Illustration Friday: "Grow"

10/25: Grow, oil on coated paper, approx. 7.5x8.25 in.

Well, somehow I've gone a whole day without posting (sigh). I'll have to paint an extra piece of fruit or something. At least I tried the IF this week - by chance I came across this story in The Penguin Book of English Folktales, edited by Neil Philip (whose introduction is far more exciting than most of the tales in the book):

The Turnip and the Horse

A poor man near Brighton grew a huge turnip and sent it to the King. The King graciously accepted and sent the man a guinea. Hearing this an individual (whose descendants are living, so I leave out the name) bought and sent King William a beautiful valuable horse. The King accepted, and immediately sent the huge turnip in return, saying the horse was so fine that he must give something in return that was equally fine of its kind. The man who had expected a valuable gift was not pleased.

This version dates from a 1912 source, but writes Philip, "Here we find a story popular in medieval jestbooks, which is told as true and attached to a nineteenth-century monarch." I'm struck by how nonchalant the narrator sounds - the man simply "grew a huge turnip" - and that's why I made my farmer unsurprised, and maybe as if about to say "that'll do, turnip. That'll do...." But I didn't intend for him to look like a doll.

I printed my sketch (with the reddish outlines) on a scrap piece of Rives paper, used acrylic matte medium to coat the image then mount the paper onto a piece of board, blow-dried it, and went to oils - this is a decent shortcut as long as I use a thick sort of paper and "glue" it down with a lot of medium, mainly to reduce the chance of air pockets (there were a couple here but you can't tell in the end). I tried some Galkyd Lite for the first time here and it's wonderful - it's thin like the old Markowsky medium I used before I did a stand oil mix, and it dries fast enough that I can start layering thin colors on one another like glazes. It's like rediscovering something I'd lost. I could have pushed this farther but just tried to get it done fast.

Illustration Friday: "Grow" sketch

I almost didn't post anything today, which means yesterday I didn't paint (the posts are usually a day late). It was good however to step back and think on all that I had done these last few months and the many kind people I had met (or gotten reacquainted with) through this blog, and then catch up on a little sleep. Thank you to all who have visited and sent your thoughts, bought a piece, and inspired me to keep going and growing.

Well, I couldn't not do something today, and luckily I happened upon a little story in a book of folktales about a man who grows a big turnip....

Illustration Friday: "Momentum"

9/8: Momentum, oil on canvas panel, approx. 4.25x4.25 in.

I think I screwed up my eyes staring at the bright part so long.... How awesome would it be to see a liftoff for real?!

Illustration Friday: "Alphabets"

9/1: Alphabets, oil on paper mounted on panel, 5x7.75 in.

The theme led me to play with having two alphabets contrasted side by side. My first (terrible) idea vaguely had Roman soldiers encountering runes carved in a rock, until my wife suggested a scene with a kid writing something. Then after seeing the August National Geographic feature on the Maya, I settled on this scene. The glyphs are of course not an "alphabet," rather logograms and syllabograms - plus, though the symbols I drew began as accurate representations, I made up most of them. Sort of blasphemous from someone who loves this stuff.

I printed out a sketch that I had scanned in and tweaked in Photoshop, then mounted it with acrylic matt medium to a canvas panel (for lack of anything else). I massed in areas with acrylic yellow ocher, then later painted with oils.

Illustration Friday: "Visitors"

8/25: Visitors, oil on paper, approx. 3.5x5 in.

Here's a corny little piece, my first time with an Illustration Friday topic. It was done on a printout of a sketch, coated with acrylic medium. So, I was thinking, what about when the first two little pigs show up at the third pig's house? Corny. And it disturbs me a little somehow.