Neva: Through the Looking Glass

some final pics with text

2008-12-23T08:02:00.002-05:00

Where's Tiny...the book

2008-12-19T14:52:00.002-05:00

I was able to get together with the photographer yesterday, Thursday, instead of waiting till tonight...which was a relief because of the snow storm. I could just imagine trying to get to his place in the middle of the storm, dragging all my illustrations inside and having his power go out or something.

The photos look great! It was so cool to see them photographed nicely. He used polarizing filters to flatten out the light so the paper wasn't as reflective as it has been when I'd try to photograph it with my digital camera. I started to go through them last night and resizing them, adding text, etc. Blurb makes you put them all in as jpegs, so even if I did design it in InDesign...I'd still have to go through and export it into a PDF, then save them as jpegs...it's just easier to do it all in Photoshop.

I barely had enough room on my hard drive to work with these photos. I spent the morning copying files onto Wayne's removable hard drive, and then deleting them from my computer so I'd have more operating memory. I bought my iMac back in 2002, and while it's served me well...it's probably time for an upgrade.

Before it started to snow, I took the three pieces from "Where's Tiny" that I want in the exhibition to get framed. They garunteed they'd all be ready by January 6th.

Needless to say I am psyched to be this close to finishing. I was telling Wayne last night that this is a pretty different experience for me, because usually when I finish a project this big I just look back on all the things I did wrong and feel I could have done better...and while there is a certain amount of that with this project, the majority of what I'm feeling is happy pride. Or is it relief? 26 illustrations in six months...good lord.

At some point I want to go through and count how many indivdual pieces of paper were used in the book. It'd be a fun fact to include in my presentation I think.

Illustrations...DONE!

2008-12-17T11:28:00.009-05:00

I was up till 2am last night finishing the cover. I am DONE with the illustrations, unless I decide to do the entire map in collage instead of on the computer...which I may yet do. Will try to get in touch with the photographer to see if he's available some evening this week to take these photos...that is, if he has power back on.

Here's hoping!

In this illustration, I updated the girl on the right in purple. She was too small before...

illustration update

2008-12-08T11:30:00.022-05:00

Below are some crappy photos of the finished illustrations from "Where's Tiny?" I've tried to post them in order of appearance, but obviously there are some missing ones that I have already posted, or aren't finished yet, or I haven't photographed yet. I have six illustrations left to finish, and will be meeting with the photographer on Sunday to photograph them all. I'm not sure which of these I will have framed yet for the exhibition.

This is a detail of one of the glued together characters...

And this is the back of the same character...I've been using the back of the museum's old posters as a paper source. (It seemed like such a waste to throw out these posters which were printed on Epson enhanced matte paper...) That's why some of the backs of these characters have fragments of words and images.

This detail shows the scale of some of the character pieces. These are actually collages, not just painted from one piece of paper. I think the smallest one is three pieces of paper.

final artist statement

2008-09-28T19:05:00.003-05:00

Good lord this was quite the process...but it was helpful to go through all those drafts of artist statements. Certainly gave me a lot to think about. I asked a lot of people for their opinions and everyone's input was helpful (sometimes confusing and conflicting opinions lead you to the best results...even if I did kick and scream along the way), but in the end I think this is what it needs to be, at least for the AIB exhibition catalog.

"When I was a junior at Syracuse University, I spent a semester studying in Florence, Italy. I was excited to be there and see all the incredible artwork and experience everything I’d been dreaming about for years. Something I didn’t count on though was how lonely I’d feel, being so far from home, friends, family, and everything familiar. What made me feel the loneliest though, was not being able to communicate with the people around me. I didn’t speak Italian very well, and when I would go out into the city I was filled with anxiety about what would happen if I had to speak to someone. Every encounter was a potentially embarrassing miscommunication. I’d never considered that language could fail me so completely. It was a scary feeling. However, the beautiful art that surrounded me in Florence forcibly reminded me that art can transcend language, and communicate across language barriers.

Communication is such a big part of all of our lives, and yet most of us struggle to say what we think, regardless of what language we speak. As a children’s picturebook illustrator I can communicate with children through pictures. In this way my art can offer a reprieve from that struggle. My time spent in Italy, and the helpless loneliness I experienced was the impetus that led my art to where it is today. I use the experiences of my life to shape my stories and illustrations. My style and medium are the tools I use to communicate those stories, but my work is the development of visual narrative through the expression of my characters, and the emotion of the words."

illustration update

2008-09-27T13:06:00.003-05:00

I've still been working on gluing together the characters for the illustrations. I've been going through the book and doing one character at a time (that is, I'm going through all the illustrations and picking out the same character in each of the illustrations and gluing them together. That way I don't have to keep digging through my piles of paper for each and every illustration.) If that makes any kind of sense. It makes sense to me, so I guess that's all that matters. It's making my life easier, but at the moment I have a pile of pieces waiting to be assembled into finished illustrations.

Here's some pics to hopefully give you an idea:

So yes I do realize that none of my characters have eyes yet, because I'm waiting till I have them all assembled. Once they're all assembled I'll go through and do the details. The one on the steps, those characters are just taped down.

artist statement...another version

2008-09-27T12:43:00.003-05:00

So, after talking it over with people, I guess I have to admit that the ABC artist statement isn't "appropriate" or whatever for the exhibition catalog. So here's one compromise.

“Pulled along by his dog Tiny, Sam wistfully looks over his shoulder at a small group of kids along the path. The kids are laughing and talking in a language Sam doesn’t understand. He feels so alone here in this strange place, with only Tiny to keep him company. He wishes he could just go home. At least at home he could talk to kids in his own language. Here he just can’t figure out a way to make friends. He spends his days playing with Tiny, exploring the strange city, and drawing in his sketchbook. He’s getting pretty good at drawing Tiny; Tiny, with his little bright red collar and matching leash and his silly happy face. Sam is sure that without Tiny, all this would be much more unbearable. But still, it’d be nice to have a friend. He sighs as he and Tiny turn the corner, moving away from the group of kids, their laughter chasing his lonely path. It’s an odd feeling to have your words suddenly be meaningless. It made Sam a little sad to think that something that was always there for him and had served him well, now meant nothing.”

I’m Neva Austrew and I am a children’s picturebook illustrator. My work is about communicating with pictures all that is said in words.

ABC artist statement

2008-09-25T16:00:00.005-05:00

My artist statement has been the most terrible dry bit of writing I think I've ever done...I've included it below, just for your amusement:

"Why are stories important to us, and why do we love to share our stories with our children? Stories offer a way to pass on knowledge, share humor, and learn lessons. The stories found in children’s picture books offer children a way to connect to an unfamiliar world, and the illustrations can inspire wonder in both parent and child. As an illustrator of children’s picture books, I share my own personal narratives with children in the hope that they will find something in my books and illustrations that is inspiring and worth remembering as they grow up. It’s a challenge to create stories that are worth remembering. A few years ago, if I were asked to define my art, I would have started by describing my style and medium. Now however, I know that the development of the story, the expression of the characters, and the emotion of the words are the defining characteristics of my illustrations. Those are the things that can make stories worth remembering. Story, character, and emotion define my art, and sharing my art with you and your children is my goal."

Someone told me during the last residency that it sounded like someone put a gun to my head and made me write this. Of course, I'm actually paying someone to force me to do this, so I thought I'd better try to improve this. Mary Mayer gave me the brilliant suggestion of using the ABCs as a format for my artist statement, using each letter to begin each sentence.

This is the result of that inspiration. I like it way better, but that's just me.

A is for Artist, and if I may,
this artist will tell a story today.
Before I was grown into what I am now,
I longed for a voice that could somehow
Communicate all that I wanted to say,
not failing, or falling, or fading away.
Did grownups know the secret to this?
Could they say what they mean? Did that exist?
Every day I would ponder, and wonder, and think,
but my hope for an answer was starting to shrink.
For the more that I learned my ABCs
the more I began to really see.
Grownups were asking us kids to rely
on words and symbols, and who could deny
How alluring and pretty they sat on the page,
all fancy and neat and pompously sage.
I went along with the game, I learned it well.
I could write, I could speak, I could even spell.
Jump forward now to this present day
when even though I have plenty to say,
Knowing and doing are two different things
and the failure of words is a failure that stings.

Loving books and the wisdom they hold
is a comfort, a friend, a treasure untold.
My love of books and the words throughout
are because my books were never without
Notable pictures that allowed me to see
what I couldn’t describe to any degree.
Only those pictures could bring me afar
and show me Where the Wild Things Are.
Pictures showed a bear of little brain
way before I could spell out his name.
Questing for monsters and pirates and treasure;
children’s books are gifts beyond measure
Rallying my wits, my talent, my paints,
I’m determined to remove any wordy restraints.
So stand aside, cause here I go!
Are you ready and listening? Well, if so…
This is the time to remember those years
of innocence, laughter, wonder, and tears.
Underneath your grown up exterior
lives a child with a mind far superior
Vying for attention, wanting to see, understand.
Don’t keep them waiting, let them see firsthand
Why words are important but how pictures can be
inspiring and wonderful, don’t you agree?
Xerox this moment and don’t be so bleak
Recall this story when your kids start to speak.
You’ll offer them books with love and with knowledge
But here’s a reminder you won’t want to acknowledge:
Zero, nada, nothing could possibly be
Filled with more contradictions than the ABCs.

I think it goes along better with my thesis, in which I talk about how words can fail us, but pictures are more easily understood and have a different kind of potential.

A Neva of little brain

2008-09-25T15:59:00.002-05:00

I was trying to re-write my artist statement today...and this is what came out...

The more I
read-tiddely-pom,
The more I
Know-tiddley-pom
The more I
Know-tiddley-pom
Keeps
Growing.

And who can
Tell-tiddley-pom
How art can
Help-tiddley-pom
How art can
Help-tiddley-pom
My
Knowing.

A few final illustrations

2008-08-28T17:22:00.002-05:00

These are a few crappy pics of some of the finished illustrations for "Where's Tiny".

4th residency summary

2008-08-04T20:32:00.002-05:00

My fourth residency was a great ten days. A lot of the concerns I had about my thesis project and thesis paper were discussed and resolved. Or, resolved as much as possible in ten days.

The main thing that was concerning me was my lack of direction for my thesis paper. I had my thesis project all planned out and was ready to finish the final illustrations. The topic for my thesis paper had to somehow relate to my book, so I decided to focus on non-verbal communication through visual narrative, which is basically a metaphor for a children’s picture book.

The elective seminar was helpful in that it answered my basic questions on the expectations for the thesis paper. It also helped to have my fellow grad students critique my artist statement and rough thesis outline. After the residency, I ended up throwing away my outline and starting over, and I may do the same for my artist statement. Mary Mayer gave me a great idea to write the artist statement in an ABC book format. If I have time, I’d like to try this as I think it’d be an appropriate solution to an otherwise stiff and formal artist statement.

John Kramer gave me great advice on the exhibition of my final work, and I decided to incorporate some of his ideas into the artist talk and exhibition. I’m having my boyfriend record, in both video and photos, my process of illustrating my children’s book. I’ve also arranged to have a child’s table and two chairs, that I will paint myself to match the book, donated to me for the exhibition. I’ve arranged to go to a friend’s preschool classroom to read my book, and plan to record that. I may combine that video with interviews of colleagues, friends and family talking about their favorite children’s books, and display that in the exhibition or incorporate it into my art talk.

In terms of the book itself, it was decided by myself, my mentor Susan Sherman and my advisor John Kramer, that I should illustrate the book using a style that would be fast and easy, considering the limited time I had to finish the book. After returning home however, I reconsidered this. I don’t want to abandon my collage style of illustration in an effort to make my life easier. This may be one of my last chances to illustrate a book in exactly the way that I want, without the overriding input of a publisher. And after experimenting with some different styles, I came to the conclusion that it would take me no longer to do the illustrations in cut paper. I appreciate Susan’s input on my collage style. Her concern is that it’s a very competitive style and you have to be very good at it. Well, my answer to that is that I see no reason why I can’t get very good at it. But I certainly won’t get very good at it if I abandon it at the first sign of a challenge. So my final illustrations for “Where’s Tiny” will be done in cut paper collage.

The Critical Theory class was interesting and I appreciated her style of lecturing. The slides were interesting and it brought up issues and artists that I had never heard about, which is always fun. It would have been nice to see more of a wide variety of visual arts, including graphic design movements, influential contemporary illustrators, folk artists, craft movements, etc. I get that there’s limited time, but is it really necessary to spend 20 minutes on one painter? I know I would be better served during these Critical Theory classes if I wasn’t forced to have to constantly be asking myself “that’s interesting, but how does that apply to me? Does it even apply to me?” Those are the kinds of questions I was hoping to have answered, or even just pointed in the right direction, by my professors…In that way, these classes have failed my particular area of visual arts.

My personal critiques were interesting and some people had really great input, while others, well, didn’t know what to say. I benefited the most from the group critiques with people like John Kramer, Hannah Barrett, Laurel Sparks, Deborah Davidson, and Tony Apesos. A lot of the graduate students had no real input on my work, and I could see that they were struggling to relate to what I do. While I get that it’s hard, I appreciated the people who made the effort to see and think outside their comfort zones and give me their real thoughts, input and critiques. It would still be nice to have a few more allies within this program for illustrators, but I recognize that it’s an ongoing battle, and in the time that I’ve been in the program, I have seen improvements.

Overall, I know the people involved in this program are committed teachers, and I appreciate their hard work. The other graduate students are great resources for me, and they have all been very supportive and helpful both in my art and in my life.

Good luck to you all this semester!

Where's Tiny?

2008-06-13T18:24:00.017-05:00

I know I've been missing in action most of this semester, but I have been keeping busy. Below are the individual pages of the book dummy for Where's Tiny?, the book I've been working on all semester. It's a 48 page picture book that I wrote myself, and will be working on finishing next semester.

Paper - Illustration, Authorship, and Copyright

2008-05-13T12:58:00.003-05:00

Introduction

As the authors of individual creative works of art, picture book illustrators are faced with the challenge of defending their rights to their art, all the while working within a culture that is moving away from ideas of individual authorship, and towards an “information wants to be free” society. The current United States copyright laws are being challenged and might soon change to unfavorably reflect our society’s desire to provide equal and broader access to creative work. Does this shift indicate a change of attitude towards the value of individual authorship of art, and how does this shift affect picture book illustrators?

Authorship

What does it mean to be an author of a creative work of art? The question seems simple enough. If I create a work of art, I own it. I am the author, and therefore the fruits of my labor are my own. Martha Woodmansee, in her essay titled The Genius and the Copyright: Economic and Legal Conditions of the Emergence of the ‘Author’, says that “in contemporary usage an author is an individual who is solely responsible – and therefore exclusively deserving of credit – for the production of a unique work” (426). But as she quickly points out, this is a fairly recent development, and in fact social norms in Europe in the eighteenth century dictated a much different authorial landscape.

Authorship: What it Was

In the wake of the Renaissance, writers, artists, and poets were considered craftspeople above all else. They were repositories of generations of knowledge and skill, which they spent years mastering in order that they could then “achieve the effects prescribed by the cultivated audience of the court to which they owed both their livelihood and social status” (Woodmansee 426). But sometimes there would be an instance of inspiration in which the craftsperson would seem to rise, not only to meet the expected requirements of her craft, but also achieve new heights. These inspirations were said to be provided by either a muse or by God. So in both cases, an artist wasn’t considered personally responsible for authoring their works of art. They were considered to be either vehicles of tradition or vessels of divine inspiration.

This situation provided well for the artist as long as a patronage society functioned. But the reproducibility of printed texts, which started in the late fifteenth century and slowly spread and sped up through the Renaissance, would flood an eager reading public with an exciting new form of entertainment. With this new interest in printed texts, “writing became an individualized activity, a potential source for recognition and social advancement” (Finkelstein and McCleery 70). This is also around the same time that we see the emergence of authors signing their work. “The result of attaching a name to a text was critical evaluation, recognition, and in some cases an enhanced reputation” (Finkelstein and McCleery 70). Elizabeth Eisenstein concurred that the “drive for fame itself, may have been affected by print-made immortality” (qtd. in Finkelstein and McCleery 70).

Writers and artists no longer felt shame for accepting money for their work, although this idea of individual authorship remained a hot topic for debate through the nineteenth century. In 1772, the German writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote in his essay “Live and Let Live”, a proposal for reorganizing the book trade: "What? The writer is to be blamed for trying to make the offspring of his imagination as profitable as he can? Just because he works with his noblest faculties he isn’t supposed to enjoy the satisfaction that the roughest handyman is able to procure – that of owing his livelihood to his own industry?
…
But wisdom, they say, for sale for cash! Shameful! Freely hast thou received, freely thou must give! Thus thought the noble Luther in translating the Bible. Luther, I answer, is an exception in many things. Furthermore, it is for the most part not true that the writer received for nothing what he does not want to give away for nothing. Often an entire fortune may have been spent preparing to teach and please the world" (qtd. in Woodmansee 436-7).

Here we must consider Lessing’s words in relation to a picture book illustrator. It is true that illustrators and writers would both toil to learn their crafts, and “often an entire fortune may have been spent preparing to teach and please the world,” both in an emotional and monetary sense. But most poets and writers work alone and do not collaborate. Unless an illustrator was a master engraver, so that there was no middleman between conception and execution, a book illustration usually involved two or three “authors.” In the case of George Cruikshank, who illustrated Europe’s first great example of children’s literature, the first English translation of Grimm’s fairy tales; German Popular Tales, he was the one who conceptualized the drawings, transferred it to copper plates, and made the final adjustments during the final etching. But John Tenniel’s famous illustrations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) were drawn by him directly onto the wood block, and then the Dalziel Brothers, his engravers, would interpret his drawings (Hearn, Clark and Clark 9).

So who would be considered the author, the illustrator or the engraver? The drawings and woodblocks hold different steps of creative evolution, but the print produced from both efforts is the intended work of art. The important thing to consider is whose intentions produced the print? John Tenniel persuaded Carroll to repress the first edition of Alice in Wonderland because he was unhappy with the printing: "That of the White Rabbit as herald in Alice in Wonderland was scrapped and reworked for the final version. A completely new rendition of Hatta in person in Through the Looking Glass replaced the first even after it had been engraved and a proof pulled, and several of Alice as queen on the chessboard also were redone to give her dress less crinoline; “plugs,” or pieces of wood, were inserted in the blocks to make the corrections. The wood engraving was the final work of art" (Hearn, Clark and Clark 10).

It’s the intention of the illustrator that drives the work of the engraver and makes her the unique author of a work of art. So from the beginning of picture book history, when books began to be reproduced for the media market, the concept of authorship was a sticky problem for illustrators, and remains so today.

Authorship: A Modern Evolution

An industrial evolution began to change societal expectations in Europe and America and consumer culture began to take a more prominent seat in every day life. As Walter Benjamin noted in his famous 1937 essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, “during long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well” (par. 10). The historical circumstances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was of a burgeoning commodity culture, slowly permeating and “simplifying” concepts, actions, and art, through the vehicle of reproduction.

Writers, artists, and illustrators began to be treated like celebrities. They became larger than their work, and their personalities and private lives began to become enmeshed into the aura of their “work.” As Steven Heller and Marshall Arisman note in their book Inside the Business of Illustration, “before radio, motion pictures, and television the printed page was the exclusive entertainment for the American public. Illustrators were household names. Many received fan mail and were paid as “celebrities” to advertise and endorse products” (86). Michel Foucault noted in his famous essay What is an Author, “it would be worth examining how the author became individualized in a culture like ours, what status he has been given, at what moment studies of authenticity and attribution began, in what kind of system of valorization the author was involved, at what point we began to recount the lives of authors rather than of heroes, and how this fundamental category of ‘the-man-and-his-work criticism’ began” (qtd. in Woodmansee 426).

Authorship and the Relation to Copyright

This new commodity culture offered up authors of texts and art as geniuses who were not only personally responsible for creating masterpieces, but sole owners to the rights of those masterpieces. Copyright laws began to acknowledge this author authority, by not only extending economic rewards and protections, but by making it clear that those rewards and protections were the best way to encourage the dissemination of ideas (“Graphic” 29). By instilling copyright laws that were effective, both the artist and the public would be well served.

Copyright: What it Was

While the earliest recorded English copyright law, The Statute of Anne of 1710, only protected against anyone but the author reproducing a work, today’s copyright laws are more focused on giving an author the right to authorize “use” of the work (Joyce et al 3). Not long after the American Revolution, a copyright clause was added to the Constitution and enacted in 1790. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 gave the Federal Government the right to legislate regarding copyright and patent: “Congress shall have Power…To Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times, to Authors and Inventors, the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries” (qtd. in Joyce et al 19). Then in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered a revision of the copyright law so that it might better reflect modern conditions. In the 1909 Act that followed these revisions, copyright was effective the day of publication, instead of the moment of copyright registration. The 1909 Act did not protect unpublished works.

Copyright: What it Became and Why it Works

The 1976 Copyright Act changed this so that a work of art is protected by copyright laws the moment it is “fixed” in tangible form. Even without a copyright notice, or failure to register, once a work of art or text is created, it is protected. The 1976 Act also made it clear that an author’s copyright is actually a bundle of rights, and the author can choose to transfer or license all or part of those rights. The author has rights to her work for life plus 50 years, which was extended in 1998 to life plus 70 years by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Also in 1998 the Digital Millennium Copyright Act broadened copyright law, but specifically Section 512 which, in general, limits internet service providers from copyright infringement liability for simply transmitting information through the internet. However, thanks to Section 512 the internet service providers must promptly remove material from their user’s websites that appear to constitute copyright infringement (“Graphic” 42).

The 1976 Copyright Act brought the United States closer to the standards of the Berne Convention, which was a multinational treaty for the protection of literary and artistic works that accepted moral rights as a matter of course. Moral rights are a kind of doctrine that recognizes “certain inherent personal rights of creators in their works, even after works have been sold or the copyright transferred” (“Graphic” 51). The 10th edition of the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines outlines the four rights that the doctrine traditionally grants to artists and writers:

1. The right to protect the integrity of their work to prevent any modification, distortion, or mutilation that would be prejudicial to their honor or reputation.

2.The right of attribution (or paternity) to insist that their authorship be acknowledged properly and to prevent use of their names on works they did not create.

3.The right of disclosure to decide if, when, and how a work is presented to the public.

4.The right of recall to withdraw, destroy, or disavow a work if it is changed or no longer represents their views (51).

The members of the Berne Convention were required to “frame their copyright laws to certain minimum standards and to guarantee reciprocity to citizens of any other member” (“Graphic” 51). By joining the Berne Convention in 1988, the United States extended protection of American works in an additional 24 nations, thereby significantly slowing the foreign piracy of American works.

Certainly picture book illustrators, and illustrators in general, are greatly affected by these copyright laws. Under current copyright laws, an illustrator may create, let’s say a children’s picture book, and transfer all of her rights to the illustrations to the publisher, and then ask for a royalty agreement that will ensure that if the book is popular enough with the public, she will be compensated for her hard work. The mastery of the illustrations is a major component to the success of a children’s book, and the author of those illustrations can, if agreed upon before it is published, reap the benefits of a media market. An illustrator may want to reclaim her rights to those illustrations, and may do so if the publisher agrees, or if she waits till 35 years after the initial transfer and through a simple process, terminates the original copyright agreement. The illustrator of the picture book may also decide to license the works for limited usage, so that the publisher can print a book, but can’t create a cartoon based on the characters within the book. Or the illustrator can agree to license those rights to the publisher so that if her book gets turned into a major motion picture, like Polar Express by Chris van Alsburg, she will be compensated for being the author of the original book, which inspired the movie.

And if an illustrator creates a work of art and then realizes that someone has, without her permission, misused it in an advertising campaign, a campaign that has made millions for whatever company is being represented, she has the legal recourse to stop the representation and get fairly compensated for the misuse. Because illustrators have always worked within a commodity culture, instead of in opposition of it, copyright laws have been important tools to maintaining economic independence. How can an illustrator survive if her rights are easily stripped? And if illustrators can no longer create, can no longer afford to make art, how does that serve the dissemination of ideas that seems to have become so central to American life.

Copyright: Where Will it Go?

This stripping of an author’s rights and protections has recently taken a disturbing turn in the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008. To preface this discussion, we should turn back to the concept of authorship. The individualization of the author seems to hold no place in this new commodity culture, where information flows freely, and the demand is outpacing the reality of laws. If an author holds pure authority and truth to her works, and society believes in that authority, she has the power to defend her rights to her works. But with Roland Barthes short essay The Death of the Author, published in 1967, came a new kind of perspective on the authority authors bring to the table regarding their own work:

"…an author did not exist once his work passed into the public domain. Remove him, and you created room for new meanings, you liberated the text. In an attempt to shift critical emphasis from author-centered enquiry to reader-based analysis, Barthes argued in dramatic fashion that how readers interpreted these texts was now all-important to critical reflection.
…
…readers created their own meanings without the aid of this concept of an author – they, in a sense, were authors in their own right. Each time readers read something they would come away with entirely different meanings and significations" (Finklestein and McCleery 81).

This idea of the death of the author was supposed to be liberating and freeing to society, as well as to artists. It was supposed to make room for diversity and new interpretations. Of course it rang hollow with groups such as women and minorities, who hadn’t yet had the chance to develop the same kind of authority that came with being a white male author. Yet critics like Barthes and Foucault continued to drive home the point that even though an author creates something, her choices are influenced by many social factors, and that free choice is not quite so free. Sure she owns what she creates, but her creation can change at any time through interpretation, appropriation, etc.

This view of authorship is much more agreeable to the digital age, an age in which everyone is an author through blogs, websites, and online forums. Everyone’s opinion counts, and everyone borrows from everyone else. The personal respect that was the norm for authors, is fading through the impersonal vacuum of the internet. How can one hold an author’s work as being the highest form of truth, when that author’s work is easily manipulated through photoshop, collaged into anyone’s self portrait, or taken completely out of context?

The Orphan Works Act promises to use this new attitude to favor this “information wants to be free” society. The title of this Act is misleading at best. The supposed purpose of this Act is to free up works that are still under the 70-year copyright protection, but the author has passed away or is missing and the work is languishing in limbo, unable to benefit either the author or the public. Say a work of art was created and then the author passed away and it’s now 50 years later and no one has kept up with the copyright of this work. Under current copyright, this work is protected and therefore cannot be used by anyone, not even libraries and museums, for another 20 years. The Orphan Works Act will free these works up for general consumption, but it will do so by freeing ALL works from copyright protection.

Artists will have to register, for a fee, all drawings, sketches, doodles, etc. with privately owned and operated online registries if they want their work protected. No longer will a work be copyrighted the moment it is created. Even works that have previously been registered with the Copyright Office will have to be registered with these online registries in order to be protected. The point of the online registries is to give people who are looking to reproduce works of art, the ability to perform registry searches, in order to determine if the work they want to use is in fact an orphaned work. If this person can prove that they have done a reasonable search for the work of art, they can assume it’s ok to use for whatever purpose. But the Act doesn’t stipulate the allowed number of registries. There could be hundreds. So even if an artist has done the work and registered with an online registry, if the person searching for your work doesn’t look at that particular registry, they are in the clear.

An illustrator could spend thousands of dollars and many more hours registering all her work in as many online registries as she can find, and someone could still reproduce her work without permission and, if caught, only have to pay what they normally would pay if they had commissioned the work. Hardly a great deterrent.

This Act will not only affect artists and illustrators, but will also impact anyone using social networking sites or photo/file sharing sites like Flickr or Snapfish. A photo could be chosen from one of those sites, after deemed an orphan work through a feeble search through one or two ineffective registries, and used in a product campaign for something that the original author of the photo might morally oppose, or not want their work to be associated with. The scope of abuse if this bill is enacted is tremendous.

This bill was originally written by eight American University law students under the direction of a law professor named Peter Jaszi. Jaszi wants to overthrow the romantic notion of authorship and reinstate the idea that all authorship is a communal activity (Holland). As stated above this digital era we’ve entered is the perfect stage for just such a redefinition of authorship. But the ease with which this Orphan Works Act can be abused, and will be abused, will only serve to weaken the already tenuous hold artists have over their works of art, and by proxy, their livelihoods.
Conclusion

Artists are not above the needs of a society. But does society really need this much access to manage and manipulate an author’s creative work? The Orphan Works Act has been released to Congress during the last week of April 2008. The Illustrator’s Partnership of America has taken up the battle cry of “Preserve Visual Artists’ Copyright,” and is doing their best to fight this Act that, if enacted could destroy not only illustrator’s rights, but any visual artist’s rights. But they are faced with years of critical theory from convincing thinkers who say that the world would be a better place if we remove the rights of authors and return all creative work to the people. If done, artists will at the very least start to lose the ability to support themselves, and unless we return to a patronage society, will fall into oblivion; living in a society that holds no value in their work, and support no creative inspiration above the most meager of expectations.

Works Cited

Woodmansee, Martha. “The Genius and the Copyright: Economic and Legal Conditions of the Emergence of the ‘Author’”. Eighteenth-Century Studies 37 (1984): 425-448.

Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. An Introduction to Book History. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Hearn, Michael Patrick, Trinket, Clark, and H. Nichols B. Clark. Myth, Magic, and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American
Children’s Book Illustration. Colorado: Roberts Rinehart, 1996.

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. 1936. 9 May 2008 <http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm>.

Heller, Marshall Arisman. Inside the Business of Illustration. New York: Allworth, 2004.

Graphic Artists Guild. 10th Edition Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. New York: Graphic Artists Guild 2001.

Joyce, Criag et al. Copyright Law. New York: LexisNexis, 2005.

Holland, Brad. Personal interview. 5 April 2008. <http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html>.

Paper - Children's Books and Emotions

2008-03-01T16:41:00.020-05:00

Children’s book illustrators work within a range of constraints that most artists might find limiting. Their work is commissioned by publishers, who therefore have some control over content. Some have to illustrate someone else’s words, leaving no room for personal editing. And children’s book illustrators always have to keep in mind that what they create will only be seen as a reproduction within a specific book format. But another challenge that they face, which is not widely discussed, is the one that makes children’s book illustration a field of incredible potential. Children’s book illustrators must visually weave stories that are driven by human emotions, and to do so, they must understand their audience, the psychology of their art, and the cultural context their work will belong to.

How are they able to do this? Unlike writers, illustrators don’t have the advantage of literally spelling out a scenario. They have to take a sentence like “Billy is sad,” and create art that can express that Billy is sad, hint at why he might be sad, offer a sense of empathy towards Billy, be careful not to discount their own feelings about Billy, all the while enticing the reader to turn the page. The character’s emotions, the overall emotional theme of the storyline, the reader’s emotions, and the artist’s emotions are all considerations when planning a children’s picture book. The successful books are the ones that are able to create a unity between those things.

The intended audience of a children’s picture book is an important consideration for an artist. Are emotions instinctual, or learned? Children have very little learned experience by the time they are old enough to read, or be read to, between the ages of one to seven. Therefore something like empathy, which requires you to know from past experience just what someone is going through in order to understand and relate to them, is perhaps a harder thing for a child to grasp. A child’s range of emotions is limited, so an artist has to put aside her own vast arsenal of emotions and all the adult associations that come with them, and focus on the fundamental ones. They must ask themselves, “How can I make this relatable to children?”

However, children are rarely the ones who choose which picture books are worthy to be printed or taken off the bookshelf. An artist cannot disregard that peripheral adult audience, or herself for that matter. Doing so would only strip the potential from a picture book, as Selma G. Lanes points out in Through the Looking Glass: Further Adventures & Misadventures in the Realm of Children’s Literature. “Adults should never discount their own reactions to books written for children, for no young child’s picture book has any claim to being a work of literature if it appeals only to children. If the work has no resonance for an interested and intelligent older reader, the chances are it has little growing room or lasting appeal for a child either”

After taking the audience into consideration, an artist must then look closely at the storyline. Regardless of whether the artist is also the writer, the artist has to be respectful of the words, but also should feel comfortable asserting her own take on the story. Illustrating a book is, after all, a form of individual creative expression, and that shouldn’t change just because a publisher pays an advance

The storyline may have a certain feeling to it that is obvious at first read, like Corduroy, by Don Freeman, which is about a lonely bear in a department store who wants nothing more than for someone to buy him and take him home.

His actions and inner dialogue throughout the story mimic what a little child might feel in a similar strange situation, with no friends or family to guide them. The feeling is fear.

Corduroy is afraid and helpless because the one thing he needs to do, find a button to fix his overalls, is the one thing he can’t do.

To an adult, this sounds ridiculous, but to a child, that feeling of helplessness is common and often frustrating. A child reading the story knows that Corduroy is searching for his missing button because that’s the reason why someone wouldn’t buy him and take him home. Again, there is a fear of someone not loving you or wanting you because of something you are lacking. The illustrations however do not show little Corduroy paralyzed by fear.

The artist has chosen to show a bear who is curious and a little unsure of himself. When Corduroy tips a lamp over and is discovered by a night watchman, his expression is one of helplessness, which changes to relief when he is put back on his shelf and bought the next day and taken home.

So even though the main emotion behind the storyline of Corduroy is fear and helplessness, the words are encouraging, the illustrations are subtle, and the conclusion assuages those fears. Not simply for the sake of having a “happy ending” but because the audience needs to know that it’s ok to be afraid. If little Corduroy had been left on the shelf and then thrown away in the trash at the end of the story, that would only show the audience that your reward for facing something scary, is something else even scarier.

Expressions, like those on the face of Corduroy, are only one way of showing emotion in children’s picture books. Other tools that illustrators use to create emotional responses in readers are color, shape, and line; the building blocks of art. How can the color red invoke a feeling of anger? How can a drooping line portray sadness? How can an abstract shape feel animated and happy?

To answer those questions, first take an example of two drawings, both done by Van Gogh. The first, entitled “Sorrow” is of a drooping and bent nude woman seated with her head buried in her hands.

The second is of a tree, bare of leaves, with twisted and knotted roots.

In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh explained that he tried to convey sorrow within both drawings, “…clinging to the earth convulsively and passionately and yet being half torn up by the storm. I wanted to express something of the struggle for life, in that pale, thin woman’s figure as well as in the black, gnarled, and knotty roots” (qtd. in Arnheim 452). Why do those roots look sorrowful to us? It could be because of something introduced by John Ruskin called the pathetic fallacy, which is “a notion…intended to describe, say, the sadness of weeping willows as a figment of empathy, anthropomorphism, primitive animism” (Arnheim 452). However, Rudolf Arnheim, author of Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, believes otherwise: "The comparison of an object’s expression with a human state of mind is a secondary process. The willow is not “sad” because it looks like a sad person. Rather, because the shape, direction, and flexibility of the branches convey passive hanging, a comparison with the structurally similar state of mind and body that we call sadness imposes itself secondarily." (452)

According to psychological research, young children prefer color over form. As they mature and age, there is a slow shift to preferring form over color (Sharpe 10). By studying how children express themselves through their own drawings, researchers Alschuler and Hattwick were able to determine a bit about the relationship between color preference and personality.
…children’s use of color, line, form and space, can give distinctive insights into personality. Color has been found to give the clearest insights into the child’s emotional life…children who emphasize color tend to have strong emotional orientation. Specific color preferences and specific patterns of color placement give clues to the emotional makeup of the child. Our data support the view that red is the most emotionally toned of all the colors…Emphasis on red has been found to be associated with either of two extremes: (a) feelings of affection and love; (b) feelings of aggression and hate. (qtd. in Sharpe 14).

Now examine an illustrator who exemplifies the use of color, shape, and line to unify the emotional theme of a children’s picture book; Ezra Jack Keats.

In his book, Whistle for Willie, Keats uses his signature collage style to great affect. He uses bright colors, but not exclusively. He breaks up the flat colors with textures and patterns.

His forms are simple and clear,

and his lines are used strategically to propel the story forward.

The story, about a little boy named Peter who lives in the city and wants nothing more than to learn how to whistle so his dog Willie will come running to him, has an emotional undertone of happiness.

There is no real outside conflict in the story. The challenge of learning to whistle is something Peter imposes on himself. It’s not something he has to do. There is a playful ease to the story that is mirrored in the simple forms and easy gestures of Peter.

Ezra Jack Keat’s stories were driven by clear easy emotions and he used the psychology of color, line, and shape to engage his audience. But the cultural context in which his books lived, was of a racially divided nation in the 1960s. Ezra Jack Keats was one of the first illustrators to create picture books about African American urban life, and even though he strove to do this with sensitivity and compassion, he was castigated “for representing stereotyped details and for not speaking with a Black voice” (Hearn, Clark and Clark 88). Keats, who grew up in Brooklyn, was a white man trying to chronicle a black child’s experience.

So even though Keats understood how to use emotion within his stories to create a bond between artist and reader, his choice to use African American characters as his own vehicle of expression failed to recognize the complicated cultural context in which his books would be viewed and critiqued. Does that make all of his books failures? Absolutely not. If anything his choice to use African American characters in books that became widely popular only opened doors for African American artists. Those artists, like John Steptoe , then went on to provide African American children with truly unique stories that spoke to their own cultural heritage.

All successful children’s book illustrators have learned to take what they know of their audience, their psychological response to color, shape, and line, and their cultural context and use that to create stories driven by emotion. Despite the limitations that come with being a children’s book illustrator, these challenges provide consistent exploration of creative limitations. That is what keeps the field of children’s book illustration interesting, and it is what will keep it populated with talented artists.

Mentors and Moving

2008-02-11T10:49:00.000-05:00

Susan Sherman, art director at Charlesbridge Publishing, has agreed to be my mentor. I met with her about two weeks ago, and showed her close to everything I've done this past year. She had some wonderful input, and honest critiques of my work.

She reacted very positively to the oil work I had done my first semester, and let me know the many obstacles to getting my collage style published. I understand how competitive it is for illustrators, and apparently, with cut paper collage, it's even more competitive, and you have to be really skillful in order to get work in that medium. But I'm up for the challenge, and have no desire to go back to oils at this point. I can admit to myself though that I still have a ways to go to get technically good enough to compete with other cut paper illustrators.

In terms of the black and white "Dark" illustrations, Susan thought the dark character was way to scary for a children's book, and needed to be portrayed as mist. The patterned ink work was too much for her, and I think I agree that it needs to be toned down a bit (although it was a fun experiment!) She suggested printing out xerox copies of the spreads, and just taking some black paint to areas to try to tone down the patterns. She also said that my character's faces were not as expressive as my animals...She said that the daughter and mother looked too similar and needed to be differentiated more.

We talked about my idea for a children's book story that will take me through this next year to finish. I'll synopsis it in a later post, but she gave me some great advice on how to get started. She suggested that I focus on the emotion of the characters throughout the story. What is the driving emotion? How many children are in the story? How many grownups? The story takes place in a garden similar to the Boboli garden in Florence, so she suggested creating a map of the garden, and planing the characters route through the garden. I thought that was brilliant!

One of her other "homework" assignments was to read at least 50 children's books this semester, from different age categories, and write a brief paragraph on each of them. I read children's books all the time and have a pretty large collection of them, but I've never tried to write little reports about them. So this will be interesting, and I think very helpful.

So Susan and I met on a Friday, and then Saturday, my boyfriend Wayne and I moved into a new apartment! Two weeks later I've finally emptied all of my boxes and have taken over most of the closet space with my clothes. My studio sits in the extra bedroom, and it's a small miracle that I fit all of my crud into this new place. (When I say "all" of my stuff, I really mean everything that I use on a regular basis, and everything else is sitting in my parent's basement...thank you parents! You light up my life!)

Moving is exhausting and I thank my lucky stars that we live on the first floor. Now that all the boxes are unpacked, I can perhaps start to put down on paper what's been floating around in my head since meeting with Susan. Hopefully this move doesn't put me too far behind. I have high hopes for myself this semester, and it'd be a bummer to disappoint myself.

One piece of paper

2008-01-24T11:00:00.000-05:00

Wow! This is just about the coolest thing I think I've seen recently! This is an entry from a contest through the Hirshorn Museum in DC. The entrants had to create a piece of art using one piece of paper...

Check this link to see the rest of the entrys.

Thanks Jess for sending me this!

3rd Residency Summary

2008-01-16T16:14:00.000-05:00

It’s amazing how 10 days of talking about art can regenerate enthusiasm for creating art. This last residency was probably the best I’ve had so far for several reasons. Number one, I didn’t get sick. Huge accomplishment. Number two, I felt more confident about the work I presented, which allowed me to be relatively relaxed during critiques. Number three, and most importantly, I now feel like I have a handle on the direction of my artwork.

My first two semesters were spent trying to justify being an illustrator in an MFA visual arts program amongst painters, photographers, etc. I whined, I complained, I grappled with trying to fit illustration into a “fine art” mentality. I now feel like I have a better understanding of what people have been saying to me all along about illustration. It’s not about high or low art. It’s more important to understand the context in which you work, and to try to understand the history and underlying influences of the work. Without that effort, you will be adrift in a world you don’t understand and have no business working in, regardless of whether you are a painter, photographer, installation artist, or illustrator.

That, along with something Laurel Sparks said during our Professional Development seminar lead me to another revelation. She said something along the lines of “you should always be working towards the kind of artist you would like to be.” So that made me wonder. I’m calling myself an illustrator, which is a vague term used for artists who work as caricaturists, conceptual illustrators, etc. But I would like to be a children’s book illustrator. So that’s what I should be working towards. It seems like an obvious conclusion, but it made me shift my perspective. If I’m unwilling to take a freelance illustration job that would pay well, but requires me to do a technical illustration of a building, then I’m certainly not going to do “edgy” cut paper porn just to legitimize me as an artist as I try to get through this graduate program. (The technical illustration was a real job that was offered to me the day after I got back from Boston, and the cut paper porn was an actual suggestion during my residency.)

So keeping both those things in mind, my goals for this next semester are as follows:

1. Focus my reading and papers on issues dealing with important aspects of children’s books and children’s book illustrations.

2.Concentrate on creative writing as a way of “remembering” my childhood, which will hopefully help in creating inspired illustrations that are personal and relatable.

3.Continue to pursue the two styles of collage and pen and ink, pushing my boundaries with exercises that don’t necessarily end in finished illustrations.

4.Find reliable ways of photographing and reproducing my artwork in book form!

Comments and suggestions from teachers and students:

1. Have a professional photographer shoot my work. – Laurel Sparks

2. Try to make my characters into aspects of myself so that things like the “Galumphing Grizzly Bears” are more relatable. – Laurel Sparks

3. Get past fine art and low art. It’s all about context. – John Kramer

4. Don’t lean on my skills as a way to legitimize my work. – John Kramer

5. Do small exercises using just shapes, either on the computer or by hand. – John Kramer

6. Reproduce the work I did in the previous semester into a small book, because I need to see what it looks like as a reproduction, especially if I’m claiming that an illustration is only meant to be seen as a reproduction. – John Kramer

7.Try to decide which body of work I should bring to completion for my thesis semester. – John Kramer

8. Keep in mind that I can create a finished children’s book for my thesis project. – John Kramer

9. Use something other than tulips to create tulips. – John Kramer

10. Use my childlike style to create more adult themed illustrations. – Kathleen Philbrick

11. Likes placement and composition of illustrations. Helps bring a sense of narrative. – Hannah Barrett

12. Likes the 3d quality of the collage, more so when you can see the edges. – Hannah Barrett

13. Enjoys the texture and patterns in the pen and ink drawings, which become values. – Hannah Barrett

14. Be mindful of contrasts and shadows. Perhaps do more black and white value studies before I make the paper? – Hannah Barrett

15. Push figures even more. Loosen up and push my boundaries. –Hannah Barrett

16. Read more biographies about children’s book writers and illustrators such as Beatrix Potter, Hans Christian Anderson, and Lewis Carroll. – Hannah Barrett

17. Look at William Hogarth, Walton Ford, Amy Cutler, Wilhelm Busch. – Hannah Barrett

18. De-personalize my work. No one cares about what I think, what I feel. The world is more interesting. – Constanze Ruhm

19. Look at Trina Robbins, Ella Moore, Larry Clark, Gus Van Sant. – Constanze Ruhm

20. Submit work to illustration related competitions and magazines such as Communication Arts. –Keith MacLelland

21. Move towards deeper, unpredictable, shocking, and edgy subject matter. – Keith MacLelland

22. Try some cut paper porn, or a field full of penises. – Keith MacLelland

23. Make list of possible topics for projects and see where that leads me. – Keith MacLelland

24. Look at Sue Coe and Henrik Drescher. –Keith MacLelland

25. Go darker. – Linc Cornell

26. Examine childhood fears or scars. – Linc Cornell

27. Read about the history of graphic design, artist books, posters, types and fonts, and of the alphabet. – Oscar Palacio and Deborah Davidson

Possible books

1. As many children’s books as possible!

2. Through the Looking Glass: Further Adventures and Misadventures in the Realm of Children’s Literature by Selma G. Lanes

3. Narrative Gravity: Conversation, Cognition, Culture by Rukmini Bhaya Nair

4. The Child’s First Books: A Critical Study of Pictures and Texts by Donnarae MacCann

5. Words about Pictures: The Narrative art of Children’s Picture Books by Perry Nodelman

6. Literature for Children: Contemporary Criticism by Peter Hunt

7. Kiddie Lit: The Cultural Construction of Children’s Literature in America by Beverly Lyon Clark

8. Picturing Text: The Contemporary Children’s Picturebook by David Lewis

9. American Picturebooks from Noahs’ Ark to the Beast Within by Barbara Bader

10. Ezra Jack Keats: Artist and Picturebook Maker by Brian Alderson

11. Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye by Rudolf Arnheim

12. Cultures of Print: Essays in the History of the Book by David D. Hall

13. Perspectives on American Book History: Artifacts and Commentary by Scott E. Casper

14. An Introduction to Book History by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery

15. Memory, Identity, Community: The Idea of Narrative in the Human Sciences by Lewis P. Hinchman and Sandras K. Hinchman

16. The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self by Dan P. MacAdams

17. Illustration: A Theoretical and Contextual Perspective by Alan Male

18. The Psychology of Illustration: Basic Research by Dale M. Willows

19. Return of the Real: Art and Theory at the End of the Century by Hal Foster

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-20T18:23:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays to all my friends and family! I couldn't afford to send Christmas cards this year, but I wanted to do something to show you all some holiday cheer...so enjoy this partridge in a pear tree, from me to you, with love!

And just for fun, here's some pictures of Wayne, his nephew Tyler, and myself next to our annual gingerbread house masterpiece!

"Dark" page two

2007-12-20T18:13:00.001-05:00

This is a full page spread for page 2 of "Dark"...
It reads:

She closes the door,
and it clicks into place.
I know I should sleep,
but there's one thing to face.

I had a mini stroke when I took this to show Marty...it must have still been slightly wet because when I took it out, there was SMUDGING on the curtains! GAAAaaaargh! Luckily, a damp paper towel, and photoshop was enough to fix the damage. This was after my enlarger fell on top of this in the middle of the night when it was only half finished...miraculously nothing smudged, and the enlarger only left a tiny dent in one corner...But I do think this particular piece is cursed.

Dark page one

2007-12-01T16:23:00.001-05:00

This is page one of the Dark poem that I wrote earlier this semester. This page reads:

It's about that time.
I'm tucked into bed.
One kiss.
Two kiss.
"Goodnight," she said.

Lonely Petunia

2007-12-01T16:11:00.000-05:00

Yikes what a project this was! So this took WAY longer than I thought it would, and I'm not convinced that I'll have it "animated" before the next residency or even that I want it animated now. I kind of like it as is. While it would be cool to present it with the music, maybe it's enough to have had it be inspired by the song. Maybe I'm just tired of thinking about it and want to move onto something else...

plant paper

2007-12-01T16:00:00.000-05:00

So after making paper from recycled office paper, I was dying to try making plant fiber paper. Wayne and I took a nature walk and gathered up a ton of milkweed pods and seeds. I seperated the pods from the seeds, and dried them out, then made paper out of each seperately.

This is the result:
Milkweed pods

aaaand Milkweed seeds

The smell was pretty memorable, and I did start to feel like maybe I was an idiot for doing this considering how many allergies to plants I have...but hey we all have to suffer for our art right? The milkweed pod paper has these cool golden flecks in them which I think is from the inside of the pod. The milkweed seeds were a real pain to put through the blender, and I only got two small sheets out of them, but they're really soft and great texture!

I have since then ordered liquid starch to try on my next batch, and hacked up my Mom's garden (perfect time of the year for this) and have a bunch of different plants hanging up drying, waiting to become paper. I'm curious to see what kinds of paper I can get from other kinds of plants...I just have to steer clear of grass paper. Last time I tried mowing the lawn I was sick for a week! Stupid allergies.

I think once I have enough different kinds of paper I'm going to attempt either a self portrait collage or a landscape collage. I'm not quite sure how the paper will react to being glued into place either with matte medium or glue...so I might just end up with a big pile of gooey plant fiber. Only one way to find out though!

Mentor Meeting

2007-12-01T15:33:00.000-05:00

Well this post is long overdue...I blame all the Turkey.

I met with Marty before Thanksgiving, and got to show him the finished "C is for Cruel Critiques."

Looking at it again though, I'm beginning to think that my shirt needs to be a bright pink or redish color, to help me stand out more.

I also showed Marty the finished "A is for Adrift Alone":

And then there is the slightly disappointing "I is for Insubstantial Ice":

I think it's an interesting composition, I'm just not sure I pulled it off. The clear acetate that's over the figure, buckled, which I thought would make it harder to photograph, but if lit correctly it looks fine.

So after we talked about those projects, we went outside and Marty showed me how to make paper from recycled bits of office paper. TON of fun and really easy! Then he xeroxed me a copy of some notes he had on how to make natural plant fiber paper, and filled a ziplock bag full of wood ash and sent me on my way!

It runs in the family...

2007-11-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

My Mom recently decided that she'd like to give each of her five siblings special presents for their birthdays. These presents would be something that came from her heart, and that she made or bought specifically for them. Well, for my Aunt Marcia, she decided to make a purse from a pattern in a book that she had found a few years ago. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen!

Mentor Meeting

2007-10-22T09:59:00.001-05:00

Had another meeting with Marty last Friday. Unfortunately, with all the work that's been piling up I didn't have the time to weld again. Which bummed me out, but hey, what can you do?

I showed Marty my progress on the uber ambitious "lonely petunia" illustration. I've created the drawing in layers, so that it's easier for me to create the collage elements, which I can then move around a bit. It made sense to me, but I think I may have confused Marty with my rationale. I showed him the Underwater Unknowns, which he got a kick out of seeing in person. We talked about other watercolor techniques that I could start to take advantage of and he showed me a few that I hadn't ever thought to try before. We took a look at all the paper that I had made in preperation for the "lonely petunia" illustration, and then drooled over a Daniel Smith catalogue that had some amazing paper and art supplies in it. Then he offered to show me how to make my own paper! So excited about that! So our next meeting is going to be pretty hands on, with a lot of paper making fun!

I also talked to Marty about my difficulties in figuring out the right material to place over the Insubstantial Ice illustration to make it look like she is standing on a frozen lake. He suggested using clear acetate that is made to hold paint...which I guess I didn't even know exsisted. He even pulled out his supplies and handed me his last sheet! You rock Marty!

We then lamented my poor photography skills, and tried to come up with cheaper options of reproducing artwork. Stupid blurry, yellow, crappy slides! I haven't given up yet, and with new light bulbs, a different setup, and a new developer, I hope to get better results next time.

So I was pretty jazzed after our meeting, and proceeded to finish up a few more illustrations. I think I may not have chosen the best variety of "Neva's Fears" to illustrate, because the majority of the ones that I've done are focused on water in some way or another. A is for Adrift Alone, I is for Insubstantial Ice, U is for Underwater Unknowns...I would love to develop illustrations for "Z is for Zombies" or "S is for Bugs that swarm"...but I'm not sure I'll have the time. I also thought it'd be kind of funny to do one for "W is for Weighing as Much as a Whale" and have a Neva Jabba the Hut being fed by a chained up boy toy! We'll see...if there's time.

Women in Art

2007-10-17T09:42:00.000-05:00

Alicia sent this to me recently, and I just thought it was awesome and had to share it. Enjoy!

U is for Underwater Unknowns

2007-10-11T18:58:00.001-05:00

This is where my imagination goes when I can't see what's in the water underneath me...anyone see Open Water? I mean come on!

3rd Report

2007-10-01T12:25:00.000-05:00

The Importance of Illustration as Related to Contemporary Art

When I was a junior at Syracuse University, the illustration department organized a field trip to New York City, so that its students could experience something unique at the Guggenheim Museum. Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People, which was organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, was my first experience of an illustrator being honored by a contemporary art institution, for his illustration career. To me, thinking as a student who had been focused so deeply on the art of illustration for the past 2 and half years, it didn’t seem controversial at all to place Norman Rockwell in a fine art museum. After all, every illustrator knows of him and his prolific work, and knows of his great impact on the field of illustration. As the illustrator Tim O’Brien notes on the Norman Rockwell Museum website, “I'm used to talking to illustration students and Rockwell is just something we all understand. We don't have to talk about Rockwell. He's the blood that we all have shooting through our veins.”

In my naivety I didn’t realize that this exhibition was something truly rare, and an unusual moment for the tight fisted gatekeepers of contemporary art. I have since come to understand that while illustration as art is given a marginal acceptance by galleries (who can make a profit from its public popularity), the larger dialogue on art, led by art critics, historians, and fine artists, has pointedly overlooked and excluded illustrator’s accomplishments and contributions. I think this is unfortunate, and I believe that the work of contemporary illustrators is important and relevant to contemporary art and should be treated as such.

Art critics are certainly aware of illustration, but tend to marginalize it. In Clement Greenberg’s first important essay on Avant-Garde and Kitsch, which helped formalize an entire generation of critical theory, he goes so far as to say that illustration and commercial art, or Kitsch, is low art or watered down art which the masses can easily digest, while only the cultivated bourgeoisie upper class can ever truly appreciate avant-garde, or high art. “The alternative to Picasso is not Michelangelo, but kitsch. We are told to respect the old masters, not kitsch; and yet we go and hang Maxfield Parrish or his equivalent on our walls, instead of Rembrandt and Michelangelo.” (194) (For more on Greenberg and kitsch, see Kevin's essay on the subject) Another section of this essay goes on to give a hypothetical Russian peasant the free will to choose between a painting by either Picasso or Repin. Ultimately the peasant, attracted to the realism and familiarity of Repin’s painting, chooses Repin.

"Repin is what the peasant wants, and nothing else but Repin. It is lucky, however, for Repin that the peasant is protected from the products of American capitalism, for he would not stand a chance next to a Saturday Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell. Ultimately, it can be said that the cultivated spectator derives the same values from Picasso that the peasant gets from Repin, since what the latter enjoys in Repin is somehow art too, on however low a scale, and he is sent to look at pictures by the same instincts that send the cultivated spectator." (194 - 195)

Greenberg, who has since been discredited and most critics have moved past his obsession with abstract expressionism, set up illustration and really any kind of realistic or narrative art, to fail horribly in the minds of art historians and critics. This apathy has given illustration students art history books with no mention of illustrators, the most important international art magazines like Artforum hardly ever feature illustrators, and writers and teachers of contemporary art spend no effort getting to the bottom of any of the aesthetic issues of contemporary illustration. One example is the book In the Making: Creative Options for Contemporary Art by Linda Weintraub. The book description on the back cover reads:

In her inimitable voice – accessible, straightforward and jargon-free – Linda Weintraub explores the conceptual and practical concerns that go into making art today, drawing on the work of forty artists to create a complex understanding of how to make and look at contemporary art. Interviews with the artists shed light on every aspect of their work, from how they conceive and create their pieces to their more prosaic, practical concerns. In the Making is a compelling read and the ideal launchpad for anyone wanting to understand all the essential, but sometimes elusive, aspects of art-making in the 21st century.

This book includes everything from painting to video art, digital art to site-specific art, Thomas Kincaid to Matthew Barney. No illustrators, graphic designers, or commercial artists are included in this contemporary art discussion. The message is clear. Illustration is not art.

When trying to find information on illustration and how it relates to contemporary art, I turned to artists who had early careers as illustrators, such as John Sloan and Edward Hopper. I had hoped to find some insightful discussion on how those early careers in a commercial art field helped shape an appreciation for the work of illustrators, and hopefully how it also helped them form opinions on the borders between fine art and illustration. Instead what I found was that most writers portrayed these early careers as simply stepping stones that the artists had to take in order to get to their true artistic callings. In some cases, the artists themselves were ashamed of their careers as illustrators. Jo Hopper responded, on her husband Edward’s behalf, to Alfred Barr’s essay in the catalogue of Hopper’s retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1933, in which he refers to Hopper’s “pot boiling illustration”:

His illustration or any of his commercial work was a thing a part – only pot boiling – and strictly his own affair. Same as our washing the dishes or washing out silk underwear – nobody’s business – not our career. He didn’t even runabout with the illustration profession. His friends were the painters… (Levin 3)

Perhaps the way to lift the stigma of illustration as “low art” is to clear up some misconceptions about illustration. After all it’s hard to appreciate something if you don’t take the time to understand it. I’ve often heard the argument that because Michelangelo painted the Sistine ceiling under the direction and pay of the church, that his work should be considered illustration. But there is one very important distinction to make between what Michelangelo did and what illustrators do. As my former illustration professor, Murray Tinkelman, puts it:

"An illustrator creates art for reproduction. The intent is paramount. The viewing public sees the reproduction, not the original – the actual painting or drawing done by the illustrator’s hand. A more accurate description of an illustration might be a work of art where the original is the reproduction." (Tinkelman 13)

An illustrator creates art based on assignments from art directors, while a fine artist works not to satisfy a client, but to satisfy themselves. The assumption that all illustrators must sacrifice their personal vision only further complicates illustration’s status in the art world. I disagree that illustrators aren’t artists because we work under certain restrictions. I agree with the authors of Myth, Magic, and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American Children’s Book Illustration:

"The prevalent attitude towards illustration is that the artist ultimately compromises his or her vision to meet the constraints of commerce. Perhaps this is true, but many have mastered these restrictions to produce some extraordinary images. As the history of art proves, restraint and repression can produce great art just as readily as freedom may. 'The illustrator has to guard the integrity of the manuscript he is illustrating,' Fritz Eichenberg warned. 'He has to keep in mind that his art is going to be reproduced, printed, locked up with type between the covers of a book. That takes a lot of self-discipline, to which not many artists like to be submitted.'" (Hearn, Clark, and Clark 3)

Another misconception about illustration is that it isn’t art because it’s rarely seen on gallery walls. Because the common man or woman can see an illustration more readily than he or she can see a work by an emerging contemporary artist who only shows work in a New York City gallery, somehow counts against the illustrator. Artists can choose to ignore the new “global village” but that will only mean more opportunities for illustrators, who are used to making art for a large audience, beyond the gallery walls. Illustration art is becoming very popular among gallery owners precisely because it is among the most recognizable and accessible artwork out there in the mass culture.

This brings us to why illustration is important. I think the most obvious reason is that without a little cross breeding, contemporary art would fall into clichéd black holes. The most interesting art of the 21st century is about collapsing borders. Potters learn from painters, painters learn from video artists, video artists learn from folk art, etc. Illustrators are great examples of this. They are encouraged to come up with truly unique and personal styles, which would be impossible without an understanding and appreciation of different mediums. Some of the illustrators that I went to school with have experimented in using printmaking, collage, sculpture, fiber art, and I myself have tried everything from batik to tempera. So there are innumerable possibilities in the world of illustration to draw inspiration from.

I think that the reemergence of interest in narrative art is a great indication that illustration might soon be given credibility in the art world. Illustration is inherently narrative, whether it’s editorial illustration, children’s book illustration, or even commercial illustration. A good illustration tells a story, and attempts to shed light on a topic for its audience. In this way, illustration is a closer relative of most historical paintings, cultural artifacts, religious paintings, etc than modern art could ever be. It’s rooted in every culture’s desire to record our existence and educate and pass on our stories. Contemporary illustration is all about expanding our understanding of our own humanity, recording our cultural heritage, and communicating abstract ideas in ways that are understandable to everyone, not just the elite.

Tinkelman asserts that “whether or not illustration is high art or low art, it is art.” (14) This is a fact that illustrators and champions of illustrators have known for some time now. I’m asking that it be treated as such by the art world. I don’t mean an occasional exhibition, or an article defending the early work of a now famous painter. I mean inclusion in the critical discussions about art-making. If we all agree that illustration is art, then it seems natural to pay tribute to more than Norman Rockwell’s career.

Anita Kunz

2007-09-22T20:44:00.000-05:00

I went to Boston today to visit my brother and sister-in-law in their new condo...and of course to get a puppy kissy bath from Tulip "the dude" and Furzy "fuzz bucket"! After our visit, my Mom and I stopped by AIB and looked at the Anita Kunz exhibition they have hung there. I was pissed when I found out that Anita had actually given a talk there a couple weeks ago. These are the kinds of things that would be great for my school to tell me about...

The exhibition was wonderful. It included work from over 30 years of her career, mainly illustrations that had been commissioned from magazines, etc, but there were some suprises. For example it included a few anthropamorphic figure drawings where she changed the models into mermaids, or gave them horns, or bird heads. Her drawing style is gorgeous! I think I actually prefered those drawings to the tightly rendered caricatures. I love how she exagerates features so it's not completely obvious that she's making a caricature...it's like they sit somewhere in between portrait and caricature, which I've never thought was possible!

B is for Being Boring

2007-09-22T19:48:00.001-05:00

I tried photographing this, and while the shadows are better in this version, the colors were more accurate in the version that I scanned. This will be interesting trying to figure out the best way to reproduce these pieces for my portfolio...

So, yes, this is one of my fears...but this illustration makes me think that I'm also afraid of being oBlivious to when I'm Being Boring. Doesn't she look clueless?

Mentor Meeting

2007-09-13T08:25:00.000-05:00

Marty and I met this last Tuesday again. I just love seeing his work on the book he's doing. I had to laugh though. He's just as hard on himself as I am on myself when it comes to art. And it's so easy to forget how much WORK illustrating can be! Yah it's fun and we do it because we love it, but just listening to Marty talk about all the stuff he goes through to get the illustration perfect...it made me want to take a nap!

I showed him my progress with the gallumphing grizzley bears. He agreed that the second cut-paper attempt was better, and encouraged me to look into submitting it to Ladybug magazine. I looked on their site for submission guidelines, and of course they buy all rights to the illustration...which, you know, isn't a big deal I guess...it just bugs me for some reason. But I guess it's part of the business, so I better get used to it. Suck it up and do it Neva! Who knows if they'll even like it. I think something like this might be a better approach than submitting my work for exhibitions, for several reasons...#1. It's hard to find exhibitions who are accepting illustrations except maybe through SCBWI, but then you have to be going to whatever conference they're hosting. #2. I'd get published, which would help build my credibility and maybe get me more work when I graduate. #3....I'd get paid, duh!

I also showed Marty my progress on the ABC book of fears. I've redrawn the C is for Cruel critiques one, so it now includes an entire classroom full of students, not just one or two. Thanks go out to my boyfriend for posing in numerous positions at the New Hampshire Institute of Art studio classrooms! (I included his likeness in the final drawing...) I've also finished the B is for Boring illustration. I will post it soon, but Marty suggested that I should try lighting it and photographing it instead of scanning it...because people's noses keep getting lost when I scan it.

This past weekend I attempted to marbelize paper, but had an awful time of it. No matter which directions I used, and believe me there are more ways of doing this than you can imagine, nothing would work for me! So I asked Marty and his suggestion was to try using elmer's glue and water as the base, and plunking the paint on top of that. He also gave me a book that looks like it has promising info in it. I'd like to do this with acrylic paints or watercolors, instead of oils, but I'm not sure that's going to be possible. So at some point I'm going to have to try this again. I've also slowly been collecting supplies to learn how to make my own paper. I'm still hunting down liquid startch...

So after Marty looked at all my progress and gave his thoughts, we went out into the drizzley rain and he taught me how to weld! WOO HOO! I'd been looking forward to this for MONTHS! After watching di Suvero install his sculpture last week, I was especially excited to learn a bit about welding. Unfortunately, because it was raining, it made it kind of hard to see what we were doing through our goggles, so we didn't spend time creating anything specific. Mainly I just learned how to weld two things together, and then how to bend things...well...I learned how not to bend things I should say. For example, when trying to bend something, don't bend it right at the joint where you just joined two things together! But Marty promised to let me try it again the next time we meet, so now I have to take a trip to the dump and find some fun stuff to weld together! Nothing big or involved...I know this isn't something that will be in my senior thesis or anything, but so what! I have a willing teacher, and I like learning new things. So there. Leave me alone.

On an entirely different note, I'm going camping this weekend! YAH! This will only be my second time camping, and I couldn't be more exicted about it! We've been planning this for the last year. And no, I will not be bringing any grad school reading with me! Just marshmallows and scary campfire stories!

Better bears

2007-09-11T15:21:00.000-05:00

I took everyone's opinions about the grizzley bear collage, and decided to redo it. I like this version much better. Marty encouraged me to submit it to Ladybug Magazine so I'm looking into that.

Mark di Suvero

2007-09-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday I was fortunate enough to be present for the installation of the Mark di Suvero sculpture, titled Origins, in the front of the newly expanded Currier Museum of Art. I was working all day, taking pictures for the PR department, as the huge 35 foot sculpture was assembled, and welded in place. I even got to shake Mark's hand and talk to him a bit. He's a very interesting guy. 73 years old and he's still very hands on during the installation process. Check it out...he's the one in the red construction hat.

Gallumphing Grizzly bears

2007-09-02T10:57:00.001-05:00

I took Alicia's advice and scanned a bunch of my papers into the computer before I chopped them up into collages. I then used them in photoshop to put together a "color comp", to see what the final might look like. I was just using this as a tool, to see if I could get a good color comp out of it...something good enough and quick enough to send to an art director if they asked for a comp. I liked how it came out, though.

I could do some things with the computer that is impossible with paper. But then I did the final actual collage, and remembered why I liked it so much...I'm curious to see which one people like more. The tulips are cut from a flower magazine...trying to experiment with appropriated images as promised. I think it works well.

2nd semseter - 2nd paper

2007-09-01T17:12:00.000-05:00

Thoughts on Childhood Memories and Inspiration

I remember one day, when I was around six years old, I watched my father as he sat in our front yard with a pad of drawing paper and crayons. He sat there, leaning against our concrete front steps, and drew our driveway and mailbox, the road and the woods across the street. He knew he had a captive audience in me, so when he was done drawing what he saw in front of him, he added a small green glob with four legs sitting in the road. I probably giggled at this obvious reference to my love of frog hunting. And being the great showman he is, without a glance in my direction and with a completely straight face, he proceeded to cover our road in green, orange, and yellow globby frogs. For good measure, he added our cat, Joe Frisky, jumping into the froggy melee. It was a froggy invasion masterpiece! That is my first memory of someone using what was around them to inspire a kind of story. As small a thing as it was, it was inspirational, as were so many things from my childhood. More and more, I am beginning to realize that my work as an artist is fueled by my experiences and memories of my childhood, and is driven by a desire to have my art be a part of the memories and experiences of children today.

Since I have been examining my childhood as a source of inspiration for my illustrations, I thought a review of an exhibition dedicated to a children’s book illustrator would be more appropriate than anything else. I visited the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA, which is a 40,000 square foot museum that houses three galleries dedicated to rotating exhibitions of picture book art from around the world. This museum is founded in part by Eric Carle, the renowned author and illustrator of over 70 children’s books, including the 1969 classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The exhibition in the West Gallery, Eric Carle Picture Writer, is dedicated to Carle’s expansive career, and explores the sources of inspiration for his stories, his unique collage technique, a look at his process, and also highlights some of his non-book art.

I was curious to see what kind of sources of inspiration Carle draws upon when creating his books. As described by the Eric Carle Picture Writer exhibition text, Carle notes that the question he hears most frequently is “where do your story ideas come from?” His favorite answer was provided by a young fan who pointed out that “they come from your inside and the outside.” For example, when Carle was a young child living in Germany, his German grandmother would show him how to draw a star while chanting a nonsense rhyme. Years later, Carle had a dream about shooting stars that came closer and closer to him as he stood outside and watched. The stars got closer until one finally entered his body, and filled him with light and happiness. This became the inspiration for the book Draw Me A Star. So in a sense the “inside” dream was influenced by his “outside” childhood experiences with and memories of his German grandmother, which combined to inspire his stories and illustrations.

Carle is one of many illustrators who use their personal childhood experiences to help inspire their professional work , and to also make connections with, and hopefully teach and inspire, a new generation of children. Many children’s book illustrators feel it is their responsibility to create work that is both honest in reflecting the trials of childhood, and yet inspiring in providing wonder and excitement for the world that surrounds them. Michael Patrick Hearn, Trinkett and H. Nichols B. Clark, the authors of Myth, Magic, and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American Children’s Book Illustration, which was developed for a nationwide, touring exhibit beginning at The Chrysler Museum of Art in 1996, agree with this feeling of heavy responsibility:

The children’s book illustrator has an enormous responsibility. No one can deny that what is read and seen in childhood has inestimable power on the formation of a mind. Often one’s earliest introduction to art does not take place in a gallery or museum, but through a picture book; and first impressions may indeed be the most profound and lasting. The artist has enormous power. One sees the pictures before one reads the text, leaving immediate impressions long before the authors have a chance to speak. It is John Tenniel’s Alice whom most people remember, not Lewis Carroll’s. The most vivid and lasting impression of Winnie-the-Pooh is probably how E. H. Shepard chose to draw him and not how A. A. Milne describes this bear of little brain. Yes, illustrators bear an enormous responsibility. Characters and images encountered in childhood are rarely forgotten. (6-7)

The artist Barry Moser takes the feeling of artistic responsibility one step further, and offers a humble request to be a pillar of support to a child’s earliest trials and tribulations. This speech, given to the Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio in 1993, is included in Moser’s book of essays, In the Face of Presumptions:

Children suffer pain and are dying while stupid men like me paint and engrave pictures. After being with these children today, and seeing the work of this hospital and the skills of its staff, my work does seem stupid. I can only hope and pray that my books may take the children’s minds off their pain – even for just a moment. And I hope and pray that for a moment, an hour, or a day, my work might delight, encourage and perhaps inspire a child to make something. To shape, to invent, and to play – yes, to play, that great grandmother of all the arts! And in that rare and wonderful moment, hour, day of shaping and inventing and playing, may they soar above their trials and transcend their plight. (76)

One of the largest and most persistent obstacles picture book art, and in particular children’s picture book art, faces is the misconception that all illustrations from that genre are simply brightly colored eye candy, constructed only to please and placate. As the authors of Myth, Magic, and Mystery note, “How can all those bunnies and fairies be taken seriously?” (Hearn, Clark, and Clark 6) Indeed there are children’s books that highlight the small happy moments of childhood, using bright compositions and happy characters to delight a young audience. If we are honest with ourselves, we can all look back on our childhood and pick out those happy moments, and connect with those bright colors and happy characters. Those are the moments that we most want to remember and, if we could, encase upon a pedestal as a shining example of what all children’s early experiences should be about. It’s natural that illustrators would want to share those sugarcoated memories with the next generation. However, as Barry Moser’s speech to a Children’s Hospital reminds us, childhood is rarely a completely smooth ride, and can be riddled with fear, pain, humiliation, loss, and unhappiness.

What children’s book illustrators know, and what the art world has pointedly overlooked in their art, is that the darker moments of childhood are the ones that shape us, sometimes more so than the lighter moments. The exhibition in the East Gallery of The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is The Art of Allen Say: A Sense of Place. This extraordinary artist is a wonderful example of a children’s book illustrator who has taken on the challenge of conveying sentiments of alienation and dislocation in ways that speak directly to children. Say’s parents divorced when he was eight, and Say lived with his father and later his grandmother in Japan, while his mother moved to California. Say spent part of his childhood in Japan and part of it in the United States, finding disappointments, segregation, and numerous other trials in both places. These early experiences formed a foundation of memories, both painful and character shaping, that Say was able to draw upon for inspiration for his children’s books. In his own words, as highlighted in the exhibition text, “I do children’s books because I am haunted by my childhood.”

It’s hard to not sentimentalize our memories of our childhood. Years later, those defining moments of a first rejection, an overwhelming fear of the dark, or a classmates bullying torments, can evolve and shift in perception and can become something malleable. Memories are subjective and often incoherent. But that is the nature of memory, and it does not diminish the power those memories have over our present behavior. Ask yourself, “Why am I the way that I am? Why do I do what I do?” Barry Moser answers that question in his book In the Face of Presumptions. “I am who I am because I was refined through the fires of my own particular and unique history and experience…” (22) As for “Why do I do what I do?”, when it comes to illustrators, the answer is rarely different than Anita Kunz’s answer “I probably became an illustrator for the same reason that everyone else does…I loved to draw and paint as a child.” (Heller and Arisman 167)

So why am I the way that I am? Why do I do what I do? Why am I an illustrator who is focusing on telling my personal stories inspired by my childhood? I am not, like Say, “haunted” by my childhood. I am also not trapped in the past, looking for a way to recapture those simpler, happier times. I think the answer is similar to Moser’s. My “unique history” is one of stories, literature, books, and plays. My father, who studied theatre and dance and even spent some time working as a mime, offered me dramatic story times and theatrical playtime. My mother was a teacher and was determined to teach both my brother and I to read before we could walk. My older brother probably could read before he could walk, and I wanted to do everything he did. So what followed was years of reading at the dinner table, drawing cartoons from comic books, writing long stories with titles like “Candy Island” inspired by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In a way, I was trying to fill my road with frogs.

As for why do I do what I do? As John Berger notes in Ways of Seeing, “The past is not for living in; it is a well of conclusions from which we draw in order to act.” (11) For me, that well of conclusions holds stories, filled with little moments, sometimes tragic, hilarious, or in-between, and I do what I do so that I can share those stories and perhaps be a part of someone else’s unique history.

League of NH Craftsmen's Fair

2007-08-13T15:37:00.001-05:00

Last Friday, my boyfriend Wayne and I drove over to Newbury, NH for the 74th Annual League of NH Craftsmen's Fair. This is the oldest craft fair in the United States, and has been an annual event since 1933! It was started as part of an effort to bring more income to struggling women and families in NH, who, it was noticed, made crafts as a way to supplement their income. NH has always been a hotbed for the craft movement, and actually attracts many crafters from all over the US causing them to relocate to the state.

I've been to the Craftsmen's Fair only once before, a while ago with my family. I remember being completely awed by the artwork and the artist demonstrations. It's still a great place to become inspired. Wayne, who just recently purchased a digital camera and had been lamenting his attempts at capturing the life of insects in his garden, was able to compare his shots with that of proffessional nature photographers. (Of course, in my opinion, his pictures were much nicer and more inspired than some of the proffessional's shots!) I found some really great paper artists, calligraphers, weavers, and potters that inspired me.

Everything was beautifully crafted, but of course ridiculously expensive. And being the frugal person I am, I refused to buy anything, thinking along the way "Why pay money when I could do that myself. I could make that hand puppet myself! I could make that bowl myself! I could learn to blow glass and weave and carve wood myself!" Which incedently is a very New Hampshire thing to say and think...which probably greatly contributes to the number of "do-it-yourself"ers who live here.

So the only things I left the Fair with were a handful of business cards, and a very cool double wood shaving, provided for free by a cheerful woodcarver doing a demonstration.

Live Free or cheap baby!

Mentor Meeting

2007-08-13T15:11:00.000-05:00

Well, Marty and I had a very productive meeting last week! I showed him a lot of the sketches I've been developing, and he had a ton of great suggestions. I've been working a lot on the ABC book of Neva's fears, trying to get a handle on what it is that I want to portray, and which pieces I should give the most attention to. My boyfriend is a helpful model to have around, and he's been posing for my ridiculous reference pictures, to help me get those sketches right. I've also been developing my plan for the "Lonely Little Petunia" psuedo animation piece. I did a quick google search on the song, and it turns out that it's actually a pretty old kid's song and it has more lyrics, but I think the 60 second version I have, which is by Imogen Heap, is much more precise and beautiful.

I also did a quick YouTube search and found quite a few postings that use the song. This was just one of the more bizzare videos I found:

So my plans for that are shaping up, but it's all a bit of an experiment, so who knows where it will go.

Marty also very kindly sat down with me and went over a few of the things I had written. He read them aloud to me, which I hadn't done at all, and that turned out to be very helpful. It was pretty obvious where the sticking points were when a fresh pair of eyes read the piece out loud. So both "Dark" and "Grizzley Bears" have been changed slightly, but I think are now greatly improved.

Marty is working on a great children's book right now that is about traumatic childhood events, such as not being tall enough to get on a ride at a fair, or being the new kid in class, or a brother's smelly feet being shoved in your face! I was thrilled when he showed me the illustrations because it kind of paralleled nicely to the ABC book I was working on. It was very cool to see how his process is similar to mine, and how he uses the computer to help him mock up his drawings. We also commiserated on fickle art directors and the woes of a rejected idea!

So all in all, great meeting! I'm looking forward to our next meeting because he's promised to show me how he creates his welded sculptures, which will involve welding, old car parts, and getting very dirty! Always a good combination!

Dark

2007-07-27T14:45:00.000-05:00

It's about that time.
I'm tucked into bed.
One kiss.
Two kiss.
"Goodnight," she said.

She closes the door,
and it clicks into place.
I know I should sleep,
but there's one thing to face.

I can see him coming.
He creeps under the door.
Dark thinks he's so sneaky,
staying close to the floor.

He creeps past my dolls,
and sneaks along walls.
He leaps, and he crawls.
He creeks, and he sprawls.

He's standing before me,
staring down at my toes.
I try not to shiver,
but I think he knows.

He knows that I hate him,
that I'm scared and unsure.
Every night he moves in,
and till dawn I endure.

But this night will be different.
I'm through with his game.
I stare at him calmly
and begin to proclaim:

"I dare you Dark!
Why don't you come near?
I won't stop you.
There's nothing to fear.

You can climb into my nose,
and race through my ears.
You can tickle my eyebrows,
and dance on my tears.

You can wrap me in silence
and paint everything black.
You can snuff out the light,
I won't want it back."

I have him now!
I can see his grin.
Dark thinks he's won,
and begins to lean in.

Then, like a gunslinging cowgirl,
from under my sheets,
I draw out my flashlight,
just as dark leaps!

He screams and he curls
and sputters and fades
and the moonlight streams in
through my wide open shades.

I sigh with relief
as I fall back in bed.
I can finally sleep
and not lie here in dread.

Dark is smart
and a worthy opponent.
But I am smarter,
and the light...

well, I own it!

Giant Gallumphing Grizzly Bears

2007-07-27T13:04:00.000-05:00

Giant Gallumphing Grizzly Bears
are eating my tulips.

They just appeared one morning,
they stepped out of the mist.

They gallumphed
and groaned
and growled
and grinned

and surrounded my tulips
and began to dig in!

Oh my poor flowers, so delicate and fair,
are now being devoured
demolished
destroyed
digested
by giant grizzley bears,
with no giant bear care!

Free association writing

2007-07-27T12:59:00.000-05:00

After writing my residency summary, I was flooded with thoughts about the last residency and everyone's opinions about my work. I wrote a few free association pieces to try to help make sense of the jumble of emotions.

This is the result.

Sticky hotness relays a rhyme of passion crime of beauty uneven loathing hurting the back of my throat exhaling contemptous lies and holding in the truth of what it all means and who cares anyway?

Why contemporary anything should be a babble of hot crap a pile of steam gone in an instatn and explaining a way of life and including genius into art but always excluding me, me and my crap, my crappy art and my single-minded loyalty to happiness and my disregard of anything complex and wrong.

Wallpaper cards with singular characters involved in simple truths blossoming into the stratosphere.

2nd Residency Summary

2007-07-20T19:06:00.000-05:00

My last night in Boston during my second residency. One of the AIB buildings is up the street on the right.

Books to Read 2nd Semester

Collage: The Making of Modern Art, by Brandon Taylor

Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art; A sourcebook of artists’ writings, edited by Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz

The Psychology of Color and Design, by Deborah T. Sharpe

Inside the Business of Illustration, by Steven Heller and Marshall Arisman

In the Making: Creative Options for Contemporary Art, Linda Weintraub

Thinking with Type: A critical guide for designers, writers, editors, and students, by Ellen Lupton

Myth, Magic, and Mystery: One hundred years of American Children’s Book Illustration, by Michael Patrick Hearn, Trinkett Clark and H. Nichols B. Clark

The Push Pin Graphic: A quarter century of innovative design and illustration, by Seymour Chwast, edited by Steven Heller and Martin Venezky, Intro by Milton Glaser

Ways of Seeing, by John Berger

Chromophobia, by David Batchelor

The Portable MFA in Creative Writing, by the New York Writers Workshop

Artists to Look at 2nd Semester

Leonora Carrington
“Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art”, by Susan L. Aberth
Manchester City Library 759.292 CAR 2nd floor

Red Grooms
“Red Grooms, A Retrospective, 1956-1984: an Illustrated Catalogue with essays”, by John Ashbery, Janet K. Cutler, and Judith Stein.
Manchester City Library 709.24 GRO 2nd floor

Romare Bearden
“The Art of Romare Bearden; the Prevelance of Ritual”, by M. Bunch Washington with intro by John A. Williams
Manchester City Library 759.13 B38b 2nd floor

Symbolists
“Symbolist Art”, by Edward Lucie-Smith
Manchester City Library 709.0347 LUC 2nd floor

Odilon Redon
“To Myself: Notes on Life, Art, and Artists”, by Odilon Redon
Manchester City Library 759.492 RED 2nd floor
“Beyond the Visible: The Art of Odilon Redon”, by Jodi Hauptman
Borrow from Lesley N6853.R38 A4 2005

John Evans
“John Evans: Collages”, by Robert M. Murdock
Borrow from Lesley N6537.E896 A4 2004

Henry Darger
“Henry Darger: Art and Selected Writings” by Michael Bonesteel
Borrow from Lesley N6537.D31 B66 2000

Laura Owens
“Laura Owens”, by Laura Owens
Borrow from Lesley Look up

Wangechi Mutu
Couldn’t find books, look online

Arturo Herrera
“Arturo Herera: January 11 – Feb. 22, 1998”
Borrow from Lesley N6537.H397 A4 1998

Maurice Boutet de Monvel
“Joan of Arc”, by Maurice Boutet de Monvel and Louis-Maurice
Manchester City Library JB Joan of Arc Children’s room

Ezra Jack Keats
“Ezra Jack Keats: A Biography with Illustrations”, by Dean Engel and Florence B. Freedman
Manchester City Library JB KEATS Children’s room
“The Ezra Jack Keats Library” – video
Manchester City Library J VIDEO EZR Children’s room

Edward Gorey
“The World of Edward Gorey”, by Clifford Ross and Karen Wilkin
Borrow from Lesley NX512.G67 R67 1996
“Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey”
Borrow from Lesley NX512.G67 A35 2001

Amy Walrod
“The Little Red Hen makes a pizza”, by Philemon Sturges
Manchester City Library J P Sturges Children’s room

David Wisniewski
“Golem”, by David Wisniewski
Manchester City Library J P 398.2 WIS
“Master Man: A tall tale of Nigeria”, retold by Aaron Shepard
Manchester City Library JP 398.2 SHE Children’s Room
“Tough Cookie”, by David Wisniewski
Manchester City Library J P WISNIEWSKI Children’s Room
“Rain Player”, by David Wisniewski
Manchester City Library J PP WISNIEWSKI Children’s Room

Shel Silverstein
“Runny Babbit: a billy sook” by Shel Silverstein
Manchester City Library J811.54 SIL Children’s Room
“Where the Sidewalk Ends: the poems and drawings of Shel Sivlerstein”
Manchester City Library J811.54 SIL Children’s Room
“Underwater land (sound recording” by Shel Sivlerstein and Pat Dailey
Manchester City Library J CD MUSIC SILVERSTEIN Children’s Room
“Falling up: poems and drawings” by Shel Sivlerstein
Manchester City Library J811.54 SIL Children’s Room
“The Missing piece meets the big O” by Shel Silverstein
Lost – go to bookstore
“A light in the attic” by Shel Silverstein
Lost – go to bookstore
“Lafcadio: the lion who shot back” by Shel Silverstein
Manchester City Library JFIC SILVERSTEIN Children’s Room

Suggestions from 2nd Residency

1. Explore themes of Destruction and Devastation. – Julia Scher
2. Visit Edward Gorey’s House in Cape Cod (open to the public with exhibitions of his work. I may do this for my Exhibition paper) – Julia Scher
3. Work more with creating clay models, set up scenes, photograph them, and have the photographs be the illustrations. – Sunanda Sanyal
4. Play with scale, work larger –Sunanda Sanyal
5. Study the history of collage –Sunanda Sanyal
6. Explore ways of displaying text with the artwork. –Sunanda Sanyal
7. Use clay models in a cut-paper environment. –Jesseca Ferguson
8. Look at pop-up book artists. – Jesseca Ferguson
9. Experiment with more appropriated sources of paper; books, magazines, newspapers, etc. – Laurel Sparks
10. Create a library of paper to make it easier once I start a project. Just start collecting! – Laurel Sparks
11. Watch “Everything is Illuminated” (get from Manchester City Library, DVD EVE) – Laurel Sparks
12. Look at artists who are also writers. – Laurel Sparks
13. Read books on humor (psychology of humor, etc). – Stuart Steck
14. Look at graphic novels. –Stuart Steck
15. Either embrace the cutesiness in my work and bring it to the extreme, or go the other direction. –Stuart Steck
16. Work on developing the “ABC book” concept, but be careful of contrived “happy endings”. – Stuart Steck
17. Try not “cleaning up” the stories, but make them more gritty. – Leslie McCall
18. Read Steve Leeper’s thesis from this program. – Leslie McCall, Randy Snook, Jane Rainwater
19. Read 8-10 books per semester. – Randy Snook
20. Ask myself why my work is of value and importance. – Randy Snook
21. Ask myself what my underlying motivation is. – Randy Snook
22. After residency, sit down and write down ideas of things to focus on, and keep writing until I reach 50. Whittle that list down to 2 or 3 ideas. – Randy Snook
23. If I experiment with more clay, use two sources of light, one with half the wattage of the other to light them. – Garry Mealor
24. Use wheat paste for collages because it’s archival safe. – Garry Mealor
25. Read about the psychology of color. – Garry Mealor
26. Research illustrators who blur the line between illustration and fine art. – Laurel Sparks
27. Read and research more on the history of contemporary art. – Laurel Sparks
28. Explore my darker side: “Naughty Neva” – Jane Rainwater
29. Explore contrasts and paradoxes. – Jane Rainwater
30. How can the ABC book be universal? – Jane Rainwater
31. Think about ways of involving the viewer: viewmasters, spy glasses, kaleidoscopes, etc. – Jane Rainwater
32. Think about using www.blurb.com to create an actual book for the next residency. – Rebecca Rocha
33. Take a contemporary art class. – Laurel Sparks
34. Develop a digital library of painted papers. – Alicia Traveria
35. Check out www.drawn.ca for inspiration – Alicia Traveria
36. Look at poetry books and pay attention to rhyme and meter. – Alicia Traveria
37. Check out the poetry of Ogden Nash. –Alicia Traveria

Residency Summary

I’ll be honest. I was not looking forward to my second residency. I was suffering from a crisis of confidence during my 1st semester and was doing my best to hide it, both from myself, family members, friends, my mentor, and advisor. Family and friends knew better and were supportive, but I knew the faculty would be more forthcoming with criticism, and I am not good with confrontation.

But the first part of my residency was encouraging. Students and Faculty were supportive, offered helpful suggestions, and praise. The only frustrating thing that seemed to keep coming up was when people would not know what to say about my work, because, as they put it “I’m not an illustrator.” I felt a little demeaned by this statement. We’re all artists in this program, and if I were to make this statement to a sculptor “well, I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say about your work because I’m not a sculptor,” wouldn’t that be a bit of a cop-out? I’m in a Visual Arts program for a reason. I was surrounded by illustrators as an undergrad. I got a lot of the same kind of feedback, and a very narrow perspective of the art world because of that. Which was fine at the time, but I am not just interested in only illustration. I enjoy learning about different kinds of art because I feel like it opens up creative possibilities that I wouldn’t necessarily have been aware of otherwise. Maybe I should have a t-shirt made of that statement, since many people have asked me why I am in this program instead of an illustration only MFA program.

Additionally, I don’t feel like I have to change my focus or interest to make everyone feel more comfortable with my presence in this program. I’m an illustrator, deal with it, and give me your honest opinions. It’s only fair.

At the end of the residency it was suggested that I needed to focus more and work harder in order to get where I need to be at the conclusion of this semester. My current advisor stated that my last advisor thought I needed more foundation in the areas of contemporary art and theory. I took this badly. I think I took it so hard for a variety of reasons. I was sick with a nasty cold, exhausted from the none-stop residency schedule, and this revelation took me by surprise since the rest of the feedback had been so positive. I thought I had made a decent attempt at getting up to speed with contemporary art and theory, especially in regards to illustration. But I accept that this is an area I could have worked harder at. I will make every attempt to rectify some of the faculties’ doubts about my knowledge of contemporary art and theory, but would appreciate it if they would consider my area of focus. I’m all for learning about contemporary art, as long as I am not expected to disregard contemporary illustration from that equation.

After considering all the feedback from this residency, I have come up with a “plan” for my direction this semester. I would like to use my creative writing to help inspire more personal illustrations, and conversely use photographic reference as inspiration for creative writing. I believe this combination of writing from personal experiences and imagination, and using photographs I’ve taken of nature, animals, friends, family, will provide me with a solid and personal foundation of inspiration. I will continue to explore the medium of cut paper/mixed media; I will play with scale, and also make an attempt at integrating text with my illustrations. I would like to explore taking videos of my illustrations and using music and “animation” to add a different level of involvement to my work.

I am working with another talented local artist mentor this semester, Marty Kelley, who is also a writer. I am excited to see where the cut-paper medium can take me, and to what levels I can push it. I am hoping that the crisis of confidence is behind me, and that this semester will be more productive, and more personally fulfilling.

Below is a list of project ideas. I don’t expect to get to everything on this list in this one semester, but I prefer having more options than less. One important lesson I learned last semester was that I need to have multiple projects going at once, to help keep the flow of work going smoothly.

1. ABC Book of Neva’s Fears – This was originally an exercise I had set for myself to see if I could make something extremely personal into something that might be universally appreciated. I think I succeeded for some of the fears, while others are too obscure and people may not be able to relate to them. But I did succeed in being completely honest. I’d like to take at least three of these fears and create illustrations of them. I would like to attempt to “resolve” these fears in separate illustrations. I understand that this is placing an emphasis on the “happy ending”, which artists aren’t supposed to care about, but it feels natural to me to explore that side of a fear, being an eternal optimist myself.

2. Brothers and Bees – While this was my focus last semester, I feel like my switching mediums half-way through this process caused me to lose ground on these illustrations. I would like to finish at least one more of these illustrations in cut paper, so I can have the chance to compare two similar character illustrations from the same story. I feel like it’s an important first step for me to take before I can move onto something else.

3. Creative Writing – I’ve already started this process and will continue to explore it throughout the semester. Children’s stories, rhyming poetry, and verse are the things that I’m focusing on, but I am not ruling out something more “adult” should inspiration hit.

4. “Animation” Illustration – This is a completely new idea, and I’m not sure how it will work out. I would like to use a short 60-second song to inspire several illustrations. I will “record” those illustrations, panning over them, fading in and out, etc to “animate” the song, and compile it on the computer into a short video.

5. Portrait – I’d like to try testing the boundaries of cut-paper by doing exercises such as portraits, landscapes, still lifes, etc. This might give me a good escape from the creative writing side of things, if that gets too overwhelming.

6. Large-Scale Illustrations – I’d like to try doing one larger scale illustration, and I have a few ideas in mind for this. Lack of studio space is going to keep this down to a “manageable” larger scale.

7. Text Exploration – My last advisor brought up a good point. How am I going to incorporate the text into my displays? Since I am asserting that my words are just as important as my illustrations, I need to find a way to incorporate both. I am still mulling this problem over, and I have a few project ideas that I’m not ready to share yet.

Cookie Jar Monster

2007-07-12T09:53:00.000-05:00

A few months ago I took a ceramic workshop with my boyfriend, just for fun. We both ended up making boxes. Mine ended up looking like a monster. I even added a little tale in the back, which I didn't take a picture of.

So just for fun, here's my Cookie Jar Monster...

Semester #2

2007-07-05T13:43:00.000-05:00

Well I'm back from my second residency, and man am I pooped. I caught a cold that was circulating through the group, and am still recovering from that. I think my main goal for the next residency should be to not get sick. I don't know whether that would involve plastic gloves, anti-bacterial lotion, and a mask, but at this point I'm not ruling anything out.

I'm taking the advice of one of my fellow students who graduated this semester, and am not doing anything school related this first week back. Other than posting here obviously. I'm ruminating on residency events, and will be posting a bullet-point list of the highs, lows, and in-betweens very soon. Here's a preview:

1. Boston in the summer smells like feet and toilet, but the Red Sox fans smell worse.

2. It's not going to be a very helpful critique when it starts with "I'm not sure what to say because I'm not an illustrator."

3. You can view the artwork up-close and personal at the Fogg Museum of Art. Just don't sneeze on it.

Anyway, in the meantime, I'm waiting with bated breath for my very large Amazon.com order to arrive with all the books I'd like to read this semester. I love getting mail, and mail that involves books is just about the best it can get. Although, I have to admit that I'm more eager for the Harry Potter book delivery on the 21st...but that's because I'm a...
very
big
nerd.

Glad to be back in the sticks, and looking forward to meeting my new mentor!

Looking back on my first semester

2007-06-13T11:53:00.000-05:00

Well, the end of the semester is about a week away, and I've been looking back at my original plan for this semester. Some of the things I had planned morphed into other things, and some things stayed the same.

For example, my goals for this semester included writing 3 children's stories, and illustrating one scene from each of those stories. This turned out to be much harder than I first expected. I only wrote one story, and that took up a LOT of time and effort, so much so that I abandoned the idea of writing another two before the end of the semester. I'm not disapointed though because the one story is something personal that was inspired directly by my childhood, and I feel that it is helping me move closer to feeling comfortable telling my own "stories" through my art.

Another goal was to research the visuals for the stories. A trip to the library and a photocopier was enough for most of my visuals. I ran into real trouble when I started looking for actual people to model for me. Despite having numerous plans to get children to volunteer for me, and at the same time keep their parents comfortable with the process...it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. Perhaps I made it into a bigger deal than it had to be, but it was beyond frustrating. In the end I opted to make clay models, which was fun and effective, and much less hassle. I don't want to abandon the idea of painting directly from models completely though. I think next semester I will attempt at least ONE illustration with photo reference of a specific model. I'm thinking of asking my boyfriend's father and his granddaughter to pose for me. I just don't think that I will ever be someone who uses one kind of reference for their illustrations. I take it where I can get it, whether that's in a book, old photos, new photos, or observation from life. While I would love to have the resources that Norman Rockwell or Maxfield Parrish had...it just ain't going to happen! (Unless I marry someone who knows how to sew costumes...which isn't likely to happen)

Another goal was to do multiple sketches and comps in both B&W and color. I started doing this with traditional media, but with the guidance of my mentor was convinced to do more of my comps on the computer. This turned into a useful lesson and I believe it will be a huge time saver, once mastered. I'm still working on mastering the photoshop techniques, and I predict it will take a while before I'm completely comfortable with it.

One of the goals that I had, which fell completely by the wayside, was to illustrate something once a week for Illustrationfriday.com. Just not enough time.

I had a very rough start to this semester, and flailed around quite a bit, but I think that's probably normal for a program like this. I now have a pretty good idea of where I would like to go with this next semester.

Next Semester Goals

#1. Continue Writing:
While Erick made a good point that I am not a writer, and writing is not my "priority" in this program, I feel like there's more to be explored there. Even though writing "Brothers and Bees" was very hard, it ended up being really great inspiration for some truely original illustrations. I would like to make a goal do some creative writing every day this next semester. This could include poems, haikus, short paragraphs, story ideas, etc. I think that "Brother's and Bees" was an ok story, but I also think that I can locate a little more humor in my writing. If I push myself to write every day and loosen up a bit, I think that humor will start to come out. I'd like to use these daily writing exercises as inspiration for more original illustrations.

#2. Explore Cut Paper Collage:
I continually ran into problems when trying to sit down and paint in oils this semester. Those problems weren't technical at all, but mainly creative blocks and mental strain. I am not sure if I'm going to abandon oils. It's not clear to me why I'm having such issues with it, but it IS clear that I have a much better time when doing cut paper collage work. I actually LOOK FORWARD to those projects, and don't want to stop working on them once started. That's how I used to feel about oils. So even though I have a larger percentage of oil illustrations in my portfolio, I don't think I should ignore this pull towards collage. Now's the time to explore it, while I'm in school.

#3. Push Beyond Children's Books
I would love to be the kind of illustrator who is hired only for children's books, but in reality I don't think that will happen. At least not for a long time. Besides, I like the challenges that come from different art projects. So I would like to pick a few projects that are not necessarily related to children's books. I have some kernels of ideas, and a few left over from this semester that I just didn't have the time to explore. They include designing and illustrating a book cover, a graphic novel-like illustration based on my crazy friends, a more whimsical classic portrait-style illustration, a promotional mailing design based on the work I've done this semester and possibly next semester, maybe a political conceptual illustration, and of course the ABC book of Neva's Fears.

For the ABC book, I thought it would be very cool if I could somehow do two illustrations for each fear. One illustrating the fear itself, and the other somehow illustrating how I would overcome that fear, if I had my way. For example, for "S is for Bugs that Swarm", maybe I could direct the bugs to spell out something funny, or the bugs could form the shape of pictures, and I could lie on my back and watch them, like watching clouds...

Cut Paper Russian Myth

2007-06-13T09:24:00.001-05:00

I started to paint the Russian Myth in oils and had a bit of a fit after about two hours. I think I was bored? Tired of oils? I have no idea. So I decided to put it aside and do the same illustration with cut paper. So I spent about two hours Friday night creating all the paper I thought I'd need and spent the rest of the weekend, about 12 hours working on this...

I LOVED every minute of this...

Final touches to "Brothers and Bees"

2007-06-13T09:20:00.000-05:00

I'm finally getting around to posting the final FINAL images of the oil illustrations from "Brothers and Bees". I fixed her face in both of them, and added the grasshoppers to the field one...

Rest of ABC book

2007-06-06T11:16:00.000-05:00

I've finally sat down and planned out the rest of the ABC Book of Neva's Fears...

A. Adrift Alone
B. Being Boring
C. Cruel Critiques
D. Death
E. Ebola
F. Failure
G. Giant Galumphing Grizzly Bears
H. Haphazard Hunters
I. Insubstantial Ice
J. Jostling Jockeying Crowds
K. Kindred spirits Killed-in-action
L. Lost Love
M. Mothman
N. Nails on a Chalkboard
O. Obsolescence
P. Plummeting
Q. Hitting Quadrupeds
R. Road Rage
S. Bugs that Swarm
T. Tumbling Tipsy Teeth
U. Underwater Unknowns
V. Violent Hypocrisy
W. Weighing as much as a Whale
X. X-acto Knife Stabbings
Y. Yuppies
Z. Zombies

I'm not completely happy with all of them, but I did the best I could. For example, for X it was either the X-acto thing or Xenografts...which is not something that I really have ever been afraid of, it just sounded gross in the dictionary. I honestly am more scared of getting stabbed by my own X-acto knife! "Tumbling Tipsy Teeth" sounds like a strange fear, I'm sure, but it's real for me. I grew up with one tooth in the front of my mouth missing. I had a fake one for a while, which fell out when I was in Italy, and then again during a new summer job. It's now implanted but I'm still scared that it'll somehow fall out and leave me with that embaressing gaping hole.

I think the rest is pretty self-explanatory. I wanted some to be more serious than others. Not all fears are rational after all.

3rd Report

2007-06-02T15:02:00.001-05:00

In Response to:
“Something to be Desired: Essays on Design”
by Veronique Vienne

This book is a collection of essays by Veronique Vienne, with topics loosely centered on design issues. Vienne studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, worked in New York City as an exhibit designer, and later as a magazine art director. She currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts in the MFA Design program, and writes for national publications, including Metropolis, Graphis, Communication Arts and the AIGA Journal, where some of these essays first appeared.

I am discovering that the most useful essays, the ones that I find to be the most insightful, are written by artists, illustrators, or designers themselves. Their personal perspectives on the art world, their intimate knowledge of bizarre client requests and difficult projects, and how they solved problems or dealt with conceptual dilemmas, are the most helpful to me. I find that the more I read their words, the more I understand the larger context of art, design, and illustration.

In my previous reading I noticed that many illustrators and art directors felt that illustration and design are becoming linked, so much so, that it’s becoming an indispensable qualification for young illustrators. Design is not something that I focused on as an undergrad, and only forced myself to get interested in after graduation, which is when I realized that more and more clients were looking for “one stop shopping” when it came to their freelancers. So faced with an opportunity to learn something new in a graduate program that encourages exploration, I thought it couldn’t hurt to learn more about design issues.

Vienne considers herself to now be a writer who used to be a designer. In one of her essays “Information Age, circa 1964”, she describes how she was approached by Milton Glaser himself to help design and create an American Museum of Cinema under New York’s 59th Street Bridge. She was excited about the project, and went home and did sketches and indulged her imagination and pulled out every design trick in the book. She then realized, quite suddenly, that she didn’t have anything to say. “Eagerness to design cannot replace a point of view. No amount of creativity can be a substitute for true investigation.” She resigned from the project, and never went back.

Fortunately for Vienne, she is a very engaging writer, and probably made the right choice. This collection of essays is both informative and enjoyable, although some of her essays seemed less relevant than others. I’m not sure what I was supposed to have learned from her tirade on the lack of meditation Americans have when they dress in the morning in “Boudoir”, or her sentimentalized look at women and their cars in “Women and Wheels”. But the majority of her essays combine humor with charming wit to produce very interesting viewpoints on the history of design.
“The Spectacle” is the first essay in the book and in it Vienne discusses the current need our culture has for consuming ready-made objects in an attempt to fill the vacuum left by our own lack of interest in producing hand-made items. John Berger, who wrote “Ways of Seeing”, says that “In his or her day-dreams the passive worker becomes an active consumer”. Vienne points out that “Acquiring things, Berger believes, is a poor substitute for fashioning objects.” She then goes into a brief history of the Situationist International movement (1957-1972) in which members predicted our current state of apathetic consumerism. She quotes Michael J. Wolf, who wrote “The Entertainment Economy: How Mega Media Forces Are Transforming Our Lives”, who asserts, “We have come to expect that we will be entertained all the time. Products and brands that deliver on this expectation are succeeding. Products that do not will disappear.”

Vienne talks about her own involvement in a Situationist experiment at the hands of a young avant-garde architecture professor at Paris’s Beaux-Arts school in 1960. She was instructed to sit at an outdoor café outside the school for the next three months, and “learn about space/time – particularly how to use space in order to waste time.” I found it very interesting that the Situationist movement seemed so haphazard and strange, but was in fact running on a very precise set of ideologies. They believed that each member had to very actively create situations in their daily lives that would resist the “insidious appeal of the pseudo-needs of increased consumption and to overcome the mounting sense of alienation that has characterized the postmodern age.”

Also in her essay, Vienne points out that the Vancouver-based magazine “Adbusters” is one of the few anti-consumerism publications that has embraced the SI legacy, and actively uses one of their design constructs, détournement, or rerouting. Vienne describes this as “simply sticking words on top of images,” but admits that the minute you add words to an image, you can “subvert the significance of both word and image.”

The idea that I, as a consumer, am being influenced everyday to consume objects that I have no real need for, and manipulated into caring about brand names more than the objects themselves, is sickening, but nothing new. I am aware that I’m being used. But I, like most Americans, have become numb to the onslaught. More and more I’ve noticed that my generation is a generation of apathetic “waiters”. We wait for someone to come and rescue us, but have no real concept of if and when that might happen, and I’m not sure we really care one way or the other. We are “plugged in, and tuned out.”

My boyfriend’s nephew, Tyler, is 8 and very often my boyfriend watches him while his sister is at work. When I met Tyler, he was five, and I was struck by his sensitivity. He’s an incredibly empathic little kid, who cares a great deal about those around him. Like most kids though, he knows more about the world around him than he lets on. I have watched him for the last three years and he has begun to grow into a true American. He expects to be entertained constantly by those around him.

I recently sat and listened to a conversation between him and my boyfriend, in which Tyler whined very loudly that my boyfriend was BORING (dance for your nephew, monkey uncle!), and why couldn’t they play video games? I suggested that I could bring over some paints, and his instant response was “NO” in a very disgusted tone. I asked him what on earth was wrong with paints, to which he had no answer. After a few minutes, he said, “Ok, bring over the paints.” He has taken up a very disturbing habit of demanding things; food, toys, games, movies, anything really. He feels he’s entitled to it. I was ready to go get some paints when my boyfriend reminded Tyler that his mother was coming over soon with his Playstation 2. I asked Tyler if he would still play with the paints if I brought them over and his Mom showed up with the Playstation 2. He gave me a sheepish look and said “…yah…”

I gave up and went home. The instant the video game appeared, Tyler would have abandoned the paints. There is no replacing creating something with your hands. Vienne is absolutely right about that. I worry about Tyler and his generation of video game players. They are plugged in, tuned out, and even though they are being entertained, they are not creating anything. It’s a perfect way for the marketing agencies to create a new generation of consumers. Even the “anti-consumerism rebellion of the postwar era was commodified by the ad agencies of Madison Avenue into what is now known as the ‘Youth Culture’ – one of the greatest marketing tools of the twentieth century.” So the very movements who fought against the tide of brands and logos and cartoony media mascots, are now the symbols of what is “cool” and marketable in America.

I saw an interesting experiment done on the news recently that involved 3 to 5 year old girls and boys, and their emotional connection to cartoon characters, and how that is being used as a key marketing strategy. The kids were presented with a banana and a brownie and asked which item they would like for breakfast. Most of the kids picked the brownie, but some good souls opted for the banana. The kids were then presented with a brownie and a banana covered in Shrek stickers. This time almost ALL of the kids picked the banana. Then the kids were presented with a third option: a brownie, or a rock covered in Shrek stickers. Hands down, the rock was the biggest hit of all.

In Vienne’s essay “Creating Desires”, she compares the American attitude towards or brand products to the European attitude. The difference, she says and I agree, is their emotional context. “The American stuff is more than simply stuff – it’s a concept, it’s an attitude, it’s a value system. In other words, it’s a brand.” By slapping Shrek stickers on a rock, you can create an emotional response in children, and make them say that they would prefer to eat that rock for breakfast, instead of a delicious brownie!

I get that I’m being manipulated. Even though I am an artist, and I still create things with my hands, I am also still a consumer. A grumpy, bitter consumer, wary of the media monster, but a consumer none-the-less. I would like to learn more about subverting images through text and design, so that I can be part of the resistance, instead of an apathetic audience member. I’m not one for rallies, poster board signs, and mobs at the World Trade Organization. I hate crowds, and the hypocrisy that runs rampant in those kinds of situations makes me dizzy. But I am an artist, and I can start there. But first I have to discover my point of view. I have to decide what I’m going to say.

progress

2007-05-20T14:11:00.000-05:00

Despite having industrial strength fans and dehumidifiers in my studio this past week, I was able to get some painting done.

I started this one with stretching watercolor paper on board, stapling it, then lightly filling in the color areas with watercolor:

Then I covered that with acrylic medium, and finished it with oils:

This one was also started on stretched watercolor paper, but I gessoed the paper, sketched in the drawing lightly, and went right into the oils. This one is only about 80% finished. I need to add the grashoppers and finish the grass.

ABC book of Neva's Fears

2007-05-06T21:17:00.000-05:00

Just an idea I've been playing with. So far I have only this one drawing, but I have ideas for a few letters. For example, A is for "Adrift Alone", B is for "Being Boring", Z is for "Zombies"....

trying something new

2007-05-04T18:14:00.000-05:00

My mentor, Erick, gave me a lesson in the wonders of the wacom drawing tablet, which prompted me to spring for one. I tried to do the Russian Myth color comp on the computer...something I've never done before. Part of this was done with a mouse, and the rest with the drawing tablet (I was too impatient for it to arrive, so I started with the mouse...)

I'm still getting used to it, and it's a little sloppy, but I have to say that I like doing this for color comps...It allows for a lot more exploration of color, and saves a LOT of time.

The cut-paper revolution

2007-05-03T18:00:00.000-05:00

I've started to take this "hobby" of mine, cut-paper illustrations, and try to see if it's actually something I like better than illustrating in oils. I figure, even if I only liked doing cut-paper illustrations because it was a distraction from my "real portfolio work", it'll still be a worthy distraction. So in addition to doing some of these illustrations in oils, I'm going to also try them in cut-paper.

This is my first one.

Some of the papers were tissue paper painted with acrylics, and others were thicker drawing papers painted in acrylics or watercolors. I liked painting one layer of color, letting it dry, then painting a second layer, and while it's still wet, carve designs into it, so the first layer shines through. The tissue paper is applied with wallpaper glue, which is the same method that Eric Carle uses in his illustrations, and the thicker paper is applied with paper glue. I'm not sure I like the combination of transparent paper with thicker paper. I think in the future I might use one or the other. Or not. Who knows. It's all a big mystery right now.

I put a thin layer of acrylic medium over the whole thing, and then did the details in oils.

creative slump

2007-05-03T14:42:00.000-05:00

So, life after the flood has been interesting, and plagued with self-doubt, fear, and unhappiness in my creative abilities. This caused a lot of problems with my productivity. Right before the flood, I finished these color comps. While I was doing these color comps I realized that I absolutely HATED coming to my art table to paint. For some reason I just wasn't getting any pleasure out of this.

So after I realized that this was a chore, that started to get me worried. Isn't this supposed to be fun, at least on some level? Shouldn't I feel excited about working on a project like this? I thought that maybe it was the fact that I was working up to do these illustrations in oils. Was I just sick of oils? I tried to think if there was any other medium that I had more fun with. That's when I realized that I get excited about creating little illustrations with cut-paper. I really enjoy making my own paper...it's relaxing, it's fun, and it's not at all tedious!

So...see next posting...

2nd Report

2007-04-24T16:49:00.001-05:00

In Response to:
“The Education of an Illustrator”
Edited by Steven Heller and Marshall Arisman

This book is a collection of interviews, sample syllabi for both undergraduate and graduate illustration students, and essays by leading art directors, teachers, graphic designers, and illustrators, collected together with the purpose of providing an informed outline of how to not only work in the field of illustration, but also how to successfully teach it. The contributors to this book include Milton Glaser, Thomas Woodruff, Brad Holland, and Robert Kaufman to name a few.

This book is divided up into five sections, and given the wide variety of opinions and voices included, I think it will be simplest to talk about those five categories instead of going through each essay. The first section is “Conceiving and Making”, and the five essays address what illustration is or what it could be. In “Is There a Fine Art to Illustration”, illustrator Marshall Arisman insists that “it is possible to expand the boundaries where fine art and illustration meet into an image-making process that redefines our tired old definitions and replaces them with figurative art that is simply good or bad art, wherever it appears, whether on a printed page or on a gallery wall.”

This notion of illustration needing to evolve past its current definition is something that is repeated throughout the book. Most illustrators seem to agree though that “representational” art is not what illustration is all about. That word implies a focus on detail and life-like accuracy, so much so that it negates any symbolic or metaphorical content. The content or story of an illustration is what makes it so powerful, and yet, there also seems to be a consensus that young illustrators are losing interest in storytelling. As Veronique Vienne points out in “Illustrate: Give Them What They Never Knew They Wanted”, “Today the medium of illustration is seldom used to stir up controversy. Most art directors think of it as an extension of graphic design – visuals as punctuation for the eye.” Some of the blame for this lack of storytelling is placed on teachers, some on art directors, but the responsibility to create illustration with real content obviously still lies with the illustrator. Almost every essay author encourages young artists to find their own stories to tell, and if they can’t incorporate those stories into their freelance work, to make time to do it on their own.

Section two “Ebbing and Flowing” attempts to answer the question, “is illustration really dying?” The answer to that is a resounding and obstinate “Hell, NO!” It seems instead that the field of illustration has been placed in a state of flux, or transition, and no one really can tell where it’s going, but there are too many stubborn illustrators out there to let it die. As the art director Steven Heller puts it “if illustration is dying, it will be over many illustrators’ dead bodies.” This book was published in 2000, when I was a Junior at Syracuse University. At that time, I do recall hearing about the “End of Illustration” as if it was a looming tidal wave, but I, like most artists, was too stubborn to admit defeat before even attempting to stay afloat. So what is “killing” illustration, and why are we choosing to be optimistic?

It seems that illustration has gone from being “the people’s art” ala Norman Rockwell, to conceptual art as America’s stories have gotten more complex. In the 1960’s the illustrator started to be relied upon to produce “The Big Idea” in a visual sense. There was also a shift of thinking within art director’s circles that illustrators should be thought of as an extension of the graphic design department. Then the computer came along, and the world became obsessed with the Photoshop squiggles. “The Look” became more important than “The Big Idea”. Huge stock companies began to collect hackneyed conceptual art that was affordable to everyone, at the cost of the market being flooded with images that no longer held any real content. While the computer is the easiest scapegoat in the downfall of traditional illustration, the viewpoint of the artists in these essays seems to be that in order to keep this field alive, you must leave room for change. In Darrel Rees’s essay “Mutant Futures: Is Obsolescence Really Looming”, he points out that quality is quality, no matter what tools you are using “The end is deemed the important thing, not the means by which it is achieved.” He goes on to say that he “believes that the continued relevance of illustration lies in the intelligence brought to bear in picture making and in the ability to embrace continuing change.” In other words, the computer is not the enemy, but art directors who think they can replace quality hand drawn illustrations by throwing an assignment to the graphic design department, might be a worse enemy.

Section three “Valuing and Devaluing” talks about the role of the art director, and how important it is to the revitalization of the field of illustration, and also the role of Stock art which has only been successful at devaluing the work of freelance artists. The artist and art director James McMullan in his essay “Art Directing Illustrators” talks about how a good majority of art directors today don’t have the desire or patience to work with illustrators, and view illustration as a last ditch attempt to get a visual for something that they couldn’t get a photo for. When they do work with illustrators, they inevitably come back to the artist with numerous and detailed changes that, over time, only work to undermine the true intent and spontaneity of the original illustration. “Art by committee”, as I’m fond of calling it, is hardly ever fun, and that lack of connection on the part of the illustrator ends up showing through in the final art, which then works to undermine the integrity of the field of illustration. Who do we blame for a sea of tweaked and politically corrected illustrations? Steven Heller echoes this sentiment in his essay “The Joy of Illustration” when he said, “An illustrator works best when he or she has the freedom to breathe and to interpret. Overly art directing an illustrator’s images is often counterproductive.”

Selling art as stock never seemed like a good idea to me, even as an undergraduate, and after reading Brad Holland’s essay on the subject, I think I was right to think so. Stock houses operate as if they have the artist’s best interests at heart. But by buying and selling cheap, they weaken competition, and “take clients away from artists, often from the very artists who give them art in the first place.” Within ten years, stock houses have become a huge threat to the value of freelance work. Brad suggests that it is hardly ever a good idea to give up all of your rights to your artwork, and that if artists stop feeding the Stock monster, and maintain control of their own artwork; the damage to the field of illustration might be bandaged, if not repaired.

Section four deals with “Teaching and Learning”, and is all about the many obstacles facing illustration students and teachers. I read this section thinking back on my experience as an undergrad at Syracuse University. Since my graduation I have often found myself wondering, “well why didn’t I learn that in college” when working on freelance projects. The fact is, that I did learn a lot of things in college, but how to be a professional artist was never among my priorities or the priorities of my teachers. Joel Priddy points out in his essay “The Rookie” that “Students are told to be creative and take risks in pursuit of a personal vision. At the same time, they need to be professional and consistent in their style so that they can put together a good portfolio.” In my personal experience, I barely had enough time to accumulate enough stylistic, technical, and conceptual knowledge in my four years of college, while the portfolio and professional part was shoved into my last semester. That’s when I suddenly realized that I would have to make a living at this, and how the hell was I supposed to do that? I had wonderful teachers at SU, and they taught me how to think and see and draw and paint like an artist. But I could have used more information on how to run a business like an artist. As Andy Warhol put it, “The finest art of all is the business of art.”

The “Teaching and Learning” section focused, not on how to teach the business of art, but on how to teach students to see, and how to become responsible illustrators who illustrate art with content and narration. This section was interesting, but I guarantee that I wouldn’t have understood the majority of the viewpoints discussed in these essays as an undergraduate. There are just some things that you have to experience before you can grasp what the hell your teachers are rambling on about.

The last section of this book is a collection of syllabi from art schools and universities across the United States and Britain. While this was informative, and I was able to recognize several familiar assignments, it wasn’t as helpful as the opinions and viewpoints in the essays. I plan on taking a closer look at all 22 of the syllabi to make sure I haven’t missed a crucial concept or book assignment though. There might be some assignments that could spark ideas for this coming semester.

After taking a look at Artists as Illustrators from the 40’s in my last report, it was helpful to switch perspectives and focus on the field of illustration itself. It’s refreshing to see that contemporary successful freelance illustrators also feel a lot of the stigma I had been observing about the divisions between Fine Art and Illustration. They were able to offer inside perspectives, irreverent opinions on almost every subject, and most importantly, hope for the future of illustration.

Damn Rain!

2007-04-19T13:17:00.000-05:00

Well thanks to this lovely spring weather we've all been experiencing, I had to take time out from reading very confusing philosophical texts this week to evacuate my basement studio, which all in all ended up getting flooded with a little over a foot of water. On top of that, a stomach flu has been circulating its way through my family, and the phone lines in town are expected to be down for another week or so. I'm actually relieved to be here at my day job at the Museum for a few hours at least. Thanks to my wonderful boyfriend and his father, I've been able to remove all the wet carpet, and replace the parts of the floor that were damaged, and should be able to move back in sooner than expected. But it's going to take a little while to get everything back in place. In the 4 a.m. scramble to get everything upstairs, artwork and books have been spread out all over my house making it impossible to find anything.

But on the bright side, literally, the sun is finally back out, so nothing else bad can happen. Those are the rules.

"Express Yourself - It's Later Than You Think"

2007-04-11T10:23:00.000-05:00

I've been reading essays in "The Education of an Illustrator" and I came across this essay written by Brad Holland who is an amazing Illustrator, who's been working since the 60's and was largely self-taught. His essay is basically a collection of art terms and his personal definitions for them. I've found a convenient link to a complete online version of the essay: HERE but a few of my favorites are below...

Art History: In the Stone Age, artists expressed themselves with crude pictures on the walls of their caves. Then there was a period of transition that lasted roughly 10,000 years. Then came Modern Art. Now we can express ourselves again. If you want to know the details, you can go to art school and spend thousands of dollars, but this is basically what they'll teach you. I've boiled it down.

Commercial Art: Anything done by an artist with a cash register by the door. Commercial Art is traditionally delivered to a client in a brown paper bag with an invoice stapled to the outside.

Fine Art versus Commercial Art: In commercial art, you find out how much they're going to pay you, then you do the work. In fine art, it's the other way around.

"That's Not Art, That's Illustration": Almost everybody is an artist these days. Rock and Roll singers are artists. So are movie directors, performance artists, make-up artists, tattoo artists, con artists and rap artists. Movie stars are artists. Madonna is an artist, because she explores her own sexuality. Snoop Doggy Dogg is an artist because he explores other people's sexuality. Victims who express their pain are artists. So are guys in prison who express themselves on shirt cardboard. Even consumers are artists when they express themselves in their selection of commodities. The only people left in America who seem not to be artists are illustrators.

Art School: One of the frequent casualties of higher education is common sense. Art education is a good example of this. In high school, most kids draw little more than unicorns and super heroes. Then suddenly, in four years of art school, they're supposed to develop an original style. That's something even Rembrandt couldn't have done. So a lot of students wisely spend their four years cultivating gimmicks they can call a style, and mastering Artspeak. This means that, as professionals, they can say things like, "I do purloined images on Naugahyde." Or, "These mutilated Barbie Dolls represent feminist praxis in action."

Life Imitates Art: Not true. Art imitates life. Life imitates high school.

"A herd of independent minds": A lot of artists say they'd be happy in a classless society. But artists are often the first to deceive themselves. Put them in the kind of utopia they sentimentalize, and in no time, they would be binding their feet, lengthening their necks or flattening their heads, just to be different. Artists will never be satisfied, and anyone who tries to satisfy them is a fool.

Better Russian Fairytale Comps

2007-04-09T07:10:00.000-05:00

Here is the Russian Myth illustration that I promised to redo. I like this version much better obviously. This will definitely be one I'll be working to finish before the end of the semester.

Storyboard

2007-04-01T09:58:00.000-05:00

These have been done for a while, I just am now getting around to posting them. Each page is about 4" wide and 2.5" high.

Critical Theory II

2007-03-28T14:47:00.000-05:00

I just got the reading list for the next Critical Theory seminar in June. In addition to reading some required books and essays, we also have to chose one artist who we think is relevant to each four parts of the seminar, and be prepared to speak about the artists and provide images in class. I'm curious to see if I can select Illustrators who are relevant to books such as "Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments", or "The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible."

I'll be sure to post my choices, once I do the reading.

Detailed sketches...

2007-03-27T20:57:00.000-05:00

These are the illustrations Erick thought I should develop further. I'm pretty happy with the development so far, but I do think there needs to be a little more contrast...Have to work more on it.

Clay Model

2007-03-27T20:52:00.000-05:00

Ok, I know this isn't claymation perfect, but this little clay model is serving its purpose.

Waxing and Waning

2007-03-26T14:33:00.000-05:00

I started reading The Education of an Illustrator which has a ton of essays about, not only how to best educate an illustrator, but trends in the business, the future, etc. The introduction is by Steven Heller and Marshall Arisman and is written as a conversation between the two men. Steven speaking as the Art Director and Marshall speaking as the artist/illustrator. They raised some interesting points.

The business of illustration has undergone a lot of changes; rare face time with art directors, promotional plans to expose artwork rather than dropping off portfolios, computers changing styles, websites multiplying daily, expressionistic work is considered more self-expressive than tightly rendered work, etc. What HASN'T changed is the struggle of young illustrators to find our own voice and content.

Steven is one of only a handful of art directors who still meets face-to-face with illustrators to look at portfolios. Steven believes he can make better judgements by interacting with the illustrator, and of course the illustrator benefits from his input. He talks about how art directors used to have the opportunity to mentor illustrators, and vice versa, forming simbiotic relationships.

Marshall talks about his experience with mentors. He says that it's a rare occurence, except in good graduate programs (thank you AIB!) and that a good mentor will sit down and talk about your work, and allow you to have a discussion about the practical and conceptual aspects of your pieces. He says to beware of the mentor who advises you how to market your work, or who ask you to change your artistic voice for profit. He then goes on to talk about influence versus stealing. "If you truly connect to another artist's work, it will show up in your work. That is influence. You will incorporate it and move on. If you mimc a style of an artist because they are successful, that is stealing."

On this subject Steven says that there's a danger in hiring an illustrator based solely on their style. "Style is a voice but it is not an intelligence. Illustratio is best when the ideas, skills, and styles are seamlessly woven into one entity. Style alone is empty." Which I found very interesting. This should be completely obvious, but it's not...at least to me. This is why I can't turn my back completely on writing. I need to continue exploring my personal narrative, as that is part of the whole package.

Marshall believes that "the ability to draw, regardless of personal style or content, will become more in demand." He believes that there must be something behind the image, giving it something more than just surface style. I completely agree with this, and it's something that was drilled into me at Syracuse. It wasn't until I started gaining more confidence in my drawings, that I was able to bring about more expressive paintings and illustrations. I think that's what Erick is trying to remind me of, with his smaller assignments, and how he's forcing me to go slowly with the illustrations from "Brothers and Bees", gaining confidence and purpose with each drawing.

He goes on to say that "the process of drawing can unlock the entire creative process for an artist". When we're children we tell stories in pictures, drawing the concepts that we can't really articulate yet, and each new picture holds the memory of our history of pictures. He says that this is what seperates drawing from photography and computer manipulated images. "I am fearful tha tmost illustrators' choices about the computer are based on speed, greed, short cuts, and avoiding the practice itself." I've heard this before, many times, but it's not something that I've ever really taken seriously. I don't draw on the computer. I use pencil and paper to work out my ideas, because it's what I'm used to. I use the computer as a tool, certainly as a short cut to time consuming hand made alterations, and I don't see anything wrong with that. I'm not using it because I'm lazy or because I'm greedy, but because I know I can accomplish the same thing, in half the time! But Marshall believes that "Drawing takes time. In that time, you will find yourself."

I thought Marshall's final point was very interesting:
"The vocabulary of the illustrator has to be expanded into authorship. Contemporary illustration in our current marketplace is reflecting the machine and not the personal viewpoint of the illustrator....In order to gain control of their own subject matter, illustrators are going to need more than drawing and painting skills. Combining words and images will demand a strong liberal arts component, particularly in literature and writing. The ability to deliver the complete story will be crucial. The printed page and commissioned work will always be a part of what they do, but the core of their activity must center around what stories they feel need to be told and how to tell them. With the rapid advances in digital technology, new tools will have to be learned. The internet is opening the door to personal content. Who is speaking and what they are saying in words and images is going to be more important than ever."

Well said.

2007-03-26T08:48:00.000-05:00

I've feel like I've been working really hard on grad projects lately, but I still don't feel like I have enough to show for all my work. I'm getting frustrated with myself because I'm comparing my work with everyone else's in my year. I would like to have some decent things to show at the end of this semester, but I'm getting nervous that that's not going to happen. I actually had a nightmare recently that I got to the next residency, only to have a few small pathetic things to show....that was awful.

I've finished the storyboard for "Brothers and Bees" and am now working on fleshing out two of those spreads. The plan is to start with pencil comps (which I'm working on right now) and then move into color comps, then start the final illustration. I made a clay model of the character, which I'm going to post soon. She's pretty funny, but not very flexible cause I used wire that's too thick. I've only done this once before where I've made a clay model instead of taking pics. I still think I need to take reference pictures, but I've run into some walls concerning that. The local elementary school won't cooperate because it's not technically a "school project". I think I'm going to see if I can borrow a room somewhere in town, either at a school, library, etc during April Vacation week to hold an open casting call.

This week is going to be about more sketches, reading, taxes and financial aid.

Finished Comps

2007-03-19T10:51:00.000-05:00

I've finished the comps that Erick assigned to me. I'm only posting two though, because I'm not happy with the Russian Myth comp. I'm hoping I'll have time to redo it before I meet with Erick tomorrow, but if not, it'll get get redone eventually. I started with the Russian myth comp, and it was my first time using gouache in about 10 years...

Dinardo Designs

2007-03-19T09:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the SCBWI workshop with designer/art buyer Jeff Dinardo of "Dinardo Designs". His talk was really interesting. He talked about his history working as an illustrator, how he fell in love with Maurice Sendak's work, working in the textbook design field, what he looks for in illustrators, etc. The stories about Sendak were the best. He met Sendak when Jeff was around 18, and actually got to show him his work, see Sendak's home, and take him out to see E.T.! I guess Sendak had had a medical condition and couldn't drive, and he wanted to see the movie! Jeff met Sendak at a lecture Sendak was giving. Kind of reminded me how I was so star struck by Tomie DePaola at his lecture. Also reminds me that having the balls to talk to someone, no matter how "famous" they are, usually pays off in the end. I wish I wasn't so mousy sometimes!

Jeff was very personable and he took the time to look at everyone's portfolio's. His comments about my stuff were pretty accurate, and all things that I know I have to work on. He did say that my style was very unique and painterly and that he has never seen a style like it before, so that's something I guess. He said he could definitely see my stuff being used in posters, or to illustrate poems, etc.

So considering this workshop was free (Thank you SCBWI!), and I now have another great contact, I think it was well worth it.

Neva Nevicica

2007-03-15T10:50:00.000-05:00

I've been looking all over for an english translation of a Croatian fairytale. It's called: "Bridesman Sun and Bride Bridekins ( Neva Nevicica )", so you can see why I was interested in it. I think I may have stumbled upon it when doing a google search of my name. There's a cool site that has flash animation of a bunch of Croatian fairytales, including the Neva one. The fairytale doesn't seem to make much sense, and involves the sun, and muffins...The site didn't give the full text of the fairytale.

So I asked around, and the AWESOME librarians at Lesley University tracked down a copy of the book and are going to send me the scanned pages that contain the Neva story! WOOO HOO! I love librarians.

Currently working on: Storyboard drawings. Tomorrow will be dedicated to the comps.

Progress update

2007-03-14T08:56:00.000-05:00

#1. The text is in the full size book dummy, with no pattern in its placement.

#2. I've started the scaled down storyboard sketches and anticipate finishing in the next two days. I've ordered some vellum paper to play with, but am not waiting for it to start the storyboard.

#3. I've researched Russian Fairytales and have settled on "Sister Alenushka and her Brother Ivanushka". It's not the most complicated fairytale ever, but it's pretty cute. Basically this brother and sister are alone after their parents die and have to travel to another town. Along the way, the brother drinks water from a goat's footprint and turns into a goat. Then of course a Tsar comes along and decides to marry the sister who insists on taking the prancing goat along with them. So they live happily for a while, until an evil jealous witch in disguise lures the sister to the ocean and pushes her in after tying a large rock around her neck.Then the witch takes on the sister's likeness and goes on living with the Tsar. Only the goat saw what the witch did, and mopes about, staring into the sea. The witch asks the Tsar to cook the goat, the goat hears this and goes out to the ocean and sings to his sister that "oh crap, they're going to eat me!", and the sister sings back that "I can't really help you, I have this big rock tied around my neck." The Tsar hears the singing, figures it all out, drags up the sister who wakes up, and then they kill the witch and live happily ever after.

I liked the visual of the goat crying to the ocean, and the sister floating under the water singing back. So that's what I've chosen. The Russian clothing was fun to research, and I've tried to incorporate what I saw. I've also been looking at other artists who have illustrated fairytales, such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac.

#4 For the still life, I've incorporated one of my Mom's old dresses, which has some great designs on it, a little golden elephant statue, little wooden letter blocks that I've had forever that spell out "NEVA", and in the very background you can just see part of a Venetian mask. I'm thinking that this one, with all the patterns, might make a good "whimsical" style painting.

#5. I've decided to do an indoor environment for my third comp. So I'm going to ask my Mom to sit and read in the living room, with some lamps for lighting, and try to incorporate her environment as best I can, within an interesting composition. I thought this would be good as a more mainstream style. I have not sketched this comp yet.

Cutting Away the Waste

2007-03-12T12:22:00.000-05:00

So I finally got to meet with my mentor, Erick Ingraham, last week and it was AWESOME! He was very patient, looked through all the pieces that I had brought to AIB, gave me his honest opinion and advice about each one, and then we talked about specific parameters for my work. This meeting really should have happend sooner, but there was no getting around that.

He made a few excellent points.

#1. I am not a writer, and writing is not my main priority. So cut out the other two stories. I need to focus on the main problems in my work, and cut out any excess mini-projects that are getting in the way of that. So, no more Illustration Friday illustrations either. I think it's a good idea, but I'm not giving it the attention it deserves, and it is definitely detering from my other, more important projects. So it's GONE!

#2. I need to focus on the drawing in my painting, and how my hurried process affects the quality of the finished product. He's making me slow down, and focus on the process. So I've been given a few assignments. I have to pick three different themes, such as landscape, still life, portrait, and create mini-comps in watercolor and gouache, focusing on the midtone values and maintaining the drawing.

#3. I did the book dummy ALL wrong. I need to start by creating a true size book dummy, giving specific borders on each page, and then place the text FIRST! And when placing the text I have to avoid patterns in the placement. The text is taped on and remains movable. Then I go and do a storyboard layout that is seperate from the book dummy. I was combining the two. But this way makes more sense to me.

#4. He thinks it's plausible that my colors are the glue that holds my style together. So with that in mind, I'll be incorporating those bright colors into my smaller comps.

#5. He suggested that I arrange an "open casting call" for models at an elementary school, and just take a ton of pictures and get people's info. That way I have a wide variety of kids to choose from. I liked that idea and am going to contact the school tomorrow.

So all in all it was a great meeting, and I feel a lot more secure in where I'm heading. He also suggested that I create a time-sheet for myself so I can keep track of my hours. An excellent idea, which has already been implemented (although after filling out last week, I realized I need to be commiting even MORE time to this...but at least now I know.)

Thumbnail Sketches & Planning for "Brothers and Bees"

2007-03-02T15:42:00.000-05:00

I started this project by doing thumbnail sketches of the entire page layout. I don't like to think of the illustrations as single images, but rather as an entire spread. I think some of the best children's books are the ones that utilize the entire spread in some unique way. But of course this presents an interesting flow challenge. In this case, there's usually a paragraph on each page, requiring two seperate illustrations on each page in order to show all the information. I'm using a 32 page standard format. I guess I could add pages, but I want to try to work within a construct with specific rules, so I can see how well I can break and flex those rules. It's easier to add pages to suit my illustrations, but it's harder to change my illustrations, and still keep them interesting, to fit the pages. Anyway, because I do need to provide two seperate illustrations on each page, I have to think about how they connect in the middle...Do the illustrations fade around the edges? Do they go right to the gutter? Does part of one illustration flow into the next page? Does one page have a full illustration while the other page just has a smaller one with no background? All things to keep in mind.

I drew three different versions of the same illustration, because in my experience, my first idea is hardly ever my best idea. I'm not completely happy with all of these thumbnails, but the ones that I've chosen as my favorite are at least heading in the right direction.

Page 4 - My brother, Eric, is three years older than me. He likes to think that's a lot, but it's not. I can do mostly everything he can do; sometimes better.

Page 5 - For example, when Mom kicks us out of the house to get some "fresh air", like today, I'm much faster at getting on my boots and zipping up my jacket. Eric always takes forever, and I'm out the door and at the swing set before he even gets his gloves on.

Favorite: (d)
I liked (a) but I wanted to show something a little more competetive between the brother and sister. And maybe something that would warrant the Mom kicking them out of the house. The first thing that came to mind was Nintendo! I was super competetive with Eric when we first got our Nintendo. It used to infuriate me that he was better at Contra. And of course it drove my Mom crazy that we would sit in front of the TV for hours at a time. So I decided to keep the couch image for the end of the story, and use (d) instead.

I like how (d) shows them getting their coats on in the basement, and how Eric is so leisurely about it. I liked (a) with the dashed line, like you sometimes see in the "Family Circus" cartoon, but I couldn't justify using it if it didn't appear elsewhere in the book. And I didn't want to be trapped by this convention of the dashed line. It felt a little gimmicky to me.

Page 6 - While I wait for him, I like to lay on the swing on my belly and pretend I’m a super hero as I fly back and forth. Eric says he’s too old for the swing set, but really I think he knows I’m the better super hero.

Page 7 - Behind our swing set there’s a great forest that’s fun to play in. I can only go in there if I’m with someone though. Eric rolls his eyes whenever I ask him to play in the forest with me. I guess he’s too old for forests too.

Favorite: (c)
This is one that I'm not sure I'm compeltely happy with. The text mentions the forest, and I couldn't really come up with a good way of incorporating that into the illustration. I did like the angle of the swingset in (c), and Eric's bored stance. (a) felt to static, and (b) has possibilities, but the composition felt forced.

Page 8 - When we go into the forest, I always have to walk behind Eric, ‘cause he knows the path better. All the trees and shrubs look the same to me, until we get further into the forest. Every time I’ve tried to lead the way, I always get stuck in a pricker bush. That always makes Eric laugh, even though he’s lost plenty of gloves in pricker bushes too.

Page 9 - At least when we’re walking down the path he’s careful to not let the branches go flying back in my face. He knows I’d tell Mom if he did, and then he’d get in real trouble because Mom hates anything that could “poke an eye out”.

Favorite: (c)
I felt like the most important things in this text was the fact that they are going into the forest to play, that Eric is being considerate with the branch, and lastly that the pricker bushes are a real threat that eats gloves. I think (c) is the most intresting composition, and I like how it shows the pricker bushes in the foreground. I envision the pricker bushes having a glove half hidden in its branches, as if that's one that Eric lost.

Page 10 & 11 - We’re going to the old Indian graveyard today. Eric says it’s not really a graveyard, but that’s what all the other kids in the neighborhood call it. It’s a huge pit in the ground, and parts of it are filled with old tree trunks, branches, and a ton of leaves. The tree trunks make good balance beams. Unless they’re rotted. Then they’re good for the bugs. Eric likes the centipedes, which of course, I always find before he even gets down into the pit.

Favorite: (c)
This one was difficult. I had a lot to show, but I wanted the illustration to spread across both pages in order to show the complexity of the forest environment. I think (c) shows that well. I like how the centipede is in a close up, and the sister is balancing on the beams while Eric prepares to jump into the pit.

Page 12 - The piles of leaves come up to my knees and I like to run around the pit kicking them into the air and then flopping into the piles. I like how the leaves stick to my hair. Eric hates it when I put leaves in his hair.

Page 13 - All around the graveyard are tall trees that are almost completely dead. The branches are as big around as my arm, and they’re perfect climbing trees. We’re not supposed to climb the trees, but I do anyway. Eric climbs them all the time, but frowns at me when I try to. I always go higher than him. I think that’s why he frowns at me, because he knows I’m a better tree climber.

Favorite: (b) or (c)
I actually like (c), but I don't think it accurately describes the text. I think that I like page 12 on (b), and page 13 on (c). I like the interaction between Eric and the sister on (b), and I think just seeing the feet dangling from the tree on (c) is hilarious.

Page 14 & 15 - When we’re tired of the graveyard, I drag Eric up the dirt-bike path. At the top of the hill, I spread my arms and yell “TIMBER!” and pretend to fall, but instead at the last second I run down the hill. Eric tries to walk down the hill, but even he has to jog because it’s so steep! He shouldn’t try to be so cool, and just run like me.

Favorite: (b)
I think that (b) is a good beginning, but that it needs to be developed more. Obviously the background is important. I'm lucky because I can easily go into the woods where I grew up and take a look around. I'm going to do that at some point this March, maybe when some more snow melts. I was trying to convey that "TIMBER" feeling of falling with a straight body until you can't keep straight anymore and have to start running.

Page 16 - At the bottom of the hill there’s a stream. It’s muddy today, and you can see the dirt bike marks in the mud. The dirt bikes can just plow through the stream, but I think it’s too wide for me to jump across. Eric crosses by jumping on a rock that’s in the middle of the stream. So I jump on the same rock and leap for the other side, both feet sticking out in front of me.

Page 17 - The mud makes a SQUELCHing sound and I’m totally stuck. Eric comes back and pulls me out, laughing the whole time. I hop around on one foot while he pulls my boot out of the mud. He’s only a better jumper because he has longer legs than me.

Favorite: (c)
I think the first two are pretty pathetic sketches, and the obvious winner is (c). I like that up close look at the sister as she trys to clear the stream, and then the interaction between Eric and the sister as he pulls out her boot. I just loved that image of the soggy sock hanging off her foot as she trys to hop around on one foot. It's definitely something I've done before.

Page 18 & 19 - With my muddy boot back on, I run past Eric and out into the field. The grass comes up to my neck. I like to spread my arms wide and run through the grass, whipping the grasshoppers into the air. Eric gets beaned on the head with a few of them.

Favorite: (b)
I just loved this part of the story. I think it's such a powerful few sentences that it deserves a full page spread illustration. I actually like each of the illustrations, but (b) shows the most movement. (c) could be fun too though, as an ariel shot, although harder to visualize...

Page 20 & 21 - When the field is humming with angry grasshoppers, Eric and I retreat back to the stream and go up a ways until it gets rockier and is easier to cross. It’s good frog hunting out here. I am a better frog hunter than Eric because I know a trick. You can tell where a frog is hiding because their little eyes make two bumps in the water. Then the trick is to be really still and slow as you come towards them, and then STRIKE FAST at the last second. Just be careful not to squeeze too hard. I like to cup my hands so I can feel them jumping around inside. Eric’s never been very good at catching frogs.

Favorite: (c)
There's a lot going on in this text, so I thought the most important thing to show was the sister's enthusiasm for catching frogs, and Eric's obvious lack of enthusiasm (perhaps because he's not as good at catching frogs as his sister). (a) didn't even show Eric, (b) took his contempt a little too far, but the close up of (c) worked well.

Page 22 - Eric is bored with frogs and wants to go home, but I don’t want to go just yet. He always thinks he’s in charge. I’m old enough to be outside alone. Go home Eric, but I’m staying here! He races up the hill and doesn’t even turn around at the top.

Page 23 - Brothers make me so angry sometimes. I kick an old tree stump as hard as I can, hoping that Eric will hear it and know that I’m upset with him.

Favorite: (c)
I didn't mind (b), but it didn't correspond to the text on each page, so I just flipped it for (c) and it made more sense.

Page 24 - He’s not that much older than me! I can do everything he can do, but better! I’m a better tree climber! I can find the best bugs! I can run faster! I’m so upset that I can’t hear anything but a great humming in my ears.

Page 25 - OW! What was that? The humming is getting louder, and something just bit me! Was it a mosquito? What’s going on?

Favorite: (b)
I liked the extremes of (b), where on the left we see how angry she is at being left alone in the forest, and then on the right, when the first bee stings her, how truly alone she is, and now the forest is much more ominous than it was with Eric there.

Page 26 - BEES!

Page 27 - The tree stump I kicked must have had a nest in it! I start screaming and yelling, jumping up and down, swinging my arms around, trying to get the bees off of me!

Favorite: (c)
Honestly I think any of these three would work, but I liked the repetition in (c). I thought it showed how frantic she is, and showed a lot of movement...Although the other ones do show that she's completely outnumbered by the bees...I'm not sure about this one. Is it better to show her freaking out and jumping all around, or is it more important to show how many bees have swarmed around her? hmmm.

Page 28 - I hear a splash and Eric is back next to me telling me to run. I can’t though! I’m too scared! He grabs my jacket and pushes me across the stream and drags me up the hill. The bees are stinging him too and we’re both crying now.

Page 29 - We run down the path, past the pit, through the trees, past the swing set, into our yard, screaming all the way. Mom comes running out of the house and asks us “what on Earth is going on”? Eric has to tell her ‘cause I’m still jumping up and down, yelling.

Favorite: (c)
(a) is obviously terrible. I thought I'd try the dashed line again, but I really don't think it would work well. I don't mind (b), but the movement is better in (c).

Page 30 - Mom makes us take off our jackets and boots, and she shakes them out on the porch. Dead bees fall onto the porch and through the cracks. Then she makes us go inside and sit on either ends of the couch. Then she covers our bee stings with pink smelly stuff and gives us both popsicles. The pink stuff doesn’t help much, but the popsicles do.

Page 31 - She says that I’m very lucky that I have an older brother who would come back for me and protect me from a bee attack. I think I agree. He’s definitely better at protecting little sisters from bee attacks.

Favorite: (b)
I just loved the idea of them sitting on the couch, covered in pink stuff and bee sting bumps, holding their popsicles and looking bewildered. I did like the visual of the dead bees falling through the cracks of the porch, but I don't think it's as important as the interaction of emotions between the brother and sister.

Page 32 - But I’m still the best at catching frogs.

Favorite: (b)
I didn't like just showing the sister on the last page, because I feel like this is a story about both the brother and the sister, and their relationship... I loved how (b) showed that even when the sister is being smug and relaxed, how Eric is still watching out for her by capturing a rogue bee. I thought that was a cute way of ending it, but (c) would be a simpler way of ending it, with them cheering each other with their popsicles.

March Schedule

2007-02-27T19:29:00.000-05:00

March 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 - Saturday Figure Drawing

I need the practice, and it's a nice motivator to get out of bed early on a Saturday.

March 6 - Meet with Mentor, Erick Ingraham

During our first meeting he's asked to look at my work, and take a look at the progress I've made so far this semester. I'm hoping we can sit down and have a discussion about the direction of my style, which I seem to get more and more confused about as I go along. He's asked me to have in mind the illustrators that I would like to emulate, as well as the illustrators I generally admire. He's going to try to arrange for us to take a trip to Keene State College where they have an impressive collection of original children's book illustrations.

March 9 - My first meeting with the SCBWI Illustrators crit group in Nashua

This group of Society of Children's Book Writer's and Illustrators members have a month critique group and I've signed up to join them. I'm not sure what to expect, but the organizer has been wonderful so far, so I think it will be an excellent resource for me.

March 18 - SCBWI meeting and workshop with Jeff DiNardo

The crit group has set up this event and it's free for members so I thought, "why not!?" Jeff previously worked at Houghton Mifflin and now works as an independent agent/designer. I'm trying to keep my skin layers thick, which means showing my stuff, no matter how pathetic, to more people!

March 19 - Christopher Atkins Lecture at Currier Art Center

Chris is the visiting Assistant Professor of Art History at Northwestern University and his lecture is about "Style, Technique, and the Art of Frans Hals". Apparently Frans Hals revolutionized the approach to Dutch portrait painting in the 17th century, and I'm DYING to know why....well not dying I guess, but these lectures have been great so far. I'm bummed that they won't have them over the summer.

March 28 - Currier Museum staff field trip to the ICA

I know I've already been there and the exhibits are exactly the same, but I can't refuse a free trip to a museum, especially when the alternative is working! Besides, this means I can take another crack at their awesome Museum Shop!

March 31 - First Image Progress Update

This is when my academic adviser, Sunanda Sanyal, requires us to show him images of our progress. Hopefully by this time I'll have something decent to show him!

Saturday Figure Drawing

2007-02-27T19:21:00.000-05:00

This Manchester group has been around a long time and I used to participate in their Saturday morning figure drawing sessions way back in high school. They've since moved to the trendy Langer Place studios which is housed in an old mill building. The space is pretty nice, if only a little cluttered and crowded, and the light is excellent. The model we had was determined to put herself in extremely painful looking positions, but thankfully settled on a more relaxed pose for the two hour pose. (Although, we did have the pleasure of watching her thigh turn blue and then purple as her circulation was cut off) I obviously need the practice as you can see from the one decent sketch I got out of it. I did enjoy playing around with the multi-media board I had just ordered from Dickblick. I think it may be something to keep playing with. This drawing used ink, watercolor and oil.

I'm definitely going to try to keep going.

1st Report

2007-02-22T19:51:00.000-05:00

Neva Austrew
2/28/07

In Response to:
“Modern Painters & Sculptors as Illustrators”
by Monroe Wheeler

This is the third edition of a book that was based on an exhibition of the same name held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1936. This edition was printed in 1946, and includes works by artists that had released new work since the original exhibition. The majority of this book’s content is reserved for the artwork reproduction, but Monroe Wheeler, then Director of Exhibitions and Publications, does give an introduction.

In Wheeler’s introduction he specifies that he has focused his attention on modern artists who have produced work in the 1st third of the 20th century. He admits that a second definition of Modern, with a capitol M, is important to understand when reviewing this collection of work. He defines it as a movement that references not one innovation, but a series of innovations, and involving artists who have a life-long proclivity for innovation, have “a relative freedom from aesthetic habits, good as well as bad, and some instinctive fear of ruts, and disdain for what is easy.”

Wheeler refers to his choice of artists as “all around artists” and distinguishes them from the professional illustrators whom he calls “publisher’s employees.” His preference is for artists who approach an illustrated book project with an amount of enthusiasm and energy, and who work collaboratively with authors and publishers who are their contemporaries. Wheeler indicated that this “free-will” factor, which may be missing in a professional illustrator’s approach, is important to how much innovation and genius come through in the final product. Wheeler’s description of this “ultimate” collaboration sounds like a precursor to what we might now consider an “artist book”, where author, illustrator and publisher all work together, or possibly are all one person, to achieve a book as an art object.

I think it’s important to note a few things about Wheeler’s commentary. He makes it clear that he prefers the illustrated works of European, and more specifically French, art masters, and his selections for this book reflects that. Out of 51 artists, only 6 are American, as opposed to the 24 French artists and the 12 European artists. His explanation for this tipped scale is that very few American artists have troubled themselves with learning and mastering the hand-processes of graphic art reproduction, which he feels is a process that allows for a more accurate reflection of the artists “soul and true intent”. This brings up another interesting fact. Almost all of the illustrations included in this book are created as lithographs, etchings, or wood engravings.

Despite what Wheeler has claimed is his reason for preferring French artists, I think it may have been his own personal experience that has led him to that conclusion. After doing some research on Monroe Wheeler I discovered that he had spent a number of years in his 30’s running a small but distinguished limited edition publishing house in Paris. That alone would be enough to favorably color one’s judgment of the French illustrator.

I found it disappointing that Wheeler only selected printed or drawn works for this book. I understand that the printing process was such that an engraver had to translate an illustration, which would not accurately reflect the originality and spontaneity of the original. However, our printing and publishing technology has obviously evolved since the 1940s and an artist or illustrator today can work in any number of mediums and still be confident that the printed version will accurately portray the intent of the original.

I chose to read this book for this first report because of the encouragement I got during the first residency to read and learn more about the larger world of fine art, and how illustration fits into that, and what kind of roles it plays. While I did find Wheeler’s introduction interesting, I did think that I would have benefited from a more updated version of this discussion. Wheeler has elevated the “Parisian Artist” into a kind of heroic figure, turning their backs on commercialism and conformity, to pursue only the innovative personal projects that suit them. While I agree that that is admirable, it seems to me like an extreme caricature of a modern artist.

I can’t help but think that his selection would be widely different if he was forced to choose from my contemporaries. Artists today, especially those who also think of themselves as illustrators, are working artists, struggling simultaneously with and against commercialism and conformity, attempting to gain a certain balance. Commercialism is the machine that drives our society today, whether we like it or not. The artists who are able to look beyond the stereotype of the “true fine artist”, (heroically non-conforming), and instead use the machine to their advantage and advancement, are the artists that will inevitably gain recognition within the art world. This certainly isn’t sexy or heroic by a 1940’s standpoint, but I do believe that it’s a more accurate portrayal of contemporary artists as illustrators.

Despite my misgivings about Wheeler’s selections, and his overt snobbery towards professional illustrators, I attempted to put that aside and focus mainly on the artwork itself. My first impression of the artwork, was that it all contained a very unique and personal energy and style. The issue of style and personality in my artwork is something that I have been struggling with for a long time, so it was interesting to see a collection of illustrations from an established group of fine artists who had so obviously mastered it, without sacrificing their right to innovate that style.
I think the most helpful example of this is with the examples done by Picasso. The book included six different examples of his illustrations, and it seems that he has moved from wood engraving to etching to drawing to aquatint while effortlessly maintaining the energy and personality that his paintings are known for. I think it’s interesting how he has allowed his medium to help guide his style, never overpowering the illustration, only enhancing it.

While most of the better-known artists in this book have several examples of their illustrations included for comparison, the only other one who has as much innovation between each illustration as Picasso, is the French artist Raoul Dufy. Again, Dufy has allowed his medium to help interpret his style and energy. The heavy dramatic lines of his wood engraving from Apollinaire’s “Le Bestiaire” is completely different in intent and effect from the delicate lines and elaborate etching from Montfort’s “La Belle Enfant”.

Oddly enough, I realized when reviewing these works that I had been discouraged from doing just what these artists do, in terms of innovation of style. As an undergrad, I was advised to not stray too far from a specific style. A specific style would make me more appealing to Art Directors and Publishers, because it would show that I know how to do something consistently well. While that made complete sense to me at the time, it always felt a bit repressive. I enjoy experimenting with different mediums, and trying to use different techniques and styles to highlight different aspects of an author’s text. This, according to Wheeler, is exactly what distinguishes a Modern artist from the lowly “publisher’s employee”. I’ve slowly started to care less and less about what an Art Director or Publisher might think of my wide variety of styles. I look at it as a tool. If playing with different mediums in different ways helps me to find something that I can consider “innovation”, then I think it’s worth sacrificing a high opinion from an Art Director.

This book has raised my interest in certain artists that I previously knew nothing about. Charles Demuth’s illustration from “The Turn of the Screw” is haunting and beautiful. Vladimier Vasilevich Lebedev is a painter, illustrator and poster designer from St. Petersburg and his lithograph from “Verkhom (On Horseback)” shows his obvious skill in composition and design concepts. George Grosz’s scratchy pen drawing from “Tragigrotesken der Nacht” is terrifyingly simple and a little perverse.

I have become very accustomed to not seeing women illustrators included in “history of illustration” books, or at least having a very poor showing in them, but I had hoped that a book such as this would be different. There were only three female artists included in the original exhibition, and of those three, only one, Marie Laurencin, was included in this book. Her illustration of L’Heritier de Villandon’s “L’Adroite Princesse” is a lithograph of a young woman posing demurely with a puppy in her lap.

I believe my perspective and art is somewhat affected by my gender. I think it would be folly to ignore the influence of my gender completely. So I do sit up and take notice when another female illustrator’s point of view is taken seriously enough to be included in the wider art historical discussion. I do realize that much has changed since 1940, although not enough, in my opinion.

So in conclusion, Wheeler’s introduction was informative of his own personal opinions and views on illustrators, but the bulk of useful information was found directly within the illustration reproductions. If taken within the proper context and time frame, I can see how this exhibition might have been seen as “pioneering”. I’d be interested to see how it compares to current exhibitions with contemporary artists as illustrators.

gravity

2007-02-20T15:47:00.000-05:00

I skipped last week's word, which was "crash", but this week's word has actually given me an idea for that. I'll try to create it today if I have time. I actually did this as part of a demonstration in class. I thought of it as "defying gravity".

Support

2007-02-12T12:11:00.000-05:00

I've found a Saturday morning figure drawing group that meets in Manchester every week. I think I'm going to make a concerted effort to go every Saturday. It's only $10, and I definitely need the practice.

I've also finally contacted one of the local Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators meetups, and got their schedule. Unfortunately, they meet in Manchester on the days that I teach. So I changed my schedule for the next semester so I can go to their Monday meetings. It's an Illustrator group, not a Writers group, which will be helpful I think. Right now I don't have much to show, even if I could go.

I've been waiting to get word from AIB that they've received my mentor's information, or word from my mentor that he's gotten the contract. So far, nothing, and I'm getting a little nervous.

Sprout

2007-02-09T16:09:00.000-05:00

I was too late to post this to Illustrationfriday.com...

I liked it though, so here it is.

Illustration Magazine

2007-02-08T14:38:00.000-05:00

I finally decided to commit to an Illustration magazine subscription. The lucky winner is...Illustration Magazine. I've read some good things about it, and it seems cool. Plus the current issue has a piece about my former professor, Murray Tinkleman, so I thought that'd be fun.

I've also stumbled across an illustration blog that's pretty interesting and fairly cerebral: http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/
This one is cool too: http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/
And this one: http://igallo.blogspot.com/

And then there's this one, just to keep it interesting: http://cagzine.com/

I love surfing the web.

"Facebook" Experiment

2007-02-07T11:16:00.000-05:00

I have asked a few friends and family members if they'd be willing to be models for me, and become part of my "Facebook". The idea of the facebook is this: To take a few head and body shots of the people who have agreed to be models, and combine that with their contact info, age, and model release forms into a binder to make a "Facebook". Then, when I'm developing an illustration, I can look through the facebook, which ideally will be organized by age level, and say "oh, well this person would be perfect for this character!" I can then arrange a time to have them model specific poses, in specific costumes.

So far the reaction to this idea has been positive. I have a few friends with children who have agreed to it, which is awesome, but I think at some point I'm going to have to widen my search. I think my first step is going to be sending out a press release, to see if I can get a paper to print the request as an article. Of course, since I can't pay these models just yet, I'm not sure what the response will be. The only thing I can offer them is a CD with all the digital images I take during any of our "photo shoots". So if the press release doesn't generate more volunteers, I think I'll try the local Elementary School. I've developed a relationship with them because I've done some presentations on "Daddy's Girl" just last year, so it might work. Victoria Vebell said that she uses Elementary schools all the time when she's in need of visual reference shots...but I'm a bit wary of the whole thing. I guess it's just a matter of approaching the school in a professional manner, and trying to not freak out any parents.

In the meantime, I'm hitting up all my friends and guilting them into modeling for me! The ladies in my book club have agreed to pose for a few facebook shots tonight, so that should be interesting. That reminds me. I have to come up with a model release form before tonight.

Teaching

2007-02-06T16:22:00.000-05:00

I'm teaching a class this semester at the Currier Art Center called "Children's book illustration", which is kind of hilarious, because I'm making them do similar exercises to what I'm putting myself through for this program. Part of this class involves illustration technique demonstrations. So yesterday I took a line from "Brothers and Bees" and used it in my demonstration. The demonstration was using watered down acrylic paint to block in areas of basic color, and then using colored pencils to add detail and formalize the illustration. The acrylic paint part went fine, but the colored pencils were a little too waxy, and didn't give the effect I was hoping for. However, it was a fun exercise none-the-less.

The line from the story is:

With my muddy boot back on, I run past Eric and out into the field. The grass comes up to my neck. I like to spread my arms wide and run through the grass, whipping grasshoppers into the air. Eric gets beaned on the head with a few of them.

Story #1 is DONE!

2007-02-06T16:20:00.000-05:00

Woo hoo! I finished, and it's really not half bad. So story #1, "Brothers and Bees", is done, and now I'm moving on to Story #2. I have a few ideas for Story #2 and am planning on spending some time today sifting through it.

Mental Block

2007-02-06T16:13:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I was having a hard time focusing on writing, so I thought I'd sit down and draw instead. I sat down, and...nothing. No inpsiration, no doodles, nothing. So I took down the family photo albums and flipped through them for a few hours. I finally just took a photo of my brother and decided to sketch it. This was the result. It felt good, and help get me out of my funk. After that I could focus on writing. Go figure.

Christina Pitsch - Artist Lecture Series

2007-02-06T12:47:00.000-05:00

I went to see Christina Pitsch speak about her work yesterday at the Currier Art Center as part of their Artist Lecture Series. Her talk was titled "Antlers, doilies, and trucks: American Stereotypes".

Her art deals with specific icons and objects and how we as Americans, and specifically men, assign certain genders to those objects, to the point of sexualizing them. She moved from NYC to upstate NY for her graduate degree, and found herself transplanted into a hunting culture that was very foreign to her. At that time she had a white ford truck, and she found that when she would drive that truck around town, people's responses would be "well, that's a great truck your boyfriend has there!" That, coupled with her experiences growing up as a tom boy, and also being friends with women in a biker culture in NYC, started to influence her artwork, and her thinking about gender roles and icons.

I think out of all her work, I appreciated her "Sugar" experiment the most. She took her white truck and had it "pimped out". She had it painted a light pink. Had it cranked up so it was higher than a normal Ford truck. Added custom pink rims. Installed a gun rack, complete with a flacid rubber shot gun that had testicles hanging where the trigger would be. The interior of the truck was all custom pink leather, embroidered with "sugar", which had become the truck's name. It got to the point where her advisors started to fear for her safety, because they weren't sure how this hunting culture would respond to this "intrusion". Christina pointed out though that the whole point of doing artwork like this, was to be able to reach her surroundings on a personal level.

And the reactions she got were great! She said that the majority of women she met really loved the truck, and thought it was a great comment on gender specific icons. And, because she had done all this custom work to the 9's and spared no expense to make it as professional as it could possibly be, most of the men she encountered couldn't help but admit that it was a great truck (but they did think the color pink ruined the effect).

But of course this isn't really the kind of work that can be easily exhibited, so she started to move away from "Sugar" and started dealing with the hunter culture, and she envisioned herself as the huntress. She dealt with the notion of "trophies" and if she was the huntress, what would she want her trophies to look like. The result were these cast iron forms with antlers, almost like a deer head, placed on the wall on top of these doilies. There is a lot of repetition in her work, which she admits is part of her creative process.

I really loved her talk, and found a lot of her ideas fascinating. I also thought that her attitude towards these obviously sexist comments and icons was refreshing. She didn't lash out at it, she didn't get angry and rant and preach. She took it in, and most of the time found it curious and hilarious, and then commented on it in her artwork. That's never been something that has come easily to me. My first reaction is to get angry, not contemplative.

Writing for kids is HARD!

2007-02-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

I don't know if I've bitten off more than I can chew. Not only am I expecting to write these stories, but also illustrate a full book dummy for each story! I think it may be a matter of just getting used to creative writing again. I haven't done it since freshman year of college! And it seems like such a different process than how I write for essays or response pieces.

But I think it will be worth it, because in the long run I want to be more in touch with the overall process of creating a children's book. And this is forcing me to think of it in different ways.

My first story is titled "Brothers and Bees", and I think I'm zeroing in on a good draft. I have to be careful not to get caught up in my childhood memories though, and stick to telling a specific story! I think for my next story I'm going to attempt to write something that isn't directly from my childhood. I'd like it to be partly inspired by my own experiences, but drawing directly from childhood memories is difficult for me because I get so invested in what "really happened".

Red

2007-02-02T13:54:00.000-05:00

This is my attempt to illustrate "Red". I think it's obvious that I didn't feel like drawing today...

This Semester's Mentor

2007-02-01T17:36:00.000-05:00

Erick Ingraham has agreed to be my artist mentor this semester. He lives and works in Peterborough, NH, and is a talented painter and illustrator. So we're waiting on the contract to be sent from school, but once that's done, we can finally pick a time to meet and get this ball rolling! I'm excited about this. His paintings remind me of Maxfield Parrish's work, and his children's books (which he doesn't do as much of anymore) are adorable!

Diving in

2007-01-31T16:53:00.000-05:00

I've been doing a lot of writing the last few weeks, attempting to get out on paper as many memories from my childhood as I could. Finally I just put the whole thing aside, and just wrote a story. It was very exciting when I finished in less than an hour, and had a pretty good rough draft of Story #1.

The story is about my brother and I. Eric is 3 years older than I am, but growing up, we had such a blast together. I had a great time hanging out and playing with Eric, but I was always very competetive with him...at least in my own mind. I wanted to be just as "good" as he was at everything. That always drove me to try to do the things that always came so easily to Eric (which of course was just because he was 3 years older than me!) Eric has always been very patient with this part of my personality and it never really seemed to bother him that his little sister liked to take charge.

I'm not going to post entire stories on this blog, but if you would like to be a part of my Editorial Club and give me your feedback on my drafts, please email me.

Tomie dePaola

2007-01-31T16:47:00.000-05:00

I went to see author and illustrator Tomie dePaola speak this past weekend. I was hoping to get him lined up to be a future mentor, and spoke to him briefly before his interview. Unfortunately he just had carpel tunnel surgery on his drawing hand, so he's gotten behind in his artwork, and couldn't commit to anything. But I gave him my package of info anyway, and told him it was a two and half year program if things changed for him.

His interview was taped for a PBS special, and it was great. I found that a lot of the things he said about being an artist, being an illustrator, and an author, completely resonated true with me. It was also helpful to hear him talk about his creative process, especially the part about how he draws his inspiration from his earliest memories...a process I'm currently trying to work through.

Obstacles to Expect

2007-01-27T19:14:00.000-05:00

1. Fear: I'm afraid that I am someone who is just destined to be a mediocre artist, nothing more. I'm afraid I will never be good enough to be able to make a living at this.

2. Procrastination: Even though I've gotten better, I still sometimes do laundry or clean to avoid doing artwork.

3. Job and Freelance Work: I've prepared for this, and have a committed to a limited number of classes and freelance jobs. However, I have a very hard time saying no.

4. RUSH, RUSH, RUSH: I have to learn to slow down and really focus on the process of illustrating and not rush through just to get to that final illustration (which is my favorite part).

Where to start?

2007-01-27T19:10:00.000-05:00

1. Brainstorming: If I'm planning on writing and illustrating my own stories, with the hope that it will help me find my own artistic point of view and voice, then I have to start with myself.

a). Look at my childhood. Go through photo albums and write down any words or memories that seem important.

b). Look at my present adult self. Examine my likes, dislikes, and try to determine WHY I am the way that I am.

c). Take a closer look at my surroundings. What lessons have I learned here? What kind of people have I met? How have they influenced me?

2. Ask Questions: Start a list of questions, hang it in my studio and keep adding to it. Refer back to it constantly.

3. Start writing, and get out all my ideas, good and bad.

Goals for 1st semester

2007-01-27T19:05:00.000-05:00

1. Write and develop at least 3 children's stories that are inspired by my life/interests/childhood, etc.

2. Using those three stories, develop at least 3 thoroughly researched illustrations.

a). Research and find specific visual reference materials for all 3 illustrations. If I can't find photos, arrange to take pictures of costumed models. (Employ the help of the local theatre. They have 10,000 costumes and have agreed to arange a barter system with me. )

b). Do multiple sketches and comps in both B&W and color (in whatever medium I chose for the final)

c). Evaluate which concepts and emotions are most important to engaging the reader with the story. Use that to help determine style, composition, medium and color choice.

3. In addition to the work listed above, use Illustrationfriday.com's word of the week to produce a weekly conceptual illustration in the medium of my choice.