Original Art Sundays no. 358: Sharp Invitations: Esther's Hands, pp. 1 and 2

 Into the next chapter!

This will be a bit faster and less emotionally charged than the Curt chapter. Planned and drafted at 10 pages, probably come in around 20. This chapter deals with my relationship with my mother, and with how she handled my transition.

This chapter comes before the chapters on work, surgery and Curt in the final book.

Very open layout on these. I plan to use her style in drawing this as much as possible. Since her style and mine are similar anyway, this shouldn't be a challenge. These pages are necessary background. I toyed with just doing the first panel, the horseback shot, in pencil, and finally decided to leave the soft background in pencil and do minimal erasing. The wedding party photo is not my work, of course, but it does belong here. I considered re-drawing it, and opted for straight photography instead. Both schools of thought are valid. In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel renders photographs, but The Magical Tack of Long Tack Sam uses photos, objects, collages.... it's a memoir. Go with what works.

Pretty much the standard tool list on these, a bit heavy on the Photoshop. I did use a new #1 brush on that first panel. 

Next: marriage to a serviceman, kids, complications....

Original Art Sundays #74 : Midnight Lightning

As promised, something a bit different this week.
As I may have mentioned here before, ever since my Mother passed, I create a book of her paintings for my siblings as part of a communal Christmas present.
Mother gave us all the same thing every Christmas, and it was always this odd melange of stuff. For example, one year we got a book on Biblical mathematics, a pound of Basmati rice, a kitchen fire extinguisher and a roll of silver dollars, all in a stainless steel stock pot.
When she died, we agreed to keep doing it between ourselves, for each other and in her memory.
My contribution has been the books of her paintings, most of which were left in my care.
This year, it was a book of her portraits. Last year, some of her abstract and surrealist imagery.
Since she did a Hendrix paining for a family friend, inspired by the cover of Midnight Lightning, and she shared a birthday with Jimi on Nov. 27, I decided to do a recording of Hendrix's Little Wing and create a short video of her work.



So in hope for the new year and in memory of Esther Bender, enjoy.