Cartoon Quickdraw

Oh look. My big ol face!

CLAW CLAW was kind enough to feature me for their first artist interview of 2014. If you want to find out things like what my all-time favorite color of gouache is, please check it out! Thanks to Shanon Weltman for the opportunity and her thoughtful questions!

Recently, I was invited to take part in Scout Books GOOD INK: American Shorts. Their series of small books telling classic short stories are each illustrated by one of many talented artists, and it's exciting to be included among them. My story, The Isle of Voices by Robert Louis Stevenson, entails giant warlocks, disembodied voices, and magic shells. Here are a couple of the illustrations that you'll find in the book. Keep an eye out for it in bookstores soon!

Gouache Process

There have been a lot of very kind responses to my gouache paintings recently, as well as a few requests for tips, and so I've decided to do up a little process post.  I'm very flattered, and a little intimidated!  So, please bear with me as I expose all my clumsy painting techniques.  I should say that though I was taught the basics of gouache painting and dry-brushing, I took those and sorta ran off with my own methods, and they may not be the best way of working!  Like any artist, I'm always adjusting my process.  No doubt my next painting will be created completely differently, but at this point, this is what I do:

So here are my gouache tubes, disposable palettes, and palette knife (and juice!).  I don't know if many people use a palette knife when mixing gouache, but I like to so that I can preserve my brushes just a little more.  I also save all my palettes throughout each piece, and I've found that I can reuse the gouache pretty easily even on these disposable ones so long as you're patient enough to scrape and break up the dried bits with your knife and water.  I've never liked using porcelain or ceramic plates for my palettes, even though they are easier for reusing your dried gouache, only because I run out of space too quickly when I'm mixing and I can't save my colors.

Starting from the beginning!  I always try to preserve as much of the energy of my sketches as I can when I pencil out my piece so I'll usually blow them up and light-table them.  Our light table has become a hugely valuable tool when I paint.  It's homemade!  I hate to pencil directly onto the nice paper I'll be painting on, so I'll usually work over the pencils on the light table, like so:

If you think about it digitally, I typically treat this part like it's all about laying in the flats.  I'm going to have a relatively dark background, so I'll paint that in last so my lighter colors don't pick it up and get all blotchy from the retouching that would have been required in that case.

I can't ever leave that light table on and step away! Doesn't that look scary with that jar of water, and the table a little askew, and my laptop right there..........? 

No harm done!  My cat is dainty, and I'm lucky. 

So I've gotten most of my girl painted in and I've already started dry-brushing on parts.  Usually most of that detail work I'll save till the end, but in some cases it helps to do it before hand.  For instance, layering her dress over the dry-brushing I did on her arm (as you can see in the last photo) helps keep things crisp.

Starting on the background, I'm using this as an opportunity to smooth her shape out a bit and clean up any wayward brushstrokes.

It's almost there!  Now I get to dry brush!  The absolute best part.  Plus! I can abandon the light table now and just go to town adding details and cleaning things up.  This is where I go back to my palettes and reuse a lot of my gouache.  I've made the mistake of mixing too little at the beginning and only realizing it at this step and that is no fun!  Gouache can be finicky with color matching, so I try to avoid remixing a color from scratch at this point because of that.  Also, different colors may dry darker or lighter than when they're wet, which may depend on the brand you're buying.  I use Winsor & Newton and Daler Rowney (cheaper!).  Some colors work better per brand in my experience.  For instance, I hate Daler Rowney's yellow ocher.  It always dries in the tube on me and has a weird semigloss, whereas Winsor & Newton's is great.  Conversely, I've found Winsor & Newton's turquoise blue to be super oily, like, oil with some blue in it.

Anyway, heading towards the finish...

There she is!  All done.  I've added my line work for the little firework sparks, and dry-brushing the light and shadow has carried it home.  I hope this has been neat and informative.  If you want to talk more gouache techniques or what not with me, feel free to ask!  Thanks again for all the encouragement, guys!

Continuing on a theme.

Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon! This silly little strip is my submission to Atomic Books'  Mutant! #3, which they'll be releasing for Free Comic Book Day. Check out the previous issues here.

Spoiler alert: she dead! I actually really love Sailor Moon. I collected the comics, and copied the drawings voraciously (there's probably a seriously embarrassing sketchbook full of them somewhere). It was definitely a huge influence...and I might still watch the show.......?

The radness is overflowing!!! Jimmy's inking is so excellent.

Here’s my first piece that I did for Bits in Multiples of 8 you guys!!  If you guess that I was working on an Altered Beast piece yesterday from the preview I posted, you guessed right!! I’m going to color this soon so that I can turn it into a screen printed poster, so keep you eyes peeled doods and doodettes!

___

Jimmy has an uncanny ability to make you wish you could hang out with/BE every one of his drawings.

Halloween Punx!

Andrea you deserve the buffalo much more than I do, you work is intimating and excellent!

Thank you! but I don't know about that!  Your work is amazing!!  I think The Buffalo is an honor to be shared after all...perhaps it should become the new Grammy or -insert award here- of art blogs?

Got to.

It's been awhile since I've updated, but I'm really looking forward to this year and everything I have lined up to work on. I'll be participating in some very exciting (to me and my nerd self at least) exhibitions soon, and I have a compilation zine in the works which I'm psyched to get started on/spreading the word about as well.

Stay tuned all!

18" X 24" posters of my Queen Emeraldas piece will be for sale at SPX this year in addition to my other offerings. It's rad to see it printed large! If you think so too and might want to put one on your wall, they're just $20, AND only 25 of them will be available.

To find them at the expo, look for me surrounded by the collective radness of Kali Ciesemier (whose handy map I've borrowed from her tumblr), Sam Bosma, and Jimmy Giegerich. We'll see you there!