Medievaloid World

This image of a castle-like building is an excerpt from the piece I am currently working on, a book cover for a digital edition of a fantasy book by Christopher Stasheff. Like Katherine Kurtz, Stasheff created a "medievaloid" world full of knights, ladies, wizards, villains, royalty, and magical children. But unlike Kurtz' more realistic world, Stasheff's world is (mostly) humorous, with wisecracking elves and snarky faeries and slapstick jokes and some seriously bad puns. There's also an amusing mixture of science fiction and Catholic church theology. The title I'm working on now features a self-styled "archbishop" on a power-grab, who must don knightly armor and fight in single combat with the hero of the book, who rides a robotic black stallion endowed with artificial intelligence. This building isn't large in the picture, it appears behind the figure of the "archbishop." 

Photoshop, about 6" x 6", September 29, 2015.

Deryni Graphic Panel

As I said before, I am currently immersed in the medieval world of Katherine Kurtz' Deryni, reading her book about the boyhood of her hero Alaric Morgan. Many years ago I did some sample pages for a possible graphic novel based on a story about Morgan and how he did magic to empower his King (the bearded guy at right) so that he could fight a magical battle. I drew my graphic pages in black and white inkwork, no color, which would be cheaper to reproduce. This is a panel from page 7. The teen-aged Deryni wizard, Alaric, is at the left.

I wanted to continue the graphic novel but the story seems to have changed as it is re-told in the new book, THE KING'S DERYNI. Katherine Kurtz is a good friend of mine and she said that since she had re-told the story with some other features not in my comic, it wouldn't be possible to finish it because it was obsolete. I guess when the author tells you the story changed, you had better accept it. She runs Deryni Reality, not me. I still have my own original graphic novel with Enlil the volcano wizard and the eruption of Mount Etna.

Old-fashioned india ink and pen on illustration board with computer-printed lettering, about 7" x 5 1/2", sometime in 2002.

Gourd

This looks like a washed-up sea creature but it is really a decorative gourd. It's that time of year and the autumn harvest of fruits and vegetables is coming in. These little decorative gourds come in all sorts of gnarly shapes and sizes, mostly in combinations of green, white, and orange. This one was all orange so naturally I had to have it. I don't have room for a pumpkin, except perhaps a virtual one.

Image of gourd is brown tech pen ink on sketchbook page, colored in Photoshop, about 3" x 2 1/2", September 27, 2015.

Cloudscape for Fall

The clouds in late afternoon here were watchable; many layers of white and grey and gold playing against each other in the evening sky. Since I am doing the sky portion of my current  (digital) painting, I made this as a practice sketch from memory. In September, a time of weather transition from warm to cold, the clouds are often spectacular in my area. It is already too cool for me and other than for unusual weather events, it will continue to be too cold for me until next June. Where are my wings so I could fly south. Photoshop solves all problems but cures no ills.

Photoshop, about 10" x 7", September 26, 2015.

Lord Charles of the Dark Forest

I seem to be in a modern Medieval phase right now due to my work with Stasheff's "Gramarye" tales and Katherine Kurtz' "Deryni." Back in my Cambridge days I went to a few "Society for Creative Anachronism"  ("SCA") events, to draw people in costume. This modestly turned out fellow was named, in the SCA world, "Lord Charles of the Dark Forest." He was playing the role of a woodsman of some kind, though, not a Lord. I was dressed up too, in a simple black robe and hood imitating a religious devotee. I drew whoever would pose for me, and most of the people at the event were happy to pose. I chose the best outfits to draw. The SCA is still active after all these years.

Pencil on sketchbook page, 4 1/2" x 7 1/2", early 1980s.

Your Mansion is Ready

Now that you've made your millions on Internet marketing and hedge fund investments, it's time to upgrade your dusty, dreary apartment to a dwelling that reflects your success. This mansion is one of countless examples built in the 1990s for people like you. It has everything you could possibly desire including a game room, a theater room with wall-size TV, and a splendid master bedroom with double walk-in closets to put your collection of science fiction and fantasy T-shirts. A unique feature is the huge sewing room where you can practice your crafts and store your collection of medieval garb. There is also a wood-paneled library with room for your thousands of books, and another auxiliary library room for the rest of them, bringing book capacity to at least 10,000. There is a three-car garage for your Priuses. And best of all, there's a huge kitchen where you can make all the dishes that your previous closet of a kitchen was too small to allow. Congratulations - you've arrived!

This rendering was made in the early 90s, a product of my professional work doing portraits of luxury real estate during the era of mansions. This mansion actually exists, somewhere in Great Falls, Virginia, still one of the most affluent towns in the entire USA.

Watercolor on thick paper, 14" x 11", about 1991.

Scanner Steamer

Technology marches on, my friends. I have a new scanner, freshly installed and ready to run. This image is my first art scan on the new machine. Not a dust speck or dulling film to be seen. The scanner runs on an enormous steam engine which you see here...uh, not quite. The scanner runs on a USB connection that doesn't even have an on/off switch unless you unplug it. (Why? Is it supposed to be on all the time? Isn't that a waste of energy?) So I go back to the real thing, a monster tractor still in working order, on display at a "steam show" in rural Berryville, Virginia. It dates from the early 20th century and was made by Case Engines, a company that still exists today, though subsumed under other larger farm engine makers. It was chugging and steaming when I drew this picture and is officially, in my designation, awesome. 

I'm hoping to retain my ongoing project of putting up an art image here every day, let's see what this scanner gets to steam.

Original image is ink and colored pencil on sketchbook page, 9 1/2" x 6", July 26, 2003. Click image for larger view.

Deryni Duncan as Bishop

I'm right in the middle of reading Katherine Kurtz's most recent Deryni fantasy book, "THE KING'S DERYNI." The Deryni are folk with magical powers who co-exist in conflict with the ordinary un-powered multitude, in a medieval world set in about 1300. There is plenty of court intrigue, religious persecution, royal processions, squires and knights, and scheming bishops. There is also, to my advantage as an illustrator, lots of costume description.

This guy is named Duncan McLain. He is one of the magical Deryni and in the current book story he is a teen-ager and the cousin and companion of the main character, the noble half-Deryni youth Alaric Morgan. Duncan lives a secular life, contracts a secret marriage and begets a child who he can never acknowledge, when he goes into the Church as a priest and eventually a Bishop. (See K.Kurtz' book THE BISHOP'S HEIR.) This character portrait is from the later timeline when he is a Bishop.

I had plans to do a graphic novel based on some of Katherine Kurtz's stories, but any projects I would do are on hold now that I am doing freelance professional work for other authors. Some of my preliminary sketches or early pages are actually quite good and when I get my new scanner (just purchased) installed I will show them to you.

Duncan is ink and watercolor on illustration board, 6 3/4" x 7 3/4", September 1989.

Goodbye, old Scanner

Due to an Internet failure (see the current "Orangeness" posting) I was unable to upload a By-Product. My connection has been restored, at least for now, so here it is again. This image is copied from a 16th century collection of woodcut illustrations by a gentleman named Jost Amman. They are a treasury of costume and equestrian and military details, as well as theatrical and ceremonial characters. It's yet another edition from Dover publications, who have been supplying artists with images and instruction for decades.

I copied this cavalryman from Amman, for the purpose of working on Photoshop coloring of monochrome drawings. He came out pretty well for a tiny drawing, although the linework might look better in black than brown. This is how modern color graphic sequential art (comics) is done. 

This type of art using Photoshop needs a scanner to import the drawing into the digital world. In the days before Photoshop, I'd simply make the ink drawing and then color it with watercolor. This is still an option if I want to sell it to a collector. But the scanner is the portal to any digital work you want to do. And after all these years of work, my scanner was full of dust.

Dust in the scanner, all we are is dust...in...the...scannner...No, really, the device was not only dusty but an obscuring film was collecting on the inside part of the glass deck. This had happened before, and back then I had managed to unscrew the plastic halves apart, pop it open, clean the glass and blow away the dust, and then re-assemble the item. This time I couldn't do it. I realized that in order to get it apart, I'd have to do violence to it. And I wasn't willing to attack. 

This scanner was part of my father's gadget hoard and I appropriated it at least 10 years ago in a pristine state. Now it was time to let it go. I felt a genuine sadness that I would have to throw away a machine that had served me for all these years without recalcitrance or failure. Uncounted thousands of scans had originated here. It was like an old horse after the cavalryman has gone to his rest. I brought the partially disassembled machine to Staples and left it on their desk for recycling. Staples had plenty of fresh new scanners but I didn't get one. Not yet. I know, I need it for work, and will buy a new one very soon, but let me observe a proper period of mourning for my old friend.

Cavalryman is brown tech pen ink on sketchbook page, colored in Photoshop, about 4 1/2" x 3 1/2", September 19, 2015.

North Gate Vineyard

This week's "Wine Saturday" brought the Sippin' Team to North Gate Vineyard in Purcellville, Virginia. North Gate was founded by a wine-loving engineer and is filled with sophisticated 21st century sustainable ecological design, including a recently built country wine lodge with solar panel roofs and re-purposed wood decor. The wines are excellent, especially their rich red Merlot blend and their Chambourcin which sadly was not available for this year's tasting yet.

I drew this view of the grounds and the owner's house from the tasting room. I was going to color the drawing in but then decided that it looks better just in brown and white. I will return to North Gate to do more drawings of their architecture. I cannot resist barns and garden sheds, I have to draw them.

Brown tech pen on sketchbook page, 8" x 4 1/4", September 19, 2015.

It's Regis and Danilo Again

In those wool-wrapped, harp-playing, magic-role-playing, ballad-singing days of Darkover,  you could not make enough pictures of that world's favorite pair of lovers, Regis and Danilo. Regis was the gorgeous, flame-haired nobleman, part-alien and part human though without the pointed ears. Danilo was the brawny outdoorsman, with no noble heritage to boast of, but he was a really nice guy. They didn't wear cowboy hats, though they should have. I lost count of how many pix of these boys I drew. 

It's hard to recall just how enthusiastic, even passionate those Darkover fans were. The gay guys loved these two for obvious reasons. The girls and women loved them because the characters were men being tender to each other. And maybe in their imagination they'd be straight just with them, you know. Even straight guys liked these Darkover heroes, well, they liked it for the swashbuckling action and the opportunity to wear a sword or a dagger.

Sometimes I think of doing a Darkover character in the modern "realistic" digital style. You can create something that is so real you would think it's a photo of a real guy in a  real world. I've dredged this piece up from my dusty archive and may use it as a Photoshop practice item. Or maybe not, don't you want more steel mills and oil refineries for your romantic industrial dreams.

Ink on illustration board, about 8" x 10", March 1983.

Industrial Pattern 14

"No art done!" squawks the little picture's maker, as I leave a place on the page for an art by-product. If I don't do any art or art-like activity, I have wasted the whole day. It doesn't matter what it is, I need to set pen to paper or pixel to screen. If it isn't an Industrial Pattern, then it's a creature or a building or some abstraction. Occasionally I will designate a day as an "Art-Free Day" but I haven't had one of those for a while. I'll leave a blank space on the page for the art that I owe.

Brown tech pen ink on sketchbook page, 5" x 3", September 18, 2015.

Crane Base

They've been building up Tysons Corner into a big city for more than a decade now, and there seems to be no end to it. Now that the Metro runs into and through the area on its spectacular elevated railway, high rise city buildings are popping up all over the area. You can build high rises in Virginia but not in the District. Many of these are residence towers with apartments and condos STARTING at a million dollars apiece. The draw is that you can get to your lobbying job in DC from Tysons on the Metro without using a car. What an exciting prospect.

This drawing depicts the base of a construction crane somewhere in Tysons Corner, or "Tysonia" as I call it. It's Just a mile or so from my lobbyist-free residence among the immigrants, legal or not, who make this city possible with their toil in construction, maintenance, landscaping, transportation, restaurants, cleaning, and all the rest of those things you may not notice.

Black ink on sketchbook page, 4 1/4" x 5", August 1, 2003.

Lion-dragon

This multiple-identity creature is adapted from an old Dover Publications image resource book of ancient and medieval fantastic beasts. He's part lion, part bird, part dragon. There must be more to the wings than what is shown here, because they aren't big enough to fly with. They probably unfold to a larger size when it's time to fly. Or it has limited flight capabilities like a chicken. I do think about creature practicality when I want to draw one.

Brown tech pen on sketchbook page tinted with Photoshop, 3 1/2" x 4", September 16, 2015.

Taconite Industrial Pattern 13

Another "Industrial Pattern" rears its ugly head. The design this time is derived from forms in David Plowden's photographs of steel mills. This is a taconite plant, where iron ore is processed. Taconite is not a dinner of Mexican snacks but a form of iron ore used to make steel. If you look closely you can see the head of the Taconite Dragon, who is employed to chew the raw ore into usable bits. The dragon is also fed from the same pile and is carefully watched to make sure it doesn't eat too much, as iron can cause indigestion in dragons.

Brown ink on sketchbook page, 3 1/2" x 3 3/4", September 15, 2015.

Roller Coaster 1983

The industrial look also applies to structures for amusement and play, such as this roller coaster and water wheel at a long-gone amusement park south of Boston. Paragon Park was a summer destination for many Boston-area folk who couldn't afford a nice house on the beach or in the countryside. The park, when open, was always full of families and noise. In the early 1980s, while I was still living in Cambridge, Mass, I used to visit Paragon Park with a roller-coaster-obsessed friend. I would make drawings while she rode the coaster, over and over again. I only rode it once and that was enough. 

You can see that I was just as fascinated by industrial patterns back then as I am now. The wooden framework for the coaster resembled the steel frameworks on the mills and refineries and railroads that I love so much. This coaster was in danger of being demolished when Paragon Park closed in 1985 but it was saved and moved to the "Six Flags America" theme park in Mitchellville, Maryland, not very far northeast of Washington, DC. It is still there, going strong.

Tech pen black ink on sketchbook page, about 8 1/2" x 7 1/2", August 21, 1983.

Industrial Patterns 12: Steelpunk

A Bessemer Converter is a grand metal pot in which steel used to be made, before more modern techniques made it obsolete. Cold air is injected into its lake of molten metal so that the impurities can be burned off. This burning process creates a fabulous eruption of flame and sparks, and what is left is made into steel. This little sketch shows part of the base of a Bessemer converter. I wish I could have seen one in action. The patterns on the right of the drawing are not part of any machine but were made in steel-clad Photoshop.

Brown tech pen ink on sketchbook page, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", September 12, 2015.

Diptych Framed

Remember earlier in July of this year, I finished an "Angelic Portrait" of the kneeling lady in a blue robe. I presented it here but it was unfinished, since it didn't have the frame that would allow it to be folded together like a book. Now the portraitee's husband has finished creating the folding frame and here it is. She will keep the open Diptych in her devotional area among other angel portraits by me and some colorful unlit candles. 

Maybe you might want to be painted among your holy beings and angelic patrons? It was quite a job creating Heaven as well as Philadelphia (seen out the window, minus papal visitor).

Diptych is acrylic on hardboard, 2 x 10" x 15", July 1395. Klyptych for a closer view.

Industrial Patterns 10

This is MY steel mill, an engine of the corporation that bears my name and has made my fortune. Pyracantha Steel! I know every strut and girder, every furnace and every flame that powers the making of our built environment. Do not forget that without metals, without my steel, you would be living in wood-framed huts around an impoverished dusty square. I am always striving to improve, ever-vigilant to the moves of my competition. There is nothing more satisfying to me than the orange glow of a fresh-molded ingot. And it all comes to life at the stroke of my technical pen.

Brown technical pen ink on sketchbook page, 4 1/4" x 3", September 10, 2015. It depicts some of an oxygen furnace and a lime kiln.

Crushed Again

Some weeks ago I visited the "Crushed Cellars" winery where I did a rather messy ink drawing of the vines and road in their front vineyard, along with two of the chickens who wander around the property. My first colorizing for this drawing was in Photoshop but I always intended to properly color the image in colored pencils. I did this a few days ago and here it is. In this case I like my colored pencils better than the richer colors of Photoshop. The pencils have "leads" of wax and you can blend the colors on the page as if it were a harder species of oil pastel. So you can be Crushed again with softer color.

Prismacolor, Derwent, and many many other makes of colored pencil from my extensive studio set, September 2015.

Sticky Creature

Do any of you recognize this item? It's a biomorphic tripodal hand weapon from Warhammer 40,000, right? Or it's a Steampunk gadget for Dr. Basket Lightning in his direct current laboratory. Yes? No, this thing is a glue gun, as many of you in the graphics world know well. It melts sticks of plastic, which are inserted in an anal opening to the rear, and when melted comes out of its beak as clear, hot...drool. Hence the name I give to it, "The Drooler."   It does have a rather biological form, with its paw-like support tail in the back, and the large trigger which suggests that it is a male creature. I use this to stick mat borders on mounted board, thus preparing a print for life inside a frame. While I am lining up the layers of cardboard, the Drooler sits waiting in anthropomorphic patience, dropping plastic drool into a little pile. When I take the thing in hand, I squeeze the trigger, and the glue comes out. I try not to touch or drop the hot glue anywhere on my skin, because it can sting quite a bit. But it's fun to play with when it's cooled and dried. Y'see, even art prep can be fun.

Brown ink on sketchbook page, changed to black in Photoshop, about 4" x 2 1/2", September 8, 2015.

Are you ready for more of this? ORANGENESS, my new humor blog, is about to go live! I've been thinking about doing humorous blog writing for some time and why not now when the world we used to know has been turned into "information pudding." "Art By-Products" will remain just as it is, and at times will share the same material but I hope to bring you new chuckles every week or so at the Orange. Stay tuned, devotees.

Dagny

I've done a number of Ayn Rand illustrations over the years but no modern image of the heroine Dagny Taggart, the train mistress. Had I continued my graphic novel version of "Atlas Shrugged" I would have drawn her in the second chapter as she rides one of her own trains through the night. I still would like to see a graphic novel version of "Atlas" but they made a movie trilogy instead. I just ordered it so I will be able to see what other image makers did with Dagny. There are reasons for my fascination with an author whom everybody I know hates and finds repulsive, but I'm not going to do a Rand Rant here. I really love trains. One of these days I'm going to do a railfan thing and visit a freight train depot and do some drawings, if it's legal to do so. I'd like to learn more about railroads. Why? Because they are awesome. Where is Dagny when we need her? 

Brown tech pen ink on sketchbook page, some shading in Photoshop. 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", September 7, 2015.

Golden Vineyard Light

Don and Tracy Kirkman own a vineyard in Lovettsville, in beautiful Loudoun County, Virginia. They don't make wine with their grapes, they sell the fruit to wineries. I met this family at a winery and when they saw that I was a vineyard artist they invited me to visit their home. This is the scene looking over the lawn to the vines on their trellises. At the left is a metal whirligig and a bank of autumn-blooming sedum flowers. Tracy works as a business manager for the Virginia Vineyards Association. She took me on a tour of the estate which has multiple gardens, barns, and the vineyard, as well as a pasture with sheep. There is a group of wandering chickens and guinea hens. Right now the vineyard is full of fruit and harvesting begins next week.

At this time of year the evening sunlight turns everything in the near landscape to golden green while the distant hills are still blue. It is a glorious colorfest and I tried to capture it with my colored pencils, sitting on their deck. There are plenty more places to draw and seasons to draw in. Tracy says the place is just as beautiful in the winter and perhaps I'll visit when the gold and green are gone.

Colored pencils on sketchbook page and some re-working in Photoshop, 10" x 8", September 6, 2015.

Baby Grapevine

I do portraits on commission. I use a photograph and carefully trace it on my light box, then re-create it using fade-proof colored pencil. This grape baby is the daughter of a winery family. I debated whether to show it here and decided that I could as long as I mentioned no names or locations. She is holding a soft toy in the form (I think) of a stylized bee. She will grow as fast as a grapevine and this picture will commemorate vintage 2015.

Colored pencils on illustration board, 9 1/2" x 11 1/2", August 2015.

Leafy Lane 2003

Here are two views of the same marker sketch. This was done in water-based markers whose dyes fade even when not exposed to light. The one at the top is an older scan and the one at the bottom was done just now. The older one is more like the actual drawing but the newer one is clearer and looks better in my opinion. Markers are difficult to scan anyway. I had to add sky color in Photoshop to restore the newer picture. This is one of the most elaborate on-site marker drawings I've ever done and I've waited seven bloggin' years to post it. Maybe I waited too long with the fading markers. 

Ink and markers on sketchbook page, 9" x 6", August 5, 2003.

Fresh Picks

This was done in my nearby Giant supermarket where I was sitting in a little bank office. Markets are great for drawings but I don't have anywhere to put my sketchbook down on so I can make a drawing. The bank office had a desk. I've seen portable desks offered to artists, you can use them as a kind of cantilever for your sketchbook but I've never tried one. Someone of a "certain age" with European experience might remember "cigarette girls" at theaters or restaurants, who bore a little platform braced on their midriff and supported by straps over their shoulders. Cigarette samples were on the desk, and she would offer you one, saying, "Have you tried Rothmans?" Now with more civilized or at least cautious attitudes these girls have disappeared. Or are they still around? Not in the supermarket. I suppose if I really wanted to draw in the bread or vegetable department I could sneak a small board in there and balance it on a shopping cart handle. But I'm just not that desperate to draw groceries. The Fresh Pick here was seedless red grapes, whose oval packages you see in the display, $2.49 a pound.

Black ink on sketchbook page, 5" x 5", September 3, 2015.

Plant Stand 2003

This intriguing roomscape, almost an industrial pattern, is made up of a disassembled plastic plant stand, metal bars of another plant stand, and folded up blankets. The central squarish shape, with its phallic tower, is the base of the white plastic stand. Other plant pots are hanging from the metal square. I had that plant stand for years, until it got too mildewed to use any more. The metal stand and the top two blankets, the light one and the black one, are still in my collection, but the bottom one was donated. Shortly after I did this study, I took the job at Trader Joe's which lasted 11 years. Sometimes I wonder how things would have been had I not taken that job. I don't feel like talking about it just now.

Black tech pen ink on sketchbook page, 6" x 5", September 4, 2003.

Industrial Patterns 9 Rand

I'm filling in the empty spots in my journal, using the double-entry date system. Most of my pattern elements come from the heroic photography of Bernd and Hilla Becher, a German couple who recorded steel mills, mines, and other industrial sites all over Europe and North America. I am enthralled by the three-dimensional complexity of these structures, which have by now almost disappeared, at least in the West. There are hardly any "traditional" active steel mills left in the USA. I so wish that I could see one in action. I have distant memories of a visit to Youngstown, Ohio in 1973 where I saw the last of their steel mills before they all closed and disappeared.

I have the same rapturous feeling about heavy industry that the notorious Ayn Rand expressed in her Biblical testament, "Atlas Shrugged." In her text she rants lyrically about this feeling in a visual set-piece I would love to illustrate in a moderne Art Deco style:

"...He was looking at the city past the taut, slender figure of a woman whose head was lifted eagerly...the sight was flowing into a feeling then words for which were: THIS is the world and the core of it, this is what made the city - they go together, the angular shapes of the buildings and the angular lines of a face stripped of everything but purpose - the rising steps of steel and the steps of a being intent on his goal - this is what they had been, all the men who had lived to invent the lights, the steel, the furnaces, the motors - they were the world, they, not the men who crouched in dark corners, half-begging, half-threatening...."

Rand writes the same way about railroads, and I share this rail rapture. Someday I will get the chance - or, like an Ayn Rand Hero, create the chance, for me to draw trains and rail yards and elevated stations and the industrial landscapes which surround them.

Brown tech pen ink on sketchbook page, September 1, 2015. This tiny picture is only 4 1/2" x 2 1/2".

Ox-Eye Vineyards Tasting Room

Staunton, Virginia is an old industrial and commercial town which is being turned into a tourist attraction with hotels, restaurants, shops, and wine-related places, such as the "Ox-Eye Vineyards" tasting room. (An "Ox-Eye" is a familiar white-petaled daisy flower with a  yellow center, which grows at the vineyards.) This neat place was once a scale house where loads of coal were weighed near the railroad tracks. The oddly shaped little brick building, with its archway underneath, was unused for many years but in the last few years it has been re-created as a wine tasting room. I visited on a beautiful day and sipped their wine while sitting and drawing in the archway shadow. The brickwork of the old industrial building has been painted yellow. There is room for another wine deck at the other end of the archway space. The other drawing depicts the Klotz building across the street, which was originally founded by the brothers Klotz, itinerant Jewish businessmen who settled in Staunton. By the way, though it looks like it should be pronounced "Stawnton," the town's name is said as "Stanton."

Brown tech pen ink on sketchbook page with colored pencil and some Photoshoppage, 8" x 11", August 22, 2015. Click on image for larger view.