picturebook problems

"Why are there no other drawings in this book as impressive as the drawing of baobabs? The answer is quite simple: I have tried but with the others have not had the slightest success. When I drew the baobabs, I was driven by a feeling of urgency."

This passage from The Little Prince caught my attention for the simple reason that I've been working on (intermittently, depending on this, that and Crow's portrait schedule) illustrations for a story for more months than I expected the whole project to take. The as yet unfinished one above is the second in a series of what I expect will be either 8, 9 or possibly, 10 pictures altogether - in other words, however few I can get away with drawing, inking and painting. As of now I have 7 drawings underway in various stages and the problem I've run into is some of them are much better than others. This series will eventually get done but it's no surprise I've never become a storybook illustrator. I too only rarely feel that sense of urgency.

Speaking of which, you may like this:



♡

trials in illustration

Here I am again without a complete version of the story I mentioned several weeks ago. You've already heard I didn't like the first picture mostly because I was having a lot of trouble balancing the shades of green. Another problem that didn't really occur to me until I was too far into the picture to change it turned out to be the little shed next to the house. I already knew the setting for the next illustration would require a larger building to be in view, or at least suggested in the background, and the original picture wouldn't allow more structures. What I'd envisioned as a grove of trees behind the path turned into an unanticipated barrier that spoiled the effect even more.

All this to say that in the time between this post about the story and the last nearly a month ago, is that I've drawn too many variants of the scene and have painted three. First I got rid of the big house in order to have a thatched cottage that would look more friendly - plus, I added a couple of sheep just to keep things a bit more lively (thanks, Linda). You can see from this drawing that the watercolor paper had already been seriously overworked so the painting that came from it was unsalvageable for that reason alone but, once again there was no barn and, worse still, the farmer looked sinister. Since that one got tossed before I finished coloring, it doesn't count as a painting I finished. Nevertheless I liked the idea of a town being hinted at in the background.

Then I returned to the large house plan and modified it with a sizeable barn visible behind the farmer, along with a tree that would help to harmonize the greens of the surroundings. The sheep would stay. I actually liked this version enough that I painted it more than once. I won't show you the first because.. er, have you ever looked at truly bilious greens? It practically dove into the garbage without my help.

Anyway, the third try looks okay (it will just have to do). The second painting was finished without problems and now I'm working on the last one. In a couple of days I'll post the whole story but in the meantime here's a preview:

One fine May morning a local hillside farmer had just finished putting up a sign that read 'Puppies For Sale', when who should he see pulling a wagon along the path but a small boy.  I'm sure you know signs like that do have a way of attracting children.

'How much are you going to sell the puppies for?', he asked.

The farmer replied, 'They're working dogs so I'll be asking $50.'

The little boy reached in his pocket and pulled out some change. "I have $2.37," he said. "Can I please look at them?"

The farmer smiled and said, 'Right this way', pointing to the old barn next to the house.

***

more soon
(and to think I'd planned four pictures..)
♡

still sketching

One of the things I definitely have some problems depicting is realistic looking architecture. I started out here with the intention of drawing a modern grim looking city with my young friend and her companion gazing out in dismay. Before I knew it I was adding cupolas, balconies, huge curved cutout windows, and an old Chinese tea house on top of what I'd originally thought would be a parking garage. Next will come the trees and flowers, for goodness sake! This may give you an idea of the kind of difficulty I have when I think about the dark story leading to redemption I have in mind compared to the images that appear on the page. Ah well, yesterday I bought some new pencils, two pencil sharpeners (two in the packet), and more paper. It looks like I'll be continuing the process for at least a little while longer if only to discover what the back of my mind is thinking while I'm busy making other plans.

I don't mind cities as places of convenience and for diversion but most modern architecture in North America is beyond boring. When I get right down to it I wish everybody could live in a Hundertwasser neighborhood.

Every so often a video will come along that's longer than 3 minutes and I'm wise enough to know that even that amount of time is too much to ask for a blog visit. Nevertheless, Numb found this recently and I'm going to post it now just so I know where to find it next time I'd like to see something that's very inspiring. It's good to know there are still some kids who understand the value of a cardboard box. You may enjoy it too even if you just bookmark it for later.


Caine's Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.


All the best til next time.

storyboarding part II

I've sat through the credits of a number of video games in order to watch a final section not available until the game was finished. (No, I don't play them but I live with a fairly skillful gamer.) One thing I've noticed is that at the end of video games or even very short animations there are a whole host of people named who contributed to the end result. The short animations usually have a limited list of contributors as would be expected with a film that lasts five minutes or less, but it's remarkable that these things are rarely done by just one person. However, studio productions of full length movie cartoons, Studio Ghibli, for instance, will list more artists than actors in an average live action major film. It always amazes me.

Now I'm involved in my own small scale production of drawing and writing a story I'd like to read and can see for myself just how complicated the process can be. Should I draw and paint a few highly detailed pictures and write the rest or should I plan on letting more and simpler pictures tell the story? So far I'm still compiling sketches that aren't in much of a linear order but you'll see a few ideas are developing. I spent an afternoon this week writing out a plot summary that may have a climax that's too overblown for the intended length of the tale, meaning I'd have to add much more to the middle. I'm not sure I want to write an illustrated novel either, so for the moment my character is standing at a gate wondering about that next step.

Back to the drawing board.

Meanwhile, here's another little movie I found:



It's not what we have so much as what we make of what we have.
♡

storyboarding

For the past few weeks I've been entertaining the idea of writing a fictional story but rather than sitting down with pen and paper or a word processing program my first tendency has been to open my sketchbook. Although there are many things involved in telling about any adventure or quest it seems to me that two things are important at the beginning. The first is that you know who your main characters are and the second is that you explore the place before they get there. I've been taking tiny steps to develop a couple of characters - well, one to start off with and this is her. The trick for me will be to keep her recognizable from multiple angles. I hope you'll excuse me not telling you the plot if I explain it isn't very clear to me yet but I promise to post more sketches as the story progresses. It might get long and if it does I rather expect there'll be more writing than pictures. Even though I love Japanese manga I doubt my ability to draw pictures by the hundreds.

Meanwhile, in case you need entertainment right now, here's a very sweet little story about a young astronomer who lives in a world without stars:


Light up from Light up on Vimeo.


Wish me luck with the process. I have a feeling that telling you I'm doing it might just keep me on track.

♡

slow cargo Crow

Hello everyone, Crow here. There's nothing more delightful than flying with a friend over the turquoise waters of the Caribbean in February. The islands are beautiful but on our way south I was disturbed to see several very large container vessels and three or four even larger bulk carriers. Having spent some time in Halifax with susan I've had the leisure to see a lot of cargo ships (they're not at all pretty) as well as study the issue of international haulage. Interestingly enough, serious container shipping only got started in the 1960s

When you see a container ship for the first time the sheer size can be very surprising. The largest of them range up to 400 meters long (437 yards) and 59 meters (64 yards) wide, comparable to 4 football fields in length. Even now, one of the biggest concerns about building large container ships is how they will make it around the world. One fun fact I came across was that Maersk, an important  Danish company,  introduced a ship so large that they were unable to fill it to capacity due to the weight and the water displacement in the sea near the ports. Had they filled it to capacity, the ship would have hit the sea floor.

Until recently reducing CO2 and sulphur dioxide emissions from the world's fleet of almost 90,000 large ships hasn't been much of a priority for governments or ship owners. Part of the problem is that the industry has grown so rapidly, now carrying more than 90% of the world's trade by volume, and has tripled its tonnage since 1970. The shift of so much production from the US and Europe to China and south Asia has meant cargoes have to travel a lot further.

They do this by burning the world's cheapest, most polluting 'bunker' fuel. Marine heavy fuel oil, which is burned by all large ships, is the residue produced by oil refineries and is so thick that when cold it can be walked on. Just 15 of biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all of the world's cars combined. Unsurprisingly, the stuff is very cheap so demand for it has been soaring as more of these huge ships are built every year. So far most shipping companies have refused to do anything to alleviate the problem because it would cut into their profits and shipping has slipped under the radar of regulators (I know, regulators..)

Then there's the fact the damn things sink a whole lot more often than any news stories ever tell anyone. (How many times does a ship sink? Once. - sorry) According to wiki answers one hundred large ships sink each year, and out of that number ten of them are container vessels or super tankers more than 200 meters in length. Right now, as you read this there are five or six million shipping containers on enormous cargo ships sailing across the world's oceans and about every hour, on average one of them is falling overboard. It's estimated that ten thousand large containers are lost at sea every year. If you've ever wondered why your favorite brand of cereal isn't on your supermarket shelf this might be an answer. It's strange to imagine that corn grown in the midwest could be shipped in bulk to China where it's turned into cornflakes, boxed, and sent back by container ship just in time for your breakfast.

Anyway, I'm sure you get the idea and there's more to learn if you just want to do a simple search. There are some interesting developments aimed at creating wind-powered cargo vessels. A British company called B9 Shipping is planning to build a fleet of ships that use wind and renewable energy. It could become a movement.

All in all, my favorite story involves a small group of people who set off from Plymouth today on a 19th century sailing ketch called Irene on what may turn into an historic and worthwhile venture. Their project, called New Dawn Traders, will sail for five months carrying organic beer from Devon to France, olive oil from Spain to Brazil and then (all being well) will bring cocoa, coffee, Amazonian super-foods, and rum from South America and the Caribbean back to England. Another drawback about container ships is that many ports can't accommodate them so lots of small places have lost all chance of trade.

Lucy Gilliam, a member of Irene's crew said before they set sail, "People aren't really aware of the damage these huge cargo ships are doing to the planet," she said. "There needs to be a great story to get a popular movement going. People are inspired by tall ships. There's something magical in seeing a tall ship in a harbour or at sea."

I think so too. My friend and I will be keeping a lookout for them. Meanwhile, another friend, Horace the homing pigeon, has agreed to carry this letter back to susan. If the trade winds prevent me answering your comments myself I'm sure she will help. After all, I have promised to bring back something very special from my journey to the South Seas - some warm sand.

Salutations to all ♡

a pirate's dream

A friend and fellow blogger has been wondering for a while what my version of a pirate mermaid would look like. That's a tough one since the last thing mermaids needed was ships and pirate women usually dressed as men. Oh yes, there really were more of them than we might have imagined and a tough bunch of ladies they were too. However, I've drawn a picture as I preferred to envision such a fantastical being. Whether or not she finds her way into a painting only time will tell.

Have a good weekend.
♡

december

                                         If Spring is a season of rebirth,
                                         Summer a time of happiness,
                                         And Autumn a time of abundance,
                                         Then Winter is a season of reflection and memory.
                                         Winter is a season of the mind.

                                         In skeletal trees and frozen earth,
                                         We visualize leaves, grass and flowers,
                                         And remember birds and bright winged butterflies.
                                         In Winter we recollect things we've lost and hope to find.
                                         Winter concentrates the mind.

♡

surface details

Just in case you've been wondering what I've been up to lately here are a couple of the sketches I've been playing with in the past couple of days. Neither of them is actually done or even close to it in the finished sense but I'm tending to lean toward refining the seated lady more than the mirror woman. Both tell something of a story but the reflection on outward form and stretching time to some machine like plastic being interests me less than the contemplative aspect of the other. I'm curious about what it is the seated lady may be considering.

A long time ago I spent my painting time trying to reproduce modern versions of the work done by the 19th century watercolorists whose work I continue to admire more with passing time. Although I did come up with some interesting images I never did manage to capture the look of both innocence and wisdom I was trying to portray. It's no longer the 19th century or even the early 20th and my imagined version of the tranquility of those times is currently in abeyance. I'm not a particularly realistic person when it comes to my preferred memories or thoughts about the past but I do believe there was a time not so very long ago when mutual respect was more common. Things are going much faster now but nobody knows the ultimate destination.

I think we each must have a better world we dream about in order to allow for a better place to grow. My plan is to continue spending the time I have imagining and painting a prettier one. Whatever your skills and interests I hope you will keep on doing so too.

♡

what next?

Just so you know I'm still here and not completely a ghost of the internets I thought I'd show you a new drawing. At the moment I'm not sure if he'll become a character in a painting whose form hasn't become clear to me or if this is just another of those images that come and go. The good thing about having a blog is that I can leave him here to graze in a place where someone may see him and wish they could pat his soft nose. I love horses. Just the sight of one reminds me of a simpler way of living that's been lost to most of us - at least for the time being.

I've been thinking about writing and drawing a story but just seeing shadows and glimpses instead of an entirety makes it difficult. I prefer being positive. I don't like conflict but struggle seems to be a major part of the reason we're here. If nothing bad ever happened we'd have little reason to talk to each other and certainly no cause for compassion.

Perhaps I should simply continue writing and drawing the Adventures and see what develops. Tiny steps when we're not strong enough for leaps and bounds will have to do.

In the meantime I made some more bracelets.

Now I've put the beads away for at least another ten years.
Sustained acts of compulsive behavior can make a person very tired.
They can also drive you crazy.
I think I may have figured out what's wrong with our culture.
There may be a story in it.

♡

not all frogs are toads

I once read that Dakinis are the beings responsible for all life energy on Earth. It's not unusual for me to spend a day or more drawing a character who has no particular place in any planned painting but I understand the image will eventually find a place. Since photography hasn't progressed to the point where it can capture imaginary beings (a much more interesting concept than cell phone cameras if you ask me), I draw them and then they sit inside one of my sketchbooks waiting patiently until an inspiration rises. So if you think you've seen this sky dancer before you're right.

I don't know if you can see this very well as the picture is actually larger than can sit flat on my scanner but it's good enough to give you an idea. Sometimes it's hard to hold onto the dreamlike concepts I prefer to paint. Sometimes I even wonder why I keep on doing it. Sometimes I read too much news, or happen to see too many other wonderful artworks, then find myself picking up a book rather than a paintbrush.

Anyhow, the frog showed up, a frog not only with opposable thumbs on his hands and feet but one who also had wings. I'd heard of frogs mutating as a result of all the weird chemicals humans have been flushing into the environment and wondered if perhaps somewhere a frog has experienced an episode of punctuated equilibrium. Next time I stroll past a pond I'll be looking closely to see if there are tadpoles with tiny wings. Nowadays nothing surprises me.

In the meantime I'll be painting this one and hopefully will be able to make reasonable scans of my progress to show you.

Point to remember: all toads are frogs

♡

if wishes were camels

No, no, it's not quite time to get our hopes up that Crow has returned to the east coast of Canada in spite of the fact I told him the snow was gone and the temperatures have actually hit the high 30's. You already know he went to the Middle East and rather than return, he's taken it as a good time to go exploring. He may be looking for magic inscriptions left by the ancient pyramid builders. I hear there's a rumor they knew some aliens who might have some answers for the mess we're in.. or perhaps they know of a nice planet without humans he can take his friends to til we wise up.

Meanwhile, he told me a joke he wants me to share:

One day, a man was walking along the beach and came across an odd-looking lamp. Not being one to ignore tradition, he rubbed it and, much to his surprise, a Genie actually appeared. 'For releasing me from the lamp, I will grant you three wishes,' said the Genie. The man was ecstatic. 'But there's a catch,' the Genie continued. 'What catch?' asked the man, eyeing the Genie suspiciously. The Genie replied, 'For each of your wishes, every politician in the world will receive double what you asked for'.
'Hey, I can live with that! No problem!' replied the elated man. 'Then what is your first wish?' asked the Genie. 'Well, I've always wanted a Ferrari!' Poof! A Ferrari appeared in front of the man. 'Now, every politician in the world has been given two Ferraris,' said the Genie. 'What is your next wish?' I could really use a million dollars ... ' replied the man, and Poof! One million dollars appeared at his feet. 'Now, every politician in the world is two million dollars richer,' the Genie reminded the man. 'Well, that's okay, as long as I've got my million,' replied the man. 'And what is your final wish?' asked the Genie. The man thought long and hard, and finally said, 'Well, you know, I've always wanted to donate a kidney ... .'

You may notice it's an old joke because of the modest nature of the guy's wishes.. or perhaps he's just not especially greedy. Take care til next time. I promised Crow I'd clean up the crappy postcard he sent but I may surprise him by turning it into a painting. If I do you'll see it here first.
♡

wistful weekend

Here it is the end of another week and I've come up with yet another illustration. Usually I draw something and then start painting right away but somehow lately I've been more interested in getting the drawings down on paper while the ideas are fresh. Then too is the fact I've ordered new paints from a supplier in the US and am kind of holding out for their arrival. The figures here are pretty close to what they'll look like in the finished piece but the background is just lightly sketched to provide context. Once again, I hope you're able to view it okay now that I've darkened the pencil lines and changed the shade of the paper to my favorite pinkish shade.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Everything looks better with the tv turned off :-)

❍

you call this winter?

Although you might be thinking this is what it looks like outside our January window the fact is this isn't a great photograph of a snowy Canadian landscape, in fact, it's no photograph at all. Instead, it's a pencil drawing done by a Russian artist whose work I found completely by accident and whose name I don't know because the web page is almost all in Cyrillic. If you click on the link you have to scroll down to see the other drawings but I promise it will be worth a little of your time.

So far winter here has been surprisingly mild. It's snowed a couple of times but just prettily and none has stayed but there are still months to go and the parking bans that went into effect in December don't end until the last day of March. I mentioned to someone today that I was going to miss seeing crocuses and snowdrops in February and he asked what they are. I'm hoping he's one of those people who don't pay attention to flowers rather than that early spring flowers don't grow here at all. Time will tell.

I'm still drawing and thinking of a story I'd like to write to go along with the pictures. Sometimes I can't fall asleep because images and colors race through my mind. Does anything like that ever happen to you?

℃

make your own movies

Not only is this hilarious, ingenious, and very true but the extra cool thing is that it's fairly easy to make 3D movies yourself. Unfortunately, I can't because the program from xtranormal.com only works in Windows and we don't have a PC. All you have to do is type but I think it helps if you have something to say. The next one is even better but there isn't enough room on my blogger screen to show it. Check out Sparks Meets Bernanke and Alan Greenspan You didn't think the Quantitative Easing program announced last week has anything to do with stimulating your economy, did you?

Since I can't download the program I've continued to work on the drawing for the next painting. I wanted to show you a hint of where it's going but it's already too big to fit on the bed of my scanner - plus it's stretched so the original couldn't sit on the screen. The next picture you see will be taken by my camera and may well be a finished painting by then. Bet you can hardly wait :-)







 ♡

room for growth

While watching the film 'Collapse' a few nights ago Michael Ruppert told a version of the story 'The Hundredth Monkey' which was originally written by Ken Keyes, Jr. The movie was a distressing overview of where we've already gone, or at least where the evil (deluded) overlords have taken us in their quest for power and money but the story is a hopeful one and so I've linked to it in case it's something you haven't heard. I'm not even sure if it's true but that makes it no less right.

Sometimes it's hard for me to find anything to say but last night an image came to mind which I was able to draw this morning. It's called 'Growth' and may become the basis of the next painting I work on.. or maybe not, but I thought to share it with you today. It's difficult to draw a person who appears ageless without making them look impossibly young. This is my attempt.

Do you believe that once we've left the egocentric and ethnocentric points of view behind and have gained the world and biocentric ground that there's still room for growth?

∞

if wishes were horses

I've always liked horses. They might not provide the most comfortable or practical means of transportation but there's something about the idea of horse that lets our imaginations about other ways of living run free. So rather than painting this weekend I spent some time on a couple of new drawings for paintings to come later. Draw while the pencil is hot.









Speaking of lively imaginations I've been reading some articles recently about the efforts being made to clone extinct species and wondering what to think of the idea. There's a project underway to find some useable DNA from one of the mammoths that are occasionally found when the permafrost melts. An egg from an Asian elephant would have the nucleus destroyed and replaced with the nucleus of a mammoth specimen. If successful, the resulting clone would be genetically all mammoth. Wow.

Another plan underway is to bring back aurochs. You may remember having seen their images in cave paintings - huge cattle with sweeping horns, seven feet tall at the shoulder and weighing over a ton that haven't been seen for at least 500 years. Caesar described them as: "a little below the elephant in size" and a favorite hunting prey for wild Germanic tribesmen. I wonder how you'd milk something like that?

There are plans as well to bring back the dodo (perhaps an ostrich would mother the egg) and the DNA of other endangered species is being collected and stored just in case the last real tiger dies in captivity like the Tasmanian Devil did at the turn of the 20th century.

What next, you may wonder? Well, the last one I read about was the plan to clone a Neanderthal. Really. You can read about it here but basically now we're talking about a human species that diverged from our line approximately 450,000 years ago and were very different from us in just about every way. Considering the difficulties for one surviving birth and infancy how would he or she see our world? Could one cope without peers or would the plan be to clone a small band and let them live on a northerly island with mammoths and aurochs ready to fill an ecological niche when we're gone?


Is it possible we need to figure out how to take better care of the world as it is before diving headlong into cloning the extinct? When I think about it for a bit I really don't have a very wild imagination at all.

survival of the kindest

Compassion, in Tibetan Buddhist terms, is a spontaneous feeling of connection with all living beings. It's not 'feeling sorry for' or even love in the usual way we understand the word. Instead, it implies a direct expansion of the heart and the deep understanding there is no difference between us.

I know we're programmed at a biological level to avoid threats to our survival and to grasp opportunities to enhance our well being. You don't have to subscribe to the daily papers or watch television to understand our history is one of violence to one another. But I don't believe that's all we are and it's equally apparent we may have an even stronger biological tendency toward kindness, compassion, love and nurture.

There were amazing stories throughout Europe during the Second World War of ordinary people risking their lives to shelter their Jewish friends and neighbors from the Holocaust. We often hear stories of people here doing extraordinary things in times of crisis - like the thousands who helped at the World Trade Center after 9/11 and the thousands who went to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina - as examples of a general human tendency. There are smaller examples too, ones we've all experienced, whether the small acknowledgement of holding a door open, giving money to someone in need or even a shared smile between strangers.

Just the simple fact that we've been able to build societies and civilizations that at least concede the need to protect and care for the poor, the weak and the defenseless supports the idea that an ethical sense is part of our make-up as human beings. I think we're not as bad as we sometimes imagine we are as a species.

***

I've decided to put aside the silk painting for a time and go back to paper and watercolors. There's an immediacy with drawing and painting I truly enjoy which maybe you'll notice about the pencil sketch above that I did on the weekend. It will be a small painting (5x7") and will change during the process but that's what I seem to have the energy for right now. It's called 'Joy'. It's okay if you call me sentimental :-)