Original Art Sundays no. 366: Sharp Invitations: Esther's Hands, p. 8

 This one took a bit of doing. More about that in a minute.

For now, let's resume our story. Mother had just gotten some books, freshly published in the US(o so she thought) . In an unusual move, she offered to pay us to read them, and I took her up on the offer.

The astute Tolkien scholar will be aware that Mother was wrong. The first US publication was in 1954-56, with paprback volumes first appearing in 1965 from Ace Books. Editor Donald Wollheim contended that the works were public domain and printed them without approval. Due to fan pressure, this edition was withdrawn and Tolkien was paid a nominal royalty. The Ballantine paperbacks, the edition Mother got us, appeared in 1966, making the NY Times bestseller list. So Mother's claim was true, sort of, to the best of her knowledge.

I'll talk about my reaction to these books on the next page. These stories intertwine, and focus becomes crucial. I have to keep this chapter of the story about my relationship with Mother, and how it effected my life as a trans woman.

On the mechanics of this page: I had one of those "see the page in my mind" moments. When I started looking closely at the mental image, I realized it was pulled from Hildebrandt illustrations, the first Lord of the Rings movie, and this image by Rowena Morrill.

Sigh. I do love Alfred Bester.

I resolved to push the contrast by working with Coquille paper. This is a texture I love, and during my undergrad, I began a sequel to The Devil and Daniel Webster using this medium (another incomplete work!). I realized my plot was much like William Messner-Loebs' neglected work Welcome to Heaven, Dr. Franklin, so I moved on. But it was time to go back to Coquille, or as it's now marketed, stipple board.

I worked up numerous preliminary sketches, diligently laid out the page, redrew the hand holding the brush and the kid in the corner reading to take advantage of the board's texure, and dove in, working to capture the urgency of the encounter with the Balrog. The result was not without problems.

It works in part. Gandalf's pose is successful. I love the Balog's head, but the proportions of the rest of the critter- yeesh! Also, I dropped his bat wings off somewhere along the way. The bridge and the cavern work, but do not have the impact I hoped for.

What to do?

I mused on other possibilities. Different interpretation of the beast? Different angle? I liked the big dramatic moment aspect of this, but it just wasn't working. It was great fun to draw, but the end result just didn't have it. I had to accept that there was no saving this, at least not within my self-imposed deadline.

I resolved to keep the parts I liked and move on from the rest. 

Around the same time, Mother used to read the work of self-proclaimed psychic Edgar Cayce (but really, aren't all psychics self-proclaimed?). Late in her life, I asked her why, since it was so far afield from her beliefs. She got one of her classic introspective expressions and said, "well, I look at a lot of ideas, keep what's of value, and discard the rest." That's a good philosophy for resolving art and storytelling problems. I also realized that since so many skilled artists have tackled this material over the decades, I was setting myself up by trying to match or exceed them, and resolved to just compete with myself- never easy! I went back to my 64 page outline and looked at the rough for this page. It served as an effective model, a viable alternative. Again using stipple board, I did the primary illustration for the more successful page that leads this post. I composited it with border elements from the less successful Balrog page, and achieved a satisfying result. I could have gone another version, but again, deadlines. 

I wanted to give a sense of both the reader's involvement with Lord of the Rings and the thrill of the work itself. 

I greatly enjoyed working the China marker and scumbling brushes. This page (pages) took much longer than usual, but I was having such fun! I like working in loose flowing lines and textures. The pages and images that satisfy me the most tend to use these. I seldom do battle scenes. I want to be better at them, so I should do more!

Materials list is extensive on these pages.

• Papers: tracing paper, various sketchbooks, 32 pound stipple paper
• Pencils: Lyra 2B graphite stick, 4B lead and holder, 2B Ticonderoga classic, China marker
• Erasers: kneadable, vinyl eraser, Click eraser
• Hand Tools: 6" and 14" straightedge, triangle, T-square, French curves
• Inking tools: Dr.Martin's Black Magic ink, nib and holder, Princeton Deerfoot 1/4" mini detailer brush, Escoda Kolinsky no. 4 brush, Richeson Kolinsky  no. 2 brush, red ballpoint pen
• Markers: Micron 0.6, 0.8, 1.0 and Copic 0.25
• And of course, Photoshop

Next: book club and a parting of sorts.

 

Original Art Sundays No. 365: Sharp Invitations: Esther's Hands, p. 7

 Once more into the adventure!

When we left our hapless/intrepid family, the kids (us) were coming into their own, slowly. Mother had begun taking painting classes on night a week.

One night, she had news.

Continuing the brush stroke motif from last page. This motif will carry on for one more page.

Story and art notes intertwine on this page.

The astute observer will note that the hand has moved down the page a bit, but the left panel border is still defined by the implied brush stroke. In the original art, I had the hand a bit higher on the page, but it was too close to the location on the previous page to imply motion. Minimal corrections on this page, primarily eliminating the local color of the paper in Photoshop. I sometimes have luck with the Threshold command in this process, but with the bit of wash on the last panel, that wasn't an option today. Threshold has an almost bitmap effect, making everything rather stark and dropping gray values.

I am reusing the rather static panel with everyone sitting around the dining table as an establishing image for the page, with some minor changes in pose and slight aging of the kids. Perhaps the aging is too subtle, but my Beatles haircut was on point for my age of 14. I don't know if there will be a page in the book for this or not, but I was originally forbidden to listen to The Beatles. Once they got a Saturday morning cartoon show, it was somehow okay.

 

I learned to draw The Beatles in this style by copying a TV Guide article on the cartoon series!

There may or may not be a chapter on music at some point. It's such a huge part of my life, but I do want to keep this book focused on the main theme (and under 500 pages!). I have to focus on the three things this book is about: growing up relatively poor, trans identity and domestic abuse.

The art in the last panel is slightly more complex than my usual work. This is a lead-in to the next page. 

Tool list, just because it's been a while:

• Sketchbooks
• Canson Bristol Board
• Lead holder with 4B leads, 4B pencil, graphite stick
• Plastic eraser, Click Eraser
• Whiteout pen
• Dr. Martin's Black Star Matte ink (full concentrate and wash)
• Pen nibs and holders
• Brushes:  Grumbacher no. 2 flat, Escoda no.4 Kolinsky, Princeton 1/4" mini detailer
• X-Acto #11 blade, cutting matte
• Photoshop

Next: the books being read.
 

 

Original Art Sundays no. 364: Sharp Invitations: Esther's Hands, p. 6

 On to the next page of our story. I rather like this one.

When we left our family, Esther was starting to pull her life back together while she raised five children alone.

Now that the framework is solidly in place, we can get to the meat of Mother's story. 

Story notes: As Mother started to come into her own, so did the kids. We were finding our own voices, developing interests. Like many kids of the mid-late 60s, we bonded over TV. My sisters and I developed a fascination with The Monkees. I stuck with them more fervently than my sisters did. We often took the books, art and music that surrounded us for granted. That was soon to change. More on that on next week's page.

Art notes: The visual device of the brush stroke defining the left border of the panel will be repeated over the next two pages. I worked up a decent sketch of a hand doing a brush stroke, scaled it and printed a few copies. It will serve as a unifying narrative device. The first panel is from photo reference, with some liberties in perspective, intended to show that our lives were full but a bit off-kilter. For the middle panel, I tried 6 different layouts - Mother running out of the room, Mother looking back as she leaves, the closeup of a child's eye with Mother leaving in the eye, and so on. I finally resolved that even though this is her chapter, she doesn't need to appear in the panel at all. In fact, this page is unusual in that there are no face shots of anyone! This is almost like leaving myself out of a page. I've noted before that most graphic memoirs show the creator/subject on every page. Alison Bechdel broke this rule in her two most recent memoirs, but not in her first, Fun Home. I don't know if it's as much a rule as just the way things work out. At any rate, it's refreshing to shake up reader expectations as well as my own.

The astute viewer will note that the furniture and room layout are slightly different than previously represented. This is both artistic license and an acknowledgment that time has passed. 

For several years after Mother passed, I made small books reproducing her art and writing for the family. For the last panel, I scoured one of those books, and found a work that was period specific and had a good range of gray values. Rather than incorporating a photo of the actual painting, I opted to do a wash rendering of it. 

I'm happiest with my work when I let it flow. A solid layout is a tool, a means to an end, not an end in itself, to paraphrase Robert Fripp. I've been revising the master book, as mentioned last week. In noticing what works best, the most successful pages are those where I just explore visual ideas to advance the story. As an artist, I seem to be escaping the confines of my own expectations, whatever that means!

Finally, I re-titled this chapter from the outline. It's not about hands the same way songs like Bill Withers'  Grandma's Hands (which I love even though he sings flat) are about hands. It's not about specific things the hands are doing. I am spotlighting hands throughout this chapter. Their appearance and actions reinforce different parts of the story and character. I hope that's clear. I'm not sure how else to articulate it.

Next: the brush stroke continues.

Original Art Sundays no. 363: Sharp Invitiations: Esther's Hands, p. 5

Next page of the story. For continuity, this story comes after the squirrel story and before the job story. I've been reorganizing the book. While there's still much work to do, I'm pleasantly surprised by the progress I've made. 

When we left, Mother was patching together a life for herself and her five kids.

I made a text change to the previous page, throwing in a line about my baby brother. I am reposting that before the new page.

 

Hm. Posting multiple pages reinforces narrative. I've made this observation before, but it's easy to forget. 

When I started this book, I prepared a 64 page outline/template. This part of the story was a point where things were about to change for the better. I reviewed the outline, and found I was about to leave out some vital background information. After a couple experiments, I found the layout in the outline was almost exactly what was needed. This page sets up the evolution of the family and builds on my childhood. It also shows Mother's character in the grape incident! To this day, I try not to "sample" in stores.

Art notes: This page is sparse, but it works. I'd like to push these pages a bit farther in terms of light/dark, but my work tends to be fairly bright. More dark on upcoming pages, so perhaps balance is a good thing. I made a layout gaffe in setting up the page, but was able to make it work anyway. Fortunate, since I didn't discover the problem until I was almost done! Using the old saw of adding line for background texture in panels two and three. First panel: maybe it could be darker. I tried a couple things on overlays, wasn't happy with the results, and decided to leave well enough alone.

In the original layout, the turkey panel was another group shot. I didn't want to overuse that, especially as we had a full family shot on the previous page, so decided to just do the bird, so to speak. In general, a pretty straightforward page. Necessary to the story, but not stunning. I'm happy with it anyway.

New tools this week: Added a .25 Copic marker and a Pentel click eraser to the toolbox. Otherwise, largely the same as on past pages.

Next: the brush.