An Illustrator’s Life — Sara’s tips

The frame of a drawing is a useful tool for visual storytelling.

Recently, I had several students tell me that they broke the frame of their drawing to create a sense of liberation. This can be useful thing to do, but should be used appropriately, not because your initial planning was off.

In the book illustration I’m doing right now…the character is backed into a corner, both literally and metaphorically. I’m carefully debating how much of his body to show. At the scale I’m working fractions of an inch count.

In this case, it’s all about the tip of the elbow. Believe it or not…that can make all the difference in the world.

As I study the drawing throughout the day, I make minute changes to capture just the right amount of restriction.

I’m almost there now. I’ll certainly have it right by tomorrow.

Retro-Futurism and Supersonic Pulp Artists

Header illustration from "Startling Stories" March 1940
for "When New York Vanished" by Henry Kuttner.

Here’s story for you. Back in the day, that is, the early to mid-20 C, weekly magazines needed lots of content. Plenty of stories with plenty of art to go with them. It was something like our blogs today but harder because the production process was significantly more complicated. Writers and artists weren’t paid a lot but it was a good, steady job and everyone, who became anyone, started out in the Pulps.

Many people are familiar with Pulp cover art. There have been many books highlighting its flashy "ScientiFiction" imagery.

But what about Pulp interior art? Always black and white, and generally of a lower caliber, interior artwork was the work horse of  the title. Each story had several illustrations, depending on the length of the piece. Generally, there were as many illustrators per issue as stories, unless the magazine had only a small stable of illustrators.

In order to churn out art quickly, interior illustrators had to use fast, easy-to-reproduce techniques. A few took extraordinary care and produced masterful illustrations — Virgil Finlay was one of these. But the majority of interior magazine artists were only so-so in content, but masterful in production speed. I suspect that I’d have been one of these…doing speedy, decent, but not-too-great artwork for a by-the-story pay check.

Despite the nature of the business, some of these speedy, business-like illustrations were really terrific. At the top of this post is a good example of an effective two-page story header by Alex Schomburg (1905-1998). The retro-future cityscape with its departing rocketship is exciting and brings you right into the story, just as it should.

From what I can see, this drawing was done with china marker/grease pencil (and maybe ink) on Coquille Board. The bumps, like stipples, seen in the shading give it away. (“Coquille” refers to the paper surface but also the technique.) Coquille paper, now called “Stipple Paper,” is a highly-textured surface that can reproduce the effect of stipple-shading at much greater speed than traditional ink stippling.

In the old print days, there were a variety of highly-sensitive art papers available to the illustrator. We saw the end of those wonderful papers in the 1970’s/1980’s. It’s too bad…there was nothing like Video paper for carbon dust renderings, and the original Coquille Board was miles better than what we have today. But then, we don’t need them as much today, either.

With the advent of Digital Art, and the capabilities of digital reproduction, we no longer needed to worry about reproduction quality. A high-res .PSD, .PNG or .JPG is much better quality than anything they had available for reproduction back in the old days.

Here are a few of my own Coquille pieces, done recently.

"Deco Car," 8.5" x 11" pencil, china marker,
and colored pencil on Coquille paper.

"Soviet Power Station," 8.5" x 11" pencil, china marker,
and colored pencil on Coquille paper.

"Starlet,"9 " x 12" pencil, china marker,
and colored pencil on Coquille paper.

As you can see, Coquille Paper works as well for colored pencils/crayons. If you haven’t tried it, I’d recommend giving it a go. Coquille is a fun technique with a long and admirable history. 

In a future post, I’ll talk about the pulp writers, also artistic work horses, who pumped out decent, and sometimes extraordinary, stories weekly for an adventure-hungry public.

Watch the Aurora

I'm slowly gathering reference materials and inspirational ideas for "A Patchwork Tale" - my fairy tale/children's book-in-progress. The book will be illustrated with a combination of pen & ink drawings and watercolor paintings. Tonight, I did a small test drawing of an aurora in pen and ink. In color, an aurora would be easier to manage, the greens, reds, and pinks in the sky would give it away immediately. But how to handle those graceful ribbons in black and white? I'm still working on it. But this was my first attempt.

"Watch the Aurora" pen & ink in a
Stillman and Birn epsilon journal

"Lepus and the Ship"

“Lepus and the Ship,” pen & ink, 9” x 14”
Copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2015

For several months I’ve been noodling around with a new children’s book idea called A Patchwork Tale. I’ve written a third of the text in drabble format (linked 100 word mini-stories) and have done several art pieces both studies and more finished works. This is the newest piece, which brings the total number of book pieces up to nine — four color and five pen and ink. So I’m well on my way!

I envision A Patchwork Tale as a grand adventure story modeled after the gift books from the Golden Age of Illustration at the turn of the 20th Century. An ambitious project to be sure, but certainly one to be proud of.

P.S. As a note for pen & ink geeks like myself, many, many years ago I was given a large roll of linen-backed paper with a smooth surface perfect for pen & ink/drafting. Needless to say, I've held onto this gift and used it judiciously, well aware that there "'ain't no more" when I run out. I'm fairly certain that paper like this isn't made any more and even if it is, would be outrageously hard to come by. I used it for this piece and was reminded again of what a fabulous surface it is - moderately hard for the pen strokes, completely non-bleeding, and with the linen backing providing both structure and some give for the marks. Absolutely fabulous stuff! :-)

Painting of the Day, “Summer Pasture”

“Summer Pasture,” 7” x 9” mixed watermedia on cold press illustration board.
Copyright, Sara Light-Waller, 2015

“Summer Pasture” is a mixed media painting with an underpainting of acrylic, then overpainted with watercolor and gouache.

“Underpainting” refers to the laying down of an initial wash of color before the rest of the painting (which I’ll refer to here as “overpainting.”)  It's a traditional way of unifying a composition through color.

For the underpainting in "Summer Pasture" I used a graded wash of yellow to yellow-orange acrylic. When this was dry I did the overpainting in watercolor and gouache. Because acrylic won’t move when dry, I was able to lift off color bringing back the original yellow/yellow-orange color as needed.

I’m pleased with “Summer Pasture.” The underpainting pulls the composition together, giving the feeling of warmth and strong sun. Though the colors are somewhat unrealistic, they imply realism, which I like. I find the juxtaposition of translucent color (gouache) next to transparent watercolor satisfying. And the brightness of the gouache adds interesting “pop” to the painting.

Study for the Constellation Canis Major

“Study for the Constellation Canis Major” 8” x 11” casein.
Copyright, Sara Light-Waller, 2015

Let me start by saying that Canis Major is a tough shape. The poor dog has to sit up to fit all the star positions correctly. And this shape is just plain awkward! In the old star maps Canis Major is shown as a greyhound, a coursing hound. (All the better to chase Lepus, I suppose.)  I decided to change him to another rabbit-hunting breed, the Maltese Pharaoh Hound. I thought the Pharaoh Hound's erect ears and reddish color might add interest to the constellation's otherwise static shape.

In order to show the dog’s color in harmony with the star field, I shifted my previous yellow/purple color palette to orange/blue. I also changed the look of the stars within the dog, making them bright points of light.

So how did the study work out? 

So-so. 

I like the way the colors turned out, in both the star field and the dog. That said, I prefer the warmer yellow/purple palette to the cooler, orange/blue scheme. I also like the way I painted the stars in Lepus better, they’re more subtle and allow better appreciation of the animal as a whole.

"Study for the Constellation Lepus"
Copyright, Sara Light-Waller, 2015

What's next?

I may do some sketches of Canis Minor and see how he can work in the composition for my final painting. Because the little dog has less stars in his constellation I may be able to put him into a more dynamic running position without compromising the look of the old star maps. More to come on this soon...

Study for The Ship

"Study for the Ship," casein 8" x 10"
Copyright, Sara Light-Waller, 2015

Today’s painting is a study for the space-going sailing ship in my story.

Smaller studies like this can be very helpful. They let you work out problems before getting into  a larger painting. For example, this galleon has a lot of parts, too many for clarity at its eventual small size. Viewers will want the IDEA of a galleon, with enough details to be accurate but not enough to be distracting. Through the process of drawing and painting this ship here, I've worked out what can stay and what details need to be either simplified or done away in the final painting.

I like the way the ship is looking here. It’s not overly-colored, allowing Space to be bright and colorful, which it is. LOL I still need designs for the pennants, but I'll figure that out soon. 

Next up… Canis Major.

Study for the Constellation Lepus

"Study for the Constellation Lepus" 8" x 10" casein
Copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2015

For a little while now I’ve been writing a fairytale as a series of linked drabbles (100-word stories). “A Patchwork Tale” is planned as a story in three parts, with illustrations in pen & ink and watermedia. Eventually, I’d love to publish it as a bound book. We’ll have to see how that goes later on.

For now, I’m writing Part II and starting the illustrations. Here's a detail study for the first painting. This one is called, "The Constellation Lepus." I'll do two more studies like this one before starting the final painting.
 

If you’re interested in reading Part I of “A Patchwork Tale” you can find it on my other blog: Through the Looking Glass.

New Years Wishes from Flying Pony Studios!

Wishing all my friends a very happy New Year, 2015!

Ah, the new year…there are always resolutions, aren’t there? And then you break them…So ultimately, no one bothers to make them anymore. But I’m going to do this year. My resolutions are as follows: to keep up with my painting, plein air and in studio, building up my skills as a watermedia painter. Also, I will be publishing a book (one of them that’s almost ready) and perhaps more than one in 2015! It’s been an intense couple of years of writing and illustration just to get here and now it’s time to bring it all home. *smile*

On that note…here are some of my most recent illustrations, created for my “Patchwork Tale” a series of mini-stories written as linked drabbles (100-word stories). I’ve got it (still in progress) posted on my other blog, www.saralightwaller.com/ in case you’d like to see something of my writing at long last. ha-ha!

 

"The Elfin-Queen and her Griffin," 8” x 10” pen & ink drawing

"The Elfin-Captain," 9” x 12” pen & ink drawing

“Clockmaker, the Sorceress,” WIP 9” x 12”

Have a great year everyone!