-By Justin Gerard
Rough Sketches
Digital (CS5) and Traditional Pencil
Study of Sugar Glider
Pencil
Tight Drawing
Pencil
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Friday, 9 March 2012
by Petar Meseldzija
In 1993, I started to
work for Verkerke Reproducties, a Dutch company that was one of the biggest
poster and art print companies in the world. The poster business was a booming
business in those days and the successful poster artists were getting rich.
Unfortunately I was not one of them, but I had a friend who was a leading
Verkerke artist and he was a rich man! At that time I was a starving artist who
just came to the Netherlands and was struggling to survive. Any opportunity to
earn some money was most welcome. In the subsequent 6 years I produced
(designed and painted) about 120 posters, prints and greetings cards, most of
them for Verkerke. I never got rich, but thanks to the jobs that I got from
this company on the regular basis, I was able to earn my living. Also during
this period, which I consider to be a period of my apprenticeship, I learned a
lot and experienced all sorts of things that provided me with important
knowledge and insights.
The first few posters
that I did for Verkerke were the posters of clowns, who were always playing an
instrument, mostly a violin, and were accompanied by little dogs and boy clowns.
The art director would explain to me what kind of paintings they needed, and
because it was a highly commercial work, I obeyed all their wishes and, if
necessary, I did all the requested changes and corrections. Typically the
clowns had to be depicted as latently sad, melancholic people. The compositions
and colors had to be sweet and appealing,
and they had to answer to the somewhat cheap aesthetic needs of the
public who was buying the posters. The sentimentality was one of the main
ingredients and a key to the commercial success of the poster.
This was my first
clown painting. The initial expression on the clown’s face was sadness. I can’t
remember whether the art director has requested
such an expression, but the painting was accepted and published as an oversized
greetings card. After that the art director asked me to repaint the clown’s
face and to make him smile, which I apparently did. However, this painting was
never printed as a poster.
Back than the
headquarters of Verkerke Reproducties were far from the place where I lived. In
fact they were at the opposite side of the country. Although the Netherlands is not very big, it took me a few
hours to get there by several trains.
Once, I brought one of my clown paintings to the art director (see below). She
was at first very pleased with the painting, but after a while she started to
doubt. At the end she told me that she wants me to bring the painting back home
and to paint a red rose on the ground next to the plate ( this was before the
internet and Photoshop). Why, I asked. Because, she said, they have found out that,
regardless the main subject, the posters that have a red rose included in the
composition sell better than the posters without it! Also, a red rose was selling
better than, for instance white or yellow rose. So, I brought the painting back
home. A week later I was again sitting in the train with the same clown
painting next to me, but this time with a red rose in it.
There were many
situations of a similar kind during that period. I never complained about not
having enough artistic freedom while doing this kind of job. I guess I did not
need the artistic freedom at that time. Instead I needed enough work in order
to survive physically and mentally, and I needed a challenge that would help me
to develop my artistic skills. Most of these 120 paintings were not very good,
some of them were really bad. There were only a few of them that I was
completely satisfied with. And although
I now don’t like to look at most of them, these works were extremely helpful
and important to me. I have had my share of ultra commercial art which
does not deal with the terms like artistic freedom, or free self-expression. I
have tasted the humility and the obedience,
which are the indispensable elements in the illustrator’s arsenal of
qualities.
Nowadays the things
are different. I guess I have earned my artistic freedom. I know now what I
want, and what I don’t want, and when to insist on my own freedom of artistic
expression. But I also know when to put
the thoughts about this freedom aside; I know when to shut up and do as the
client requires, in order to refill my piggy bank.
This is one of the few
paintings which I did for Verkerke posters that I am pleased with.
 |
| All creatures great and small, 1994, oil on wooden board, 100 X 70 cm, 39 ¼ X 27 ½ inch |
Thursday, 8 March 2012
-Dan dos Santos
When attending S.V.A., I studied under Max Ginsburg for several semesters. Much of my foundation in painting came from his lessons. Using a very simple approach, Max has a way of really clarifying the basics of solid figurative painting in a way that makes it easy for beginners to understand. I highly recommend this lecture to anyone looking to better their life-painting skills.
When attending S.V.A., I studied under Max Ginsburg for several semesters. Much of my foundation in painting came from his lessons. Using a very simple approach, Max has a way of really clarifying the basics of solid figurative painting in a way that makes it easy for beginners to understand. I highly recommend this lecture to anyone looking to better their life-painting skills.
Max Ginsburg Painting From LifeSaturday, March 10, 2012 1:00 - 4:00pmJoin us at the Society of Illustrators for a live demonstration by the highly accomplished painter and illustrator Max Ginsburg. Learn from Ginsburg's masterful brushstrokes as he paints a portrait study from life in oil.A book signing and lecture will follow the demonstration. Max Ginsburg - Retrospective will be available for purchase at the Society of Illustrators Museum Shop.Refreshments will also be available for purchase during the event.Tickets: $20 members, $25 non-members, $15 studentsClick HERE to purchase tickets
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Gregory Manchess
We’re coming up on fifty years of space program accomplishments. I was a kid when we were reaching for the moon. What many people seem to forget is the reality of the situation. We were not sure we were going to make it happen.
It’s taken for granted so much today, but back then, it was a gigantic risk. NASA made it look almost easy, going from one successful launch to another and making great strides toward success. I didn’t get to see all the footage of the launch failures leading up to those milestones until decades later. Tragically, we lost some explorers along the way, and it was always a hard reminder that, indeed, there was no guarantee.
As a kid, I followed the program as much as I could. My daydreams were full of spacemen bouncing across moonscapes. (The coolest thing in my short life then was watching the LEM blast-off from the moon’s surface, bound for home.)
Sure, I was interested in other things besides astronauts. Spies. Fighter pilots. Code-breakers. Scientists. Artists were powerful heroes because they could give all of those subjects the impact to make you feel their struggles in your gut. I suppose the artists made me realize that I could dream all sorts of things with a brush, without having to risk life and limb. That and motion sickness put me behind the easel and not the cockpit.
I’ve started a new series of paintings, just for me. Astronauts, past, present, or future, doesn’t matter. I was intrigued by Scott Carpenter’s face looking out from behind bright reflections bouncing off his face mask. And below, a shuttle crewman stares with that timeless look.
As a kid, I was always looking skyward, staring out into interstellar space from behind the atmospheric face mask of Earth. I feel a kinship with these explorers. Perhaps it’s the promise of all that discovery.
There’s just something so fascinating about people in space suits.
By Justin Gerard
A Very Small Wizard
Whom I offended when I met him on a path in the old forest.
I kicked a stone at him and yelled, "stay out of my way! I'm a very important person with no time for little people who run about in their pajamas."
He ducked the stone and mumbled a wild curse. Then disappeared among the leaves.
When I got home I had a terrible case of poison ivy.
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Introducing the Palencar Project
By DAVID HARTWELL
One day I was walking down the hall past the Tor Books art department and noticed, not for the first time, a fine painting by John Jude Palencar in the hallway. On that day, my curiosity got the better of me and I asked Irene Gallo what it was to be used for, or if it had been used and I had missed it.
She said that in fact it was unassigned, and she needed to find a book for which it would be appropriate.
And without missing a step I said, “I could commission stories based on it.” You see, writers of a certain age and experience know what that means.
Long ago in the time of the pulp fiction magazines the cover artists often got paid more than the writers for their work. A good cover, after all, could really sell a lot of magazines. For the less prosperous magazines, sometimes a good cover was bought before the fiction was even written. This gave an ironic and ambiguous meaning to the phrase “the cover story” — which was sometimes, actually fairly often, written to fit the art.
Canny editors would invite a hungry writer up to the office to see the art, and tell them they would get their name on the cover if they could write a salable story using the cover image in a short amount of time. Occasionally, an editor would invite several such hungry writers, and tell them all to write a story for that cover, and buy the first or best, and maybe one or two others. Only the first bought would get the cover credit — the author’s name in display type on the cover.
This kind of thing went on for decades, and even into the 1960s and early 1970s in the digest magazines. And for all I know may still be going on today.
And that’s what gave me the idea. I could ask a bunch of really first-rate writers to write stories, knowing that each would be different, and make a kind of event of it. I asked fewer than ten writers, and five of them did it. And the rest declined only because they had too much work committed already for this past summer and fall.
Those writers and stories are:
"New World Blues" by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Appearing now on Tor.com
“Dormanna” by Gene Wolfe
Appearing on Tor.com on March 7
“Thanatos Beach” by James Morrow
Appearing on Tor.com on March 14
“The Woman Who Shook the World-Tree” by Michael Swanwick
Appearing on Tor.com on March 21
“The Sigma Structure Symphony” by Gregory Benford
Appearing on Tor.com on March 28
Personally, I am delighted with the results. And I hope to do it again.
The stories inspired by John Jude Palencar’s art will appear on Tor.com every Wednesday in March, starting off today with L. E. Modesitt, Jr.’s “New World Blues.” Can’t wait until the end of March? You can purchase all five Palencar Project stories as a $2.99 ebook.
Thank you David, Irene and the Tor.com folks!
JJP
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