He was 70 when he died. Way too soon.

This is the third in the series I did for John Amen and Daniel Y. Harris… my first experience with an artistic collaboration (where I wasn’t also the scriptwriter) and I enjoyed it greatly. Hope to get back to working in color next time around…

Marilyn at the Supermarket

I still follow the blog and I really miss you guys. I’ve looked for a similar group here in MA and have not yet found one. Let me know if you ever make it up to cons in the NYC area or elsewhere in the Northeast!

This was an illustration I did for a manuscript under development by John Amen and Daniel Harris, as is the next...

I still don't like drawing in Illustrator, but I suppose it was a good learning experience.

I did this bookmark (front and back) as a wedding favor for friends.

These two are actually old (Fall 07) but I wanted to get permission from the bride and groom before posting.

Similarly, when we arrived at the movie theater, there were only a half dozen other people there to see The Fountain.

I highly recommend seeing this film soon, because the visuals are stunning and I doubt it will stay on the big screen long. In fact, Blake and I were both amazed that this movie got made at all, much less with a major theatrical release and the actor who played Wolverine in the leading role! Director Aronofosky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) takes the kind of risks with chronology and plot that most big Hollywood films avoid at all costs. Interweaving multiple genres and story lines for the two lead actors, The Fountain creates a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. You may find the film melodramatic, murky, or just plain silly in places, but I give it points for ambition. The closest analogy I can give is an inward-looking 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I am working on a lengthy illustration project for which I had chosen ink with gray wash as the medium. I had started by using a croquill dip pen with India ink, followed by a bamboo brush with an ink/water mixture. But I was getting really frustrated, mostly because even when I got an inked drawing that I liked, it was easy to mess up at the wash stage.

I continue to have a love/hate relationship with dip pens. Love the line they give. Hate the fuss and mess. To complicate this relationship, I have this Cross fountain pen which I got in high school:

It’s supposed to be a writing pen, not a drawing pen, but the line quality is superb. Plus it’s portable, and you get several hours’ supply of ink before having to refill, rather than a minute or two. Only catch is, the ink isn’t waterproof. (You can buy waterproof ink for fountain pens but it doesn’t work very well.) So I had ruled it out for this particular illustration project. Until now…

What I did was scan in my line art as a black-and-white bitmap in Photoshop, as per FAMA’s excellent tutorial : I scanned at 2400 dpi, which may have been overkill but worked.

I could then have done my coloring in Photoshop, but because I was working in grayscale, not CMYK, and because I wanted a hand-painted look, I instead printed the line art out on medium-heavy stock on my laser printer. Then, I painted onto the printed outline with a mixture of India ink and water. To my relief, the laser-printed ink was waterproof, and the paper didn’t even buckle that badly! (I used what I happened to have on hand, which was 44 lb Epson Matte Inkjet paper. Worked ok, although next time I’d like to try using heavier stock.)

When I scanned the new image with ink wash, I was concerned that I would get weird pixelation or jagged edges on the ink outline from re-scanning it, but at 600 dpi resolution it appears to be fine–most likely because the line art was a bitmap and not a halftone.

So, there you have it. I can use my favorite fountain pen and experiment endlessly with hand-painted ink washes, without fear of damaging the original line art. And the process isn’t even all that cumbersome! Now I just need to work on improving the drawings themselves..

http://www.artbabe.com/comicsandart/diy/index.html

Her La Perdida series (now out in graphic novel form) is good too.

Final Fantasy (solo project of Owen Pallett of the Arcade Fire), at The Milestone on Saturday night

Baby mullett, spotted at The Milestone

Plaza Midwood Post Office, Friday afternoon

Girl waiting at airport

Juju sings for the Mosquitoes, Visulite

Sea of Cortez plays the Double Door Inn