Original Art Sundays No. 372: An Inktober miscellany

Well, that really got away from us! Between midterms, union work, concerts and starting new projects, I only completed about half of Inktober this year and haven't posted for a while. Now that I have a minute to breathe, I'd like to share some of this year's completed works.

My vision of the Warpsmith, inspired by Neil Gaiman's current run at finishing Miracleman. I have very mixed feelings about how the storyline seems to be resolving, but I'm very pleased with the quality of the work. This is straight pen and ink, with some brush work here and there.
 

 

October 5. This was based on a comic cover, a book titled MAMO from Boom Box (2021). This is on gray paper, mostly ink and brush. I'm working with Sumi-e ink here. I like the quiet meditative feel of this.

 

 October 12. My take on the iconic Sugar & Spike. I revere these characters. Such smart fun! I seldom draw in this less formal style, but I always enjoy it when I do. 

Dc really blew it in reprinting these. It's one of the best kids' books ever done, so yeah, let's bring it out in a $60 hardcover! Good thinking, moguls.

October 13. Another vision of my elusive character Blue Wild Abandon! Black and white ink on colored paper. I came into a stack of miscellaneous colored papers and have been enjoying them no end.

October 15. Brush and Sumi-e ink.Playing with Japanese floating world ideas and having some fun drawing a kitty.

I have quite a few more, but these are the ones I have ready to put in this long overdue post!

Next: either new page or the rest of these.

 

Original Art Sundays revisited: #88: oddment: sumi-e and haiku

Got a very pleasant e-mail from a talented gent, Jordan O'Leary.
He's starting a new blog to chronicle his new adventure, living in Japan.
To that end, he's requested use of part of one of my Sumi-e images in his blog's masthead.
Of course, I agreed.
We had a brief but delightful email chat about Buddhism and Sumi-e and this and that, and then I saw, with great pleasure, his use of my piece.
Here's his work with my work.

I find his documentation of this adventure very exciting, and I am happy to cross-link to his blog here. It will be added to the blogs on the left side, and I eagerly anticipate updates.
Happy adventuring, Jordan!

Original Art Sundays (Saturday) #88: oddment: sumi-e and haiku

The day before the next Tranny Towers page is scheduled for posting, I'm getting around to catching up again.
This oddment comes from coursework done in my Master's program on Haiku and suni-e.
While I'm too guarded a writer to ever make a great poet, I do enjoy haiku and related forms, probably because the brevity serves to limit my options for self-editing.
I enjoy the sumi-e technique a great deal. The idea that the brush contains all the values and the artist can release them all with one stroke is a very powerful, calming thing.
These three are not my best nor my worst. They're the ones that presented themselves as I was organizing a stack of old work.

This technique is quite versatile.
I've toyed with the idea of using it in comics, as Jon Muth did in the Sandman story Exiles, in Gaiman's final story arc The Wake.

Here's a You Tube that shows the scary talented Muth's brush technique.



It's all about simultaneous control and release, coupled with understanding of light and dark as facets of each other. You know- Zen.
Tomorrow, a "new" old Tranny Towers page.