbrush? (That is, people-who-are-not-my-mother. She does that kind of crazy housekeeping all the time. FOR FUN.) Not having inherited that level of cleanliness, this is my version: making an already complicated schedule even more complicated, by piling another extremely labor-intensive project onto the list of things I'm supposed to be doing.

That kind of procrastination is a sign I have a painting at a stage I hate. I become convinced that surely an epileptic six-year-old could do better, and I should just light the entire home studio on fire, so there was never any evidence of my failed attempts.

And they wonder why there's never any early work from most Old Masters.

anxiety attacks, designing, painting, procrastinating

a comment that really ought to be a post

I got a bit carried away today, ranting about the idea of making it as an artist, over at my friend Colleen Doran's blog. Since some of you don't read her blog (and why not? hmm?), I thought I'd bring the discussion here.

---

I’ve been thinking about the idea of making it as an artist, and freelancing vs. a day job, and how money relates to all this. So many things have to happen to make it in the arts (and by ‘arts,’ I mean all of them):

• You have to have the aptitude and talent for your art;
• you have to be disciplined enough to develop your skills;
• you have to get your ass in the chair and produce work;
• then you have to get your work seen;
• then you need to be able to follow through on deadlines and not shoot yourself in the foot by being a pain in the ass to work with;
• then you need to get paid well enough, and in a timely fashion;
• then you need either business sense, or enough common sense to hire someone you can trust to manage your business;
• you have to be able to keep on doing this for decades;
• and then you need to stay current, change, and grow artistically, in order to have a career, instead of being a fad.

Talent’s only one of many factors. It’s crucial, but only one. Work ethic, discipline, time management, and luck: you need them whether you’re doing art as a salaried monkey, or as a freelancer, or as a part-timer. Yet, there is this great schism between people who do art part-time vs. full-time. The part-timers feel like wannabes; the full-time people feel like they have some innate trait that sets them apart from lower beings who are not Real Artists.™ And this idea that Real Artists™ are able to completely support themselves financially in every way, and have no worries, because they’re Just That Good and can turn jobs down…

…well, that idea makes me stabby. The real distinction is whether or not you’re a professional; not how much time you devote to it, or how much money you make from it.

To use myself as an example -- I do some sorts of art (art direction, design, and writing) during the day, as a full-time salaried gig. I do some sorts of art on the side (illustration, painting, design, writing). Regardless of what sort of art, or when I do it, 100% of my income is generated by art. It’s fair to say I’m a professional artist.

I make a decent living. Compared to some of my friends who are also professionals, I don’t make much. I envy their flexible schedules and in some instances, the insane money. Some of them envy the stability and insanely good benefits I have, because they often spend weeks between jobs every year. Couple of my friends are ones who you wouldn’t imagine ever being out of work. And yet, they too must scramble to cover the gap financially when pipes burst and cars die -- so they work on smaller things to keep everything going as they look for more work. I know only one professional creator who doesn’t ever have to worry about money, and he’s totally blowing the curve for all of us.

What many people forget is that even someone who does art on a freelance basis full-time isn’t spending 100% of their time generating art. There’s looking for work, bills, invoices, taxes, client meetings, phone calls, conference calls, emails, research, and then the simple business of living the rest of one’s life. It’s not a glamorous gig.

art, art direction, artist, work

Kai's egg

My friend Avril's auctioning off this hand-carved, painted egg, to help with the vet bill for Kai. Bidding is open until Tuesday, March 30. If the donations exceed the cost of the vet bill, I'll donate the excess to the Inland Valley Humane Society, where I rescued Kai from.

The egg is absolutely gorgeous; I'd asked for it to be in the colors of Kai's fur, and she did an incredible job of making the egg glisten just like the sun did on Kai's fur. It's a labor of love, and the opening bid price of $50 is far too low to even begin to cover Avril's time. [EDIT: Kai's egg is now at $125, as of Saturday 11 PST -- which is beyond awesome. Thank you all!]

I don't know what I'm more touched by -- that she took it upon herself to do this to help me, or the kind words in her post. It's true that I've done a lot of things for free for many people over the years to help them out. Most of my charitable donations come in the form of pro bono work for good causes. I don't publicize them, because I believe that you should do that sort of thing because it needs to be done, not for self-aggrandization. But that also means that the contributions to others I make tend to be conveniently overlooked. It means more to me than I can articulate that Avril stepped up to help out. My best friend has already made sure I have groceries this month, which I also appreciate immensely. I'm incredibly grateful for the help both of them have given me (but I think you all can understand why I'm not auctioning off the groceries).

So please, take a minute to go over and check out Kai's egg. If you're in a position to, please bid. To those who have already bid: thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

  

art, design, dog, painting

What I'm working on, 2: shadows

Here's last night's work on the painting; I laid in the shadows, glazing over the underpainting. This is officially the Ugly Stage.

That's all just transparent red oxide, prussian blue, over the burnt umber and titanium white. Seriously. Two colors over white and brown, and I got all of that. All you need is a warm and a cool, a light and a dark. More colors on your palette doesn't make you a better painter. Which sounds like I'm being a bitch, I suppose, so let me explain:

There's always one person in a class or workshop who is utterly convinced that if they only used the right tubes of paint, then they, too, would be Sorolla or Rembrandt. There is no secret tube of paint that will make the heavens open up and make your work look amazing, but you cannot convince these people otherwise. They will spend the entire time looking at the instructor's palette, or asking what colors they're using to get an effect, and not ask anything else. They won't ask about the thought process, about mood, about logic, about brushwork -- nope, all just about what colors are being used.

It drives me batshit, because they're missing the point.

Since you all seem interested in the underpainting, I figured I'd post the whole process of painting this thing. Even when I would rather hide this stage and just show it finished.

art, painting, studio

What I'm working on

Finally had a chance to paint today, as opposed to all the Not Painting/Not Drawing/Not Writing I've been doing lately.

Had lunch with an old friend today, and as I was explaining that I hadn't done much painting lately (read: none), I thought, 'Okay, this is lame. I'm being lame. I need to just get something on canvas.' It is amazing how just one look of mild reproach from a friend can be the spur I need. Thanks, E.

This is an underpainting I just did, from a sketch I did a couple of weeks ago. Once it dries, I'll start laying down color on top of it. I wish titanium white dried faster, though --even in this heat, it still takes somewhere short of eternity to dry. Hopefully by tomorrow night, I can start glazing.

My study of Caravaggio's Sick Bacchus stares balefully at me from the wall it's leaning against. Sigh. Maybe I'll work on that while this is drying. Or maybe I'll varnish dried paintings.

Or find some new way to procrastinate, like doing work for the day job. There's certainly plenty of that...

comic-con, or friends and zombies

This year, Studio 2nd Street had a booth at Comic-Con.

It was a quiet booth, living a quiet life, bothering no one, until the artists came.

The madness started shortly after that, as soon as the Mad Hatter (who is secretly my friend Danny) showed up, 10 minutes after the con opened.

The artists drew on Thursday. This artist discovered that painting friends-as-zombies is hard. And painting while hundreds of people walk by is extremely difficult. Not to mention hard on one's ego, when you usually can paint like this:

But the painting of friends-as-pimp&ho-zombies was tragically overdue, so it had to be done.

The artists drew and painted so much, that the booth couldn't hold them all, so they had to go upstairs for their panel. Upstairs, there were people waiting to see the artists paint and draw.

There are no pictures of the painting and drawing, as the artists were too busy painting and drawing to take photos of themselves. Also, that's a good way to cover your camera in oil paint, which cameras do not like. The panel was nervewracking, but went well. At least, that's what some of the audience said later.

This artist then left to go have beer, as there was sadly no beer in the booth. So she went to Stone Brewery, where her friend was reading, and also drinking beer.

The pole did not drink beer, in spite of many people's efforts to pour beer on it.

On Friday, this artist wore a different corset to paint in. Like you do. Especially when you're modeling corsets for Alter Ego.

This is a good way to be given a security escort to get back down to the exhibit hall on Friday, and pretend you're Important. Don't I look Important?

And then there was more unfinished painting.

  

And more friends I rarely see.

At the end of the day, and after the painting, there was more beer.

The booth did not miss us while we were out drinking beer. Not one bit. There were other booths, some with flashing lights, even.

And even though Ron strayed and painted the other booth with lights, we liked our booth the best in the end.

Other people came to the booth and gave us free paint.

So, of course, they had to be tested.

Jon Enge came by, pretending to be Johnny Breen, and proving that any Poxy Boggard is interchangeable, as I'd long suspected.

Some of the studio's models came by, wearing clothes, which made them almost unrecognizable.

Jen usually looks like this. That NASA jumpsuit is a good disguise.

On Saturday we left the booth and went to dinner with this guy, who drew Justin. Lucky, lucky bastard with his interesting mustache.

On Sunday, the booth watched me paint this in cat-herder extraordinare Ryan Graff's Sandman sketchbook. Started with this sketch, from last October:

Which became this:

Which became this:

Ryan promises he will send the hi-res scan over.

There was more drawing across the way at Allen Spiegel Fine Arts. This famous guy, working on this piece (final drawing here).

He did this of Vanessa.

My sketchbook now has this as its first page:

I have my orders.

Then the booth started complaining about having had all of the artists in it. Uppity, ungrateful thing.

So it had to die.

The booth swore it would come back next year, as a zombie.

Be ready.   

art, artist, comic-con, corsets, studio, zombies

Comic-con

As regular readers of my blog have guessed by the sudden decline in posts, it's that wonderful time of year known as Nerd Prom, aka San Diego Comic-Con.

Every year, I battle through a massive anxiety attack to get my work together enough to show and get feedback on. This year's anxiety is compounded by the stress of having had my day job at Saltmine U. be in peril. I have less staff, and slightly more work than I did last year. I've been so busy spending the last few months proving I was useful, that all my spare time (such as it is) was spoken for. That doesn't leave much for doing illustrations. Being an art director has had to be my primary focus; being a student came second; and any socializing, either online or in person, was rare. I worked Faire to fulfill a commitment I'd made to help two good friends, and while I don't regret it, it meant I spent two months with no days off at all.

Not surprisingly, my immune system pitched an armed revolt a month ago, and I succumbed to the plague that's been sweeping the West Side. Only in the last two weeks have I been able to get through an hour without coughing, or had anything resembling energy.

Which is all to say: I'm not as prepared as I'd prefer to be for the major industry event of the year. I've done a lot of good work, and I'm proud of it. I just wish I were further along with my current projects, so that I could show them. But hey, I'll bring them down to Comic-Con!

This year will be my very first as an exhibitor, and I'm beyond thrilled to have this chance. I'm going to be with the studio I'm at every Saturday: Studio 2nd Street. We're booth #5361. I'll be doing painting demos in the booth all four days, and will also be part of this panel:

Thursday, July 23
4:30-5:30 Drawing Upon Reference— Ron Lemen (ImagineFX magazine) and Studio 2nd Street Group will cover the subject of photo reference and how to use it when you have to use it. This lecture will briefly cover the do's and dont's of copying photos for your illustration work and some basic guidelines for drawing an effective image. Room 30CDE

Yeah, guess who's going to be showing you all how not to use photo reference.

As if that weren't enough, I'll also be modeling corsets for Alter Ego while I'm there. Hopefully that will generate a lot of business for Alter Ego. It'll be a challenge to not get upstaged by the corsets, but I think I can manage.

If you're going to be at Comic-Con, please come by and say hello!

Yesterday's painting

Yesterday, Sabrina came to pose; here's the finished underpainting. I had a tiny canvas panel of natural linen I'd been saving for a figure pose, and the pose she took was perfect. The 6x11 panel is being cropped, I suspect, by Typepad's iPhone client -- her feet are actually on the canvas. I was getting worried for a while, as my initial drawing was beating me up and taking my lunch money. Instead of having something decent laid in after the first sitting, I was still wrestling with the charcoal drawing after an hour. My heavy-handedness gets really problematic when using soft charcoal in a small space: a 1/16" line is fine on a large canvas, but on a small one, it gets ugly fast, as proportions get thrown off by a line that's no longer a line, but is becoming a plane, with a volume of its own.

I think I got there in the end, though. Next week, I'll glaze color over this and build up the lighter areas so that they've got volume.

In other news, I have work, and plenty of it. I'd love to have both money and time to take a vacation, but it's going to be a while before I have enough of either. Right now, though, I need coffee, and some lunch.