Illustration Notes for Episode Forty-Three
This week, I have news of EXCITING CHANGES to the illustration component of this serial!
FIRST—A BIT OF RECKLESSLY CANDID CONFESSIONAL MATERIAL:
As I have mentioned in other posts over time, I’ve always had one big problem as an ‘illustrator:’ I am slow. Very, VERY slow. Every artist has his or her own unique, personal approach to pulling visual images out of subjective air onto a sheet of objective paper—or a digital screen. The process that has produced MY best work has always taken weeks, or sometimes even months per image—even before an abrupt, head-on encounter between my mountain bike and a panel truck in May of 2000 slowed that process down even further. One of the things any GOOD illustrator needs to be able to do is crank out a dynamic and effective image of SOMEONE ELSE’S concept QUICKLY, and during the past few years I have finally begun to face the fact that, given my slow process time, I should probably never have been an illustrator to begin with. I should just have pursued a career as a plain old ‘artist.’
The way I’ve made my commercial work function at all as the world has sped up and up was to cultivate a whole set of ‘shortcuts’ to ‘expedite’ a good looking, legal, effective image for commercial use in far less time than I would have spent decades ago when the world in general still moved slowly enough to accommodate the weeks of time required for my old colored pencil drawings. One result of my shift toward ‘shortcut’ strategies for cranking out ‘fast, if not elaborate’ work has been a larger and larger body of…well, rather forgettable images—especially during the past decade. Which is why I have been shutting my ‘client base’ down for the past two years, and preparing to ‘retire’ completely this coming summer from commercial illustration. (I have every intention of doing more art—but it will all be MY OWN art now—directed by no one but me, and allowed however much time it takes me to complete it before anyone even gets a look! :])
TWICE is the first of several ENTIRELY PERSONAL creative projects I hope to devote my upcoming ‘retirement’ to, and an increasingly engaging and exciting project for me! But the ‘illustration’ aspect has really just amplified all the worst dynamics of my ‘rushed corner-cutting’ approach to imagery. Nothing in my ‘real’ life outside of TWICE has slowed down at all. My wife and I have always worked from home, and even now, as we all wait out the pandemic in isolation, both of our commercial workloads have, if anything, increased. Which puts us among the very luckiest people anywhere right now! I am NOT complaining! But, since New Years, we have also experienced the latest of an improbable string of deaths in our immediate family, and brought my delightful elderly mother here to live with us until this global threat to her safety has played out—however many years that really takes. To complete even the very ‘loose’ and too-often unambitious images I’ve been doing, by Friday afternoon every week, in addition to all the rest, has had me up ’til 2 or 3AM on some Thursday nights, and produced a number of ‘rushed, adequate’ images that are nothing like what I’d have LIKED to see accompany these episodes. Not all that satisfying—for me, at least. I do think the visual aspect of this project is important! But—with my particular ‘not fast’ skill set, it’s quite a chore, and sometimes detracts from the small amount of time I have to do the writing—which is the part I am REALLY in love with.
WHICH IS WHERE WE GET TO THE EXCITING PART!!!
Last week, I got a piece of troubling news about a friend and talented illustrator whose draftsmanship I have greatly admired and enjoyed for years. His wife and he had recently moved from the Pacific Northwest to Utah, and developed a thriving new art center there offering community gallery space, art courses, and other creative events. Their new business had attracted a vibrant community of artists and art enthusiasts, and was going gangbusters—right until Covid 19 shut the world, and their new arts community, down completely. Even his online freelance work as a digital illustrator for a company in the Seattle area was cut to one quarter the number of hours—and income—previously assigned to him. My friend and his wife were letting the world in general know that they really needed some income help from somewhere to get through this! And I immediately saw a way to solve TWO problems for the price of one. :]
It gives me GREAT pleasure to introduce you all to my friend, M. Scott Hammond, Illustrator extraordinaire of Fox and Raven Studio in Utah, with whom I will be collaborating on TWICE illustrations from this point forward! Being fortunate enough to have steady work and income still, my wife and I are delighted by the opportunity to hire Scott to produce a new TWICE line drawing every week, which I will finish as his ‘colorist.’ This will cut WAY down on the time I have needed to devote to these images, and help him get through these historically challenging economic times. :] Win-win! This week’s illustration is the first fruit of our new collaboration, and I am VERY excited to see what this new partnership produces going forward! Do go check out Scott’s work at any of the three links above!
As always, the uncropped, uncluttered image is available below. :] Stay safe and healthy out there! And thanks for your continuing interest in this project!
