Geek Mum makes Toy Storey

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Jessica
Hi readers

Hope that title is intriguing enough for you. In my ongoing journey into creating my first graphic novel, I came up with what I thought to be a novel way of setting up shots for my comic panels. Perspective is always the most challenging aspect so I am constantly looking for shortcuts that don’t involve me having to go too far afield.

Avengers
The first tool I used is the good old iPhone which, once set up on a tripod, can be set to self time mode and take figure shots of myself acting out all the necessary gestures and poses for my story. This is a method that Alison Bechdel uses in her creative process.
The other thing I have found challenging is reproducing cars at various angles. Lightbulb! It’s so obvious… My daughter and I went to a toyshop and bought ten die cast cars for about a fiver. My lifelike models are good old toy cars. Then I googled to see if anyone else uses toys for referencing and amongst quite a few links saw a really good one from Lynn Johnston who does a Canadian newspaper strip ‘For Better or Worse‘.

Now on my tangent of ‘tools for reference’ I downloaded the Daz 3D software which is currently free and have discovered another practical way of visualising poses and lighting (that is a great plus with this particular tool). It’s like having a virtual film set. Except you have to buy add ons if you want a particular set… so… I have now got my son on board to divert his wizard Lego building skills to build me a miniature set for my graphic ‘worlds’. I did have a look at Lego Architecture which is brilliant but not really cost effective for my purposes. The whole fun of doing something creative is just that… ‘making’… not ‘buying’.

My son and I also managed to cross the generation divide with a trip to the new Marvel movie ‘The Avengers‘ which I thoroughly enjoyed. It had lots of humour which lifted it above your average ‘boys’ action film and the effects were stunning. We are so used to special effects in films nowadays it must be extremely hard for filmmakers to lift the bar. And the actors relished their roles… I especially loved Tom Hiddleston‘s Loki character, full of gleeful malice in a public schoolboy package.

I mentioned last time that my illustration course with Andy Fish was coming to an end. That was two weeks ago now and yes it was scary to feel that we were out there on our own now. But Andy’s given us great advice on getting our work out there. I am following his first strategy which is to have a regular webcomic of a panel a day. Mine is going to start going out in September which gives me time to get some advance work done. So I’ve published my declaration now and must therefore stick to it! I’m also going to be doing another of his courses which is Advanced Illustration techniques for the graphic novel which I will blog about on here.

That’s it for now. I’ll put details up of links to my new artwork from the course and my Music Hall cards which I’m working on now, as and when.

May the creative force be with you!

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Lady of Letters

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Jessica
It’s been a while, dear browser. My apologies for that, but the Easter holidays and the presence of my brood interrupted my usual flow. Hope that doesn’t make me sound too much like Medea but here I am, sanctuary at last, courtesy of my blog.
Eiffel Tower - Paris
So… a quick run down of the holiday activities. Junior went on a school skiing trip to Utah. I think this was a rite of passage as much for us as for him. After a week of self torture, as we entertained lurid fantasies of ski misadventures and scenarios involving being grabbed by a local religious cult, our son returned safely on the school bus… the familiar bored look now replaced by something resembling joy!
Junior Miss accompanied Daddy and me on a short trip to Paris… City of Love, though you’d never think it judging by the miserable git who drove our taxi from Gare du Nord and practically hurled our cases out onto the street by our chic hotel. No need to bore you with all the details of our itinerary. Paris is as beautiful as ever, expensive as ever and there’s always a new corner of a street leading to another surprise vista of elegance. My sketch book was full when I got home. I’d asked my teacher, Andy Fish, (I’m doing his ‘Illustrating the Graphic Novel part One’, if you’re new to this blog) where I could find comic book shops in this land of the Bande Desinee.
So hubby and daughter were dragged along to the fabulous Rue Dante, where we wandered into about five comic book stores, all full of the usual American superhero favourites plus some other more deviant works which would usually find themselves on the top shelf in another country. That’s the French for you. There was one shop where I sat for for about an hour poring over all manner of ‘how to’ illustration volumes. I ended up buying a superb book: ‘Black and White Images, fifth special edition’, which contains a treasure trove from the Golden era of pen and ink illustration. All of which is highly relevant to where I’m at with my graphic novel development, which is the inking stage.
I must also pause here to focus on another discovery I made in this shop, which I think was called Pulp. I pulled out a book called ‘The Prince Valiant Page‘ by Gary Gianni. I ordered it online when I got home, having had a week to decide – ‘do I really need another comic book’. But these are no ordinary comic book illustrations. Gary Gianni is a ‘traditional’ style illustrator, highly skilled, painterly and epic in his style. I absolutely fell in love with the pictures and the book is also a journal of how he came to take on the mantle of Hal Foster and John Cullen Murphy in carrying on the classic Prince Valiant serial. I spent a whole afternoon reading this book and derived far more pleasure than watching a film or reading a novel.
Moving away from comics to my other passion now… singing! The Richard Kates album ‘There’s Something About You‘ is now available. He has come up with a confection of musical theatre style songs all suited to the various talents of the West End divas on board. That includes Bonnie Langford, Claire Moore, Craig Revel Horwood, Christopher Biggins and my good self to name but a few. Richard is a great talent and I know where to go the next time I need witty, original material for my cabaret act. Go have a listen on iTunes… you won’t be disappointed!
My next theatrical engagement is little while away but I am greatly excited by it. Lisa Forrell is directing a new production of the classic American play ‘Dark at the Top of the Stairs’ at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry this October and I am playing Lottie Lacey (Eve Arden played the part in the movie version for your movie buff information). It’s going to be a big cast and a big production and I am absolutely delighted to be playing a straight dramatic role for a change. Lisa is a wonderful director who most recently garnered acclaim for her short film ‘Madame Ida‘.
Meanwhile I remain firm in my resolution to create a graphic novel. I’m coming to the last week of my course which I feel quite sad about. We’ve been on a journey of education and self discovery these last ten weeks. I couldn’t believe I was lettering my comic balloons in my Adobe Illustrator application, like an old pro the other day. A few months ago that was the most time consuming, frustrating part of comic booking. Somehow, the whole process of being led along gently, stage by stage has made it all feel like riding a bike… really difficult to begin with but one day it all clicks and it feels like there was never a time you couldn’t do it.
So please keep watching this space, loyal readers, my work has only just begun!
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Gaiety Girls, Moebius and Steampunk

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Jessica
Greetings all.

What in the world, you may well ask, do these seemingly disparate subjects have in common? I suppose the simplest answer is that they are all things that have affected my world this week.
Gaiety Girls were popular musical comedy actresses in the nineteenth century who starred in shows produced by impresario George Edwardes.

Marie Studholme as pierrot
I am privileged to be a patron of The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America and they asked me if I would unveil a house plaque in honour of Gaiety Star Marie Studholme. Unless you have a particular interest in music hall history you probably have no idea who this lady is. In her day, Marie Studholme was a household name… a talented singer and actress, postcard beauty and, as I discovered last week, a true renaissance woman.
By strange coincidence (the amount of times I use that phrase, it no longer seems strange at all) I had known about Miss Studholme since my childhood. My mother inherited a scrapbook of postcards that had belonged to a distant cousin in rural Ireland… the main object of her devotion being Marie Studholme as well as other Gaiety stars like Phyllis Dare and Gabrielle Ray. Coincidence number two was that the site of Marie Studholme’s former home is just off the Finchley Road right next door to where my university campus was. And what a beautiful home… a whitewashed mediterranean style villa with blue shutters and a heavenly garden that the lady herself used to cultivate. I learned that she was a skilled sportswoman, writer, martial arts expert, motorist and she even invented a form of air conditioning whilst suffering the stuffy overheated dressing room of the Gaiety shows. This woman did not know the meaning of ‘bored’ and though she died in her fifties she packed a hell of a lot more into her life than most individuals in her lifetime or today. And that was before the suffragettes. So I felt it a true honour to be celebrating her memory.
Her soul exited this stage a good few years ago. More recently the comic world lost Jean Giraud (Moebius) last week. I am of course only just discovering the great art geniuses of this genre, so forgive me if I say that I was ignorant of who he was until the news of his death. Thanks to all the tributes that have been wending their way across the ether, I found a fabulous interview with this master in which he spoke about his art but also offered a whole philosophy on the nature of art and as he said, its place as ‘an oasis on top of a desert’. He also said that ‘Artists, writers and liars create the world’ which reiterates that fact that we have nothing without imagination. I love the beautiful fine lines of his work, which have a classic quality to them even in a Sci-Fi fantasy genre. There is a Batman illustration I saw that evoked Gustav Dore‘s style. He spoke about how he enjoyed looking at art that could make him see something of the person’s soul. So true.
The internet has fast-tracked my comic artist research and what is interesting is, however modern the artist is, they all stand on the shoulders of the greats that have gone before. My surfing this week was mainly to do with inking… that is the technique I’m currently focusing on for my “Illustrating the Graphic Novel” Course with Andy Fish. I am immersed in this wonderful exercise but, by God, the bar is so high. I’ve been looking at work by Berni Wrightson who cites Franklin Booth as a great influence. I now have a Franklin Booth book on its way because my jaw dropped when I saw his ink drawings. The detail is mind boggling. I also love Virgil Finlay, who I’m sure was influenced by Franklin Booth too.
In keeping with this nostalgia for graphics past, I noticed that Waterstones in St Albans had an intriguing display next to their Graphic Novel section, which said ‘Steampunk‘. I’d heard of the term but wasn’t really quite sure what it was about… assumed it must be some underground comic movement. Again forgive my ‘eureka’ about something that’s been around since the eighties. Steampunk seems to embrace all things Victorian, mechanical, futurist in an H.G Wells / Jules Verne sort of way with Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper and Hot Air Balloons thrown in for good measure. My mind was whirling with all the possibilities for a Victorian style fantasy graphic novel.
Well the spirit of Marie Studholme must have been smiling on me because I showed some of my first graphic novel pages to Adrian and Neil at The Music Hall Guild and they have asked me to design some pen and ink caricatures for their charity greetings cards. My very first graphic commission. I am so thrilled. So watch this space as I work on my first doodles.
Till next time….
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To unpathed waters, undreamed shores

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Jessica
That’s a quote from William Shakespeare and very much the feeling one gets when making art. This week was a lot slower for me compared to previous weeks. The homework remit from class 5 of ‘Illustrating the Graphic Novel‘ with Andy Fish was to do fully pencilled pages from our roughs we’d just completed. This should be the fun part where you get to breathe out and just draw. However the new knowledge we’ve attained means that you’re constantly adjusting the picture.
William Shakespeare
The bar has been raised in one’s visual consciousness. I think more than anything else, the thing that I’m learning from this course is the importance of dynamism in the character’s moves and the framing of a shot.

To this end I have added Burne Hogarth‘s ‘Dynamic Figure Drawing‘ and ‘Drawing Dynamic Hands‘ to my already overburdened library. They have been extremely enlightening. It’s not all work and no play however. My graphic read for pleasure this week was something I picked up on spec in Waterstones… ‘Madame Xanadu Exodus Noir‘ by Matt Wagner and Michael WM Kaluta. It is a fabulous concoction of mystery noir thriller and paranormal fantasy similar to Alan Moore‘s ‘Promethea‘ but I like this better because it’s got a good old fashioned diva heroine in the shape of fortune teller Madame Xanadu. Michael WM Kaluta’s illustrations are vibrant, truly dynamic even in a non action hero genre and the story line has a terrific epic quality to it with a feminist slant. Love it. I’m going to buy some more.

So this week in class 6 we had an intensive run down on inking techniques from Andy. This is by far the most demanding part of cartoon art but we could see from the examples shown how it can catapult art work into another orbit. Mastery of the brush is what we’re aiming for and my beautiful pristine instruments of inking are going to have a good work out in the next week or so. My teeny bottle of Deleter No 5 will hopefully need replenishing by the time I’ve tried out a page in a Jaime Hernandez, Frank Miller noir and eventually a Jessica Martin style. Exciting stuff.

We’re on a two week spring break now so I’m hoping that I can get back on track with my previous prolific output. I’ll let you know how it all goes when I next type with very inky fingers!

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‘Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions’

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Jessica
I’m carrying on in the motivational quote vein this week. This one is from Albert Einstein. Considering how much I loathed Physics at school, it’s amazing that his quotes keep recurring in my blogs. Then again who would have dreamt that my reawakened passion for drawing would lead me to subjects as diverse as Marvel comics and Sacred Geometry.
 Albert Einstein
But then imagination demands that you open your mind and who knows what new vistas you might behold.
So this week I’m moved to discuss imagination and the lack of it. And first off, let me refute the view that imagination is the sole turf of the young. Case in point… I‘m listening to Capital Radio on the school run (my kids think Classic FM is for fogies… but I am prepared to stretch my mind to listen to contemporary fare… where is the equality here?) Lisa Snowdon is chatting to Will-I-Am on a transatlantic flight, asking him what he thinks of the Oscar winning films. The only one he has seen or likes is ‘TinTin in 3D’. Fair enough. She asks him if he might want to see ‘The Artist’ which won five awards. He says ‘I don’t wanna see no black and white movie with no dialogue. That’s just like looking at a load of photos. The old folks voted for that film, it reminds them of their childhood’.He’s passed judgment without even seeing the film. Trouble is he is Will-I-Am… he has the ear of the ‘today’ generation who will dismiss the film because he thinks it ‘ain’t cool’.

I mentioned last week that I was off to see Noir classic ‘Laura’ at the NFT. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was pleased to see the cinema packed, with some pretty young hip people as well as ‘old folks’. The story was corny and melodramatic by today’s standards but beautifully shot with art direction by top Hollywood art director Lyle Wheeler. Gene Tierney as Laura was the epitome of the perfect forties beauty with the most stunning costume changes, as she scales the society ladder with her Pygmalion style mentor played by Clifton Webb. Images are all important… the portrait of Laura, the priceless artefacts in Clifton Webb’s pretentious apartment juxtaposed with the dark world of Dana Andrews hardboiled detective who calls ladies ‘dames’.

My husband indulged me by buying a box set of Film Noir in the NFT bookshop, a veritable candy store for movie fans. This was all in the cause of research, of course, for my ‘Illustrating the Graphic Novel Course’ with Andy Fish. I can’ t believe it’s week five already. Last week we covered composition, finding the best dynamic poses and looking to silent movies for inspiration. So anyone thinking silent movies is dull old boring stuff can think again when they’re wondering where the cutting edge graphic novelists might be getting their inspiration. Tucked in my handbag this week is a copy of Marvel’s ‘Essential X Men‘ and I was particularly taken with the pencilling of Whilce Portacio. I looked up his blog and then found him referring to the work of James R Bingham, a forties artist whose work was very much in the style of all this film noir that I so love.

There you go… nothing new under the sun maybe but new ways to look at things and proof that the imagination is inexhaustible in its ways of invention.

Footnote… I’ve just received my Deleter ink through the post from a source called Dinkybox. This is a special Japanese ink that my teacher recommends and is apparently the one that DC comic artists use. The lady who runs the company says that they’re launching an art gallery for their customers to upload work to. That’s someone who clearly has imagination!
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Conceive, Believe, Achieve!

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Jessica
Here I am …keeping up my pledge to log my progress in creating a graphic novel.
Rallying cries are always helpful with any grand endeavour. I’m not ashamed to admit that the force of positive thinking is one I call upon frequently.

I found this mantra ‘Conceive, Believe, Achieve‘ in a coffee table book of beautiful typography …sorry I can’t remember the title. The artist was drawn to the words for their power in meaning and in look.

Laura poster
‘Conceive’ has lovely feminine curves, the nurturing principle is at work …’Be-lieve’ has the existential resonance, that by our very thoughts we can make something so …and then the magnificent ‘Achieve’ which speaks to me of ‘Ace’, the best of cards, the ‘nailing’ of it, the ‘Actualness’. That’s not what I thought when I first saw the words but my current education in visual language is changing my perception of things.

This looking at things attentively is good but of course it means that perfection is ever further out of reach.
This week I’ve prepared six model sheets for my ongoing ‘Illustrating the Graphic Novel‘ with Andy Fish. We spent the last lesson analysing thumbnail composition which is like setting up camera shots for the comic page panels. It’s a very intense process for what effectively looks like a few scribbles in a square. The positioning of characters, environment and the placing of the word bubbles have all got to be meticulously planned out for maximum dramatic effect. By some simple adjustments to my thumbnails Andy showed me how it could make a significant difference to the overall effect. The thumbnail exercise saves so much redrawing at the end and requires you to apply your visual thinking to a pictorial puzzle.
The model sheets are about what your characters will look like, what they might wear, expressions, different angles all of which will help keep your portraits looking consistent. After all that rigorous, technical thumbnailing I thought this part would be a breeze.
It would have been a walk in the park if I didn’t know what I know now. The knowledge that you are drawing characters who must really exist in a possible world means that you can’t fob your audience off with an easy cliched front- on ‘cartoon’. I went through hours of drawing figures, going off for a coffee break and then coming back and looking at my ‘masterpiece’ with derision …and regretting that I’d had the audacity to draw with anything darker than a 2H pencil!
The whole ethos of ‘Conceive, Believe, Achieve’ was pushing me forward in this work. I had the notion in my head, I had to trust in it and keep referring to it as I reworked my models and eventually I achieved.
And that’s just the prep!

More to report next week. I’m going to see a BFI screening of Otto Preminger‘s ‘Laura‘ this week so I’m hoping for lots more ‘Noir‘ inspiration. Never knew that my love for old movies would be significant for my comic work. I always love it when you can extrude a practical end for a natural passion.

Bye for now.

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Class Vs Book

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Jessica
Now into my third week of study for “Illustrating the Graphic Novel 1“, I gather my thoughts regarding the merits of taking an online class over self teaching with books.
I find myself thinking graphically in terms of dramatic protagonists fighting antagonists.
Class or Book
Would the Marvel version of “Class” be a perfectly proportioned Adonis with a cloak and mortar board or beautiful Athena waving her Torch of Wisdom across the face of some musty old skull faced monk “Book” clutching his precious sacred books?
Yes I know I should draw it… but I’ve got homework to concentrate on!
Whilst books cannot be equalled for their archive of information, learning a craft, (for a graphic novel is a very complex craft) involves doing and there’s nothing like a deadline to spur you into action. In the two weeks since the course began, I have produced around twelve pages of work! Of course, this is a matter of individual preference but personally speaking I know that, when I am entering new territory, I want to have have a trusty guide who knows the terrain and will get me to my destination in the optimum time. So far our teacher, Andy Fish, has been shepherding us Emerson College students with expert advice and tireless feedback.
My four books on perspective made no clear sense, whilst Andy’s perspective exercise gave us clear instructions for a picture that we might feasibly create in a comic book scenario.
I have raised my head from the drawing board long enough to note that world events this week include the passing of Whitney Houston… a true diva. Her tragic legend now joins those of Maria Callas and Judy Garland, women whose extraordinary talent was in conflict with their need to experience a normal, loving family life. That’s a whole subject for a book some other time.
I also watched the Baftas the other night. Nothing hugely surprising about the award winners. I pity any actress who is nominated when Meryl Streep is in the running, then dark horse ‘The Artist‘ garnered most of the awards.
I loved ‘The Artist’ but there were films of outstanding merit all vying for prizes. It just seems unfair that there can only be one winner. In the world of films, it’s interesting to see that the long careers are not necessarily those of Oscar winners. I doubt if George Clooney‘s failure to garner a Bafta is going to hurt his box office bankability. Best Actor went to The Artist’s Jean Dujardin for his beautiful silent movie performance. It’s hard to predict what his next move in pictures will be but at least he will have this trophy to mark his unique achievement. And John Hurt‘s lifetime achievement award got a well earned standing ovation.
Glittering prizes are all well and good but as the nuns at my old school used to say: ‘Everything you do should be done with love’ or as my mum usually says: ‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well’.
Here endeth the lesson for this week. For all of us without a Bafta or an Oscar, it’s still not a bad life eh?
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When the student is ready, the teacher appears

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Jessica
Not exactly a pithy title for the latest blog but one that sums up beautifully the little story of my week thus far. The phrase, by the way, is an old Buddhist saying and has lately been commandeered by every self help and motivational guru going… because it’s true!
Marvel Comics
I have been treading the lonely path of the ways of graphic novelising for some time. I’ve become a bore at parties enthusing about the wonders of Marvel comic anatomy and pressing people to look at my work. And, having made the bold declaration that this year I am going to create my own graphic novel, I suddenly get a huge reality check, where I acknowledge the short falls in my technique and software savvy.
In my last blog I referred to ‘Fish Wrap‘, graphic novelist Andy Fish‘s website for aspiring cartoon illustrators. Well guess what… Mr Fish himself left an encouraging comment on my blog… I responded. Turns out he has an illustration class commencing last week and shazam! I have gone back to college… in America (online obviously) and am studying “Illustration for the Graphic Novel” with a master of the medium. I feel so lucky and very excited. Homework was never as much fun as this. Anyway, early days yet. I’ve got my second class tomorrow night on the all important craft of thumbnailing. I’ll report back soon.
In my other life, my showbiz life this time I had the immense pleasure of doing a reading of Gary Wilmot‘s new Christmas show (songs and book by the very talented Gary). We convened at mutual chum Andrew C Wadsworth‘s house… Andrew and I worked together in ‘Marguerite‘ and ‘All I Want For Christmas‘ and another friend Duncan Smith also joined us. It was just great to be amongst friends. I haven’t seen Gary for quite a while, busy as he always is touring the length and breadth of our country. He was present when I got my first big break in television in a show called ‘Copycats’. I’d just landed the audition, walked into the corridor and there was Gary with his signature smile ‘Alright mate?’ or words to that effect, as I was introduced to this bloke I’d been watching on the telly only a week before.
That was oh so very long ago. And we come round full circle to my daughter treading the boards for the first time last week in a theatre school production of ‘Bugsy Malone‘. She raised some great laughs with her rendition of hoodlum Fat Sam. My work is done!
Right, got to get back to my doodling homework. Yes… but this is doodling on a whole new level.
See you here again!
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The Year of Living Graphically

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Jessica
As promised, I am keeping a log of my journey into creating my graphic novel. I followed Andy Fish’s very good advice on his “Fish Wrap” website to make a schedule in a desk calendar. So far so good… I even bought the desk calendar before Christmas. I marked in it the pages to be pencilled and inked at various stages. But as they say… ’Make a plan and God laughs’. Have I kept to my schedule? Have I heck. I am in the process of learning by doing. This week’s ‘stalling’ issue was my adventure with the manga comic software which, I am very happy to say, is totally user friendly now.
The Artist
You can see the fruits of my first labours with it in my latest episode of ‘Wishful Inking’.
I have taken time out from my art room or ‘dream’ room, as I like to call it, to see two great movies this week. ‘War Horse’ ticked all my boxes for tear-jerking epic adventure and glorious sweeping camera shots that had that picture book look of the classic movie era. But my biggest treat was seeing ‘The Artist’… the new silent movie that everyone is raving about. I have been an old movie fan since I was a child, so I didn’t share the action film generation’s surprise that a silent movie could be so engaging and thoroughly affecting instead of ‘effecting’. The film is a poem, a distillation of all the old movie cliches that we recognise from “A Star Is Born’, ‘Singing in the Rain’, ’42nd Street’, ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and the two leading actors had all the charm and expressive agility of the old time greats. Jean Dujardin who played the fading silent star George Valentin was magnificent… Gene Kelly twinkle and John Barrymore tragedy all there at once. At last we can see the actors telling a story instead of getting swamped in a sea of car chases, global disasters and unintelligible dialogue. And the other delight was that the cinema was packed. Go see it and let the film speak for itself!
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New Year, New Dreams

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Jessica
At last my first blog of 2012 …rather later than I hoped. Though nothing much has happened, I seem to be full of things to say, not least because I have had no voice for the past week after a nasty cold. I was actually in bed for the whole weekend but spent my time trying to master colouring in Photoshop on my laptop according to the methods laid out in the ‘DC Guide to Coloring and Lettering‘.
Charles Dickens
On this quest to convert from Luddite to Technophile, I came across an interesting quote in ‘Digital Artist‘ magazine regarding studying composition design in classical painting:

‘Somebody who only reads newspapers and books of contemporary authors looks to me like a near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses… There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style, and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind.’
Albert Einstein 1954.

With that in mind, I have been doing a kind of tutorial time travel for my drawing techniques. In tandem with updating my digital skills, I have invested in two fantastic books by Andrew Loomis: ‘Figure Drawing for all it’s Worth‘ and ‘Drawing the Head and Hands‘. Loomis was a classic American illustrator of the 30′s and 40′s and if you get a chance to look at his beautiful work you’ll see they are almost photographic. What I love when I do the exercises is the way Loomis instructs… he sounds like a wonderful, kind inspirational teacher who you want to please.

Speaking of old things that keep renewing, I watched both episodes of BBC2‘s adaptation of ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood‘ by Charles Dickens, which was absolutely riveting. Then I switched over to watch Arena‘s documentary about Dickens on film, which demonstrated how Dickens’ dramatic, picaresque writing just made the transition to the screen organic. No doubt there will soon be a plethora of his works in graphic novel form. The documentary showed how Dickens periodical work was enhanced by Cruickshank‘s vivid illustrations.

Still in couch potato mode, I also watched Film 2012 and was amused by the debate about CGI versus old film techniques. I was behind Antonia Quirke who was all for the classic film techniques and the empathetic quality of real actors in real locations. She showed a scene from Peter O’Toole addressing throngs of Arabs in ‘Lawrence of Arabia‘ juxtaposed with Brad Pitt rousing hordes CGI Spartans in ‘Troy‘.
Enough said!

Which brings me round to my graphic novel. I don’t want to divulge too much about it, because it’s my baby in gestation, but it is set in the 1930′s in the film industry. Now that ‘The Artist‘ is out and garnering rave reviews, I hope I am catching the zeitgeist and not missing it. What it has made me do is to galvanise myself into some sort of forward planning. I’ve got a desk calendar sitting in front of me with all my to-do’s for the book. First off is finishing the script for it, which I’m nearly two thirds through. My blog from now on is going to chart my progress… or not… with this epic project.

Found this lovely new year ‘blessing’, which top graphic novelist Neil Gaiman wrote to himself a number of years ago. He’s not doing too badly. I wish it for all of you and for myself. See you soon!

“I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and like in return. And most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.”
Neil Gaiman

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