When I started Seven Extraordinary Things I told myself to establish a style of drawing and inking that was simple and quick to execute.
With that in mind I kept my initial drawings uncluttered…
…my first ink lines were clean…
…and unadventurous. So far so good.
I added blacks to separate foreground from background…
…and thought, “It might be nice to cut some detail into the black areas with an eraser tool”…
…Hmmm. That’s fun. Sorta like scratchboard. Now maybe I’ll add a bit of local texture and some shading on the figures…
…ah, what the hell? May as well put some shading in the background.
Now I’ve managed to complicate it. This work flow quickly led me to creating panels like this:
I remember hearing someone say it takes two people to paint a picture: the artist holding the paint brush, and someone standing next to him with a stick to make him stop when the painting was finished.
Here is a shelf on my bookcase with some (but not all) of my favorite drawing books:
Featured here are the Famous Artists drawing course, Composing Pictures by Donald Graham, All of Andrew Loomis’ published books, both volumes of Walt Stanchfield’s Drawn to Life, most of George Bridgman’s books, and very old and battered copy of The Art of Animal Drawing by Ken Hultgren, Animal Drawing by Charles Knight, three books by Jack Hamm, Stephen Peck’s Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist, Anatomy A Complete Guide for Artists by Joseph Sheppard, An Atlas of Anatomy for Artists by Fritz Schider, Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth, The Vilppu Drawing Manual, The Big Book of Drawing by J.M. Parronmón, Rendering in Pen and Ink by Arthur Guptill and How to Draw Trees by Henry C. Pitz.
A SERIOUS SUBJECT.
I wonder if anyone following this Journal knows whether there has been a scientific investigation to prove something ice cream enthusiasts have long held to be fact? To wit: ice cream eaten directly from the carton tastes better than ice cream eaten out of a bowl.
When my wife was my girlfriend, and the time came to meet the family, it was also time to introduce her to our desert ritual. After the dinner table was cleared, my father took several cartons of Häagen-Dazs from the freezer and we passed around spoons. The look of alarm on Lynn’s face made me think our relationship had gone as far as it would. This type of barbarism wasn’t tolerated in her household. But to avoid being rude, she picked up a spoon and reached for the Cookies & Cream. It was closest. After one bite, there was no turning back. Next came Rocky Road, followed by Coffee and Vanilla Swiss Almond.
It is the belief of the Lefler-clan that, despite manufacturer’s claims to the contrary, the lids of ice cream cartons are not reusable. For this reason the pint containers are preferable if you’re dining alone. Quart size if you have a friend with you, but don’t break out the gallon cartons unless there are enough people at the table to get the job done. Letting uneaten ice cream melt would be sacrilege.
I’m happy to report that Lynn and I are still together and still eating ice cream the way it’s supposed to be eaten. But on a sad note: The carton of Chunky Monkey that modeled for the above drawing is no longer with us.
In the wee small hours of the morning…
A short time later…
When we read a story, or watch a movie, we want the protagonist to do what we can’t: live in the moment. The events of the story may, or may not be Earth shattering, as long as they are so important to the main character that they consume every ounce of his or her attention. We demand this as an audience. If we are going to invest the time to watch, or read about a character’s life we want to feel that character is paying attention. If he doesn’t care enough to offer us an immediate reaction to the events at hand, why should we?
Although most of us don’t live moment to moment, we’ve all experienced it. There are times, however fleeting, when something happens that drives out all other thoughts and quiets the internal monologue in our brain. One of the things I love about directing is that it forces me into the moment. This is partially because of the production challenges (which are always a little more than you can comfortably handle) and partially because I have to get actors into the same state.
I once had a scene with three actors all speaking in quick succession (not the scene pictured above!). I thought the scene was playing well, but during one take a cast member got one of her lines out of sequence. Suddenly the scene was alive in a way it hadn’t been before. The actors were off script and didn’t know what was coming next. They had to listen, and respond in the moment. It’s an argument for always having something new to introduce to a scene, something that hasn’t been rehearsed and keeps the performances fresh.
There is a paradox in all of this. If we are trying to create a sense of believability in our stories, why would we want our characters to behave in a way that’s unnatural for most adults? In fact, adding distractions (often referred to as “secondary business”) to a scene is usually a good practice. It can make us feel the characters have a life outside of the moment we’re witnessing, and that they will continue to live after the scene ends. There have been times when I’ve given actors the direction to think about something completely different from their dialogue in order to make their performances more natural. These are often transitional moments in a sequence. It’s our job as storytellers to shuttle readers, or the audience, into and out of those states of heightened awareness where the characters are in the moment.
In real life, if someone says something hurtful, we often suppress our response. It’s a defense mechanism that gets us through our daily lives. We might not even feel the pain of it until much later. But we won’t tolerate that kind of behavior from the hero of a story. We want him to react with immediate anger, remorse, or affection. We want him to punch the person who offends him, kiss the girl in public, or kill the villain who’s just done something unforgiveable. We want to witness these emotional responses and see the consequences be dealt with. If the protagonist will do this for us, it brings us a little bit closer to knowing what it might feel like to live an unsuppressed life.