Architectual Boston from me, You and Who

My t-shirt finally arrived! It is exciting to see my design on the t-shirt at last! If you want to wear Architectual Boston as well, you can order them here. You will be supporting a good cause when you do. Either way, spread the love!

Made With Love

This looks very much like a Christmas whatever-it-is, but it is actually a belated birthday present for a really good friend of mine. I know that she likes pink, floral and angels, but she pretty much has everything when it comes to decorative things, and is actually trying to get rid of stuff, not accumulate more stuff. However, she did need an address book, and instead of just giving her a plain one, or choosing a pattern, I decided to make her a DIY one-of-a-kind book. I bought a regular black Moleskine address book and put together a cover mixed media picture using gesso, acrylic paint, a glossy angel, a washer, molding paste, a rubber stamp, Mod Podge, glitter, an old stamp, some bits of patterned paper and some glittery paper. The image consists of layers of paper, gesso, fabric, paste and paint, sealed with a couple of layers of Mod Podge.

As is the case with a lot of mixed media pieces, this cover is also put together with pieces that have been found and gathered up from various places. I bought the glossy angel from a museum gift shop in Denmark, where they came in little sheets of 8-10. In Norway we call them glansbilder, and when I was a kid, most Scandinavian girls collected them. I had a box of old ones that my mom had collected when she was a kid, but who knows where they are now. I have traveled and moved around from country to country so much that my belongings have been scattered everywhere. I am not sure if anyone collects glansbilder anymore. This angel was, according to sheet, made in West Germany (!), so maybe they haven't been produced for a while? When I moved to Britain in the late 1970's, I was surprised that nobody had even heard of these glossy paper collectibles. When I see them now, I realize how nostalgic they are, a bit like those sweet little figurines that people collect, or Christmas decorations, for that matter. If this had not been a present, I would probably have put some punk/goth influence into the image, if nothing else then just to temper the sweetness of the angel.

The washer was an object I found on my bedroom floor that day. Who knows where it belonged. Some of the lace on the left side was from a whole roll that I bought for 10 cents at a tag sale. The other lace originates from a baby shower decoration that I found out on the street on recycling day somewhere in Brookline. I don't remember where the shiny silver-colored ribbon came from, probably a present or something. The old Syrian stamp was in a ready-packed collection of vintage labels and stuff from Paper-Source, and I grabbed a few pinches of glitter from the kids' arts & crafts box to sprinkle over the image as a final touch.

If I had had more time to do this, I would have made the book myself rather than buying a Moleskine. That would have made the gift far more unique. Also, notebooks and sketchbooks don't have to be expensive, so a customary decorated one can be made pretty cheaply for anyone who is creative and either doesn't have much cash lying around this time of year (who does?), or refuses to buy into the overly commercial aspect of the holiday season. Regardless of what goes into DIY gifts, they are usually made with love, which factory/sweatshop-made products definitely are NOT. If you don't have time to make your own gifts, then visit one of the many holiday crafts fairs this season. Here in Boston, there is the Holly Fair in Cambridge, and Bazaar Bizarre at the Cyclorama, this upcoming weekend. There you will find a lot of neat and unique crafts made locally and with love...and you'll probably find me there too, at either one of those places on Sunday, manning the comic-book table with fellow members of the Boston Comics Roundtable!

Magnus and Jenner! They're here!

Finally! The children's book, Magnus and Jenner, written by Kim Girard and illustrated by me is available at amazon and at the Brookline Booksmith in Brookline's Coolidge Corner! Also check out the book's website here. Magnus and Jenner will make its way to more independent bookstores in the greater Boston area and I will also bring copies to sell at MICE (Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo) in Porter Square, Cambridge, next Saturday, 09.29.12. I'll have half a table at MICE, selling my minicomics as well as copies of Magnus and Jenner. My next blog post will be about MICE and the comics I'll bring there, so check back again soon! In the meantime, read the Boston Globe article about MICE, posted on BCR's page on Facebook.  The photographer was walking around taking photos at our meeting last week when we all sat down to draw cartoons of mice for MICE.

Voyage Fantastica

This is my very latest illustration, designed by Troy Minkowsky to accompany his steampunk story, Voyage Fantastica, a brilliant adventure story about a boy genius and a cast of unforgettable characters.

Based on Troy's descriptions and mockup-version of the poster, I put this illustration together using a mixed media page as a base (old pages from a book, plus gesso and acrylic paint). I drew the stage part, including the characters, air ship, island and ocean, with ink, then colored it in with watercolor pencils and acrylic paint before I cut it out and stuck it onto the base page. I rubber stamped half of the stars, and then I scanned the whole thing. Because it was a large piece, I had the worst time trying to get it scanned using an oversize color scanner (not a flatbed, but the ones you feed the image into) on short notice. Some places would not let me do it myself, either because that was their policy, or because their scanner was broken. Since I was leaving for Denmark the next day, I didn't have time to wait the few days it would take the places to scan it, so I ended up scanning it in pieces on my own little scanner, then patching the image together in Photoshop.   I used Photoshop to create the rest of the image, including the altered clip-art horses, the color adjustments, ornaments, fonts and the rest of the stars. The original artwork is therefore very different from the finished illustration, as it remains very "unfinished."

As you can tell by earlier blog posts, this is by no means my first project with Troy Minkowsky. Another piece of good news is that Troy's version of the Hansel and Gretel fairytale, which I illustrated earlier this year, has been selected for Gurukitty's next anthology, Once Upon a Time, and will likely come out at the end of this year/beginning of 2013. More on that later!

Another piece of information: my drawings at the Brookline Town Hall will stay up for one more week, as the next exhibitor in room 103 has scheduled to put up her work on August 7th. In this way, there won't be a gap in the continuing exhibits on the Town Hall walls. So if you still want to see the drawings, but just haven't gotten around to it, there is still time!

Destination: Thieves Paradise

This is the last page for now. What meets Captain Scarlet and the crew at this eerie place? Stay tuned, cross your fingers and find out!

Overboard

Roman Scarlet, Dandy Long Legs & Doktor Sock

Bloody Mutiny

This is page three, and when I drew this one I learned the following about myself: 1) Drawing blood & gore is not as disturbing as I had thought it would be, but actually a lot of fun. Probably because it's really just ink... 2) I kind of like drawing men, when they're as handsome as Dandy Long Legs (according to Troy's script he is very dandy, and I modeled his appearance on a romantic portrait of one of my favorite English poets, John Donne).

More Pirates...

Open Fire!

This is the first page of the pirate fantasy comic, Open Fire! (Written by Troy Minkowsky) Is the editing in photoshop done? Is this the final look? No, probably not. But it will be something along these (crosshatched) lines.

The Pirates Are Coming!

Here is a cover and a preview/promo page for the upcoming comic, Open Fire! It is not a new project for the writer, Troy Minkowsky, but it's a new one for me. In fact I don't think I have ever drawn a comic about pirates, zombies and other fantasy figures before (except mermaids). I definitely have not drawn a comic that features a sock puppet, that one is a first! I really enjoy doing the artwork for this story, though. The characters are interesting, and there are at least three female characters in the story, which appeals to me. I also enjoy drawing seascapes, sea creatures and all that good stuff, and it's always fun to do something that is entirely new to me. I hope this won't be the last you hear of this story! There will be more to follow...

Comics in the New Year!

In 2010, I started a new project, to illustrate chapter 5 of Dave Kender's graphic novel, The Ragbox. This is a really fun assignment that I love working on, but I also hope to finish up quite soon (it always feels good to complete assignments!).

The chapter is set in a beauty salon in the Ragbox neighbourhood, the setting for the novel. I love the characters in this chapter, especially Angel, the beautiful twentysomething hairdresser who I really enjoy drawing!

To read more about this graphic novel--the first three chapters have already been published--check out the blog for The Ragbox: http://www.theragbox.com/