Tips & Techniques: Trip Noose

One of my illustrations for the recent Magic release Shadowmoor was simply titled, "Trip Noose." The description for the illustration, originally titled, "Noose Trap," suggested I show the noose trap yanking some elf off the ground as he's caught in it. I sorta liked this idea, and played with it a bit. Elves in Shadowmoor are lanky, spindly, and have thorny horns--a nice variation on the usual theme. As for the noose trap, it was ambiguous from the description whether this was a trap that one is caught in by stepping in it, or a more traditional noose that would catch you about the neck. I went for the latter at first.

In the end, I decided I liked the scene portrayed a few moments after the character has been yanked up, when he's just there hanging, grimly. I thought it'd make an ominous image, and went about sketching it out:

6x8.5" pencil

The next step was putting a quick value study together, which included the equally-creepy forest and some mood lighting. I don't know what those creatures are, fluttering about, but they're probably hungry and unhygienic. Occasionally I do a piece vertically, planning for the horizontal crop. In this case I thought the piece would benefit as a painting from being extended up and down, though this would only be for my pleasure, of interest to fans, and finally for whomever might eventually own the painting. I think I intended it to still be my usual 11x14" or maybe 12x16"

With this piece I thought I'd draw in the branches and such in the paint, sort of free-form. Anyhow, the sketch was rejected with the explanation that I'd deviated too far from emphasizing the noose trap itself. I still liked the image enough that I cropped way tight on the upper shoulders/head to increase emphasis and resubmitted.

It was bounced back once more. I was told to lose the figure, since the card only taps the creature, it doesn't kill it. Just paint the noose trap itself. Ack. We don't get the rules of the card with the assignment, but in this case it would've saved a bit of effort! Granted, their initial description didn't have a dead creature, but it wasn't very explicit, and we're often encouraged to use descriptions as jumping-off points as long as we don't jump miles away. I was a bit crestfallen, as I had high hopes for this piece, but I proceeded to do a more straight-up portrayal of the artifact itself.

6x8" oils on treated paper. Don't ask me how it works--this is, after all, Magic.

Code Monkey

Since 1996, I've run Daydream Graphics, which many of you know, and through which many of you found this blog. It's been an interesting 11+ years from which I could mine many stories and blog entries.

The impetus for starting it was that I knew even then that many or most artists had little desire to create websites for themselves, or knew how to. Or cared to. When DDG began, as some of you may remember, it was a spartan affair. It was quaint, but then again most websites in those days were pretty minimal. In some ways, it's still quaint, though with each iteration I like to think it slowly creeps towards modernity. Someday, for instance, the entire site will be font-controlled by CSS where less than half of it is now.

I began as I do many things--I went and bought a book, on HTML coding. I read through it and got to work. I think the initial site was entirely hand-coded which, given the state of the launch site, is less impressive than it sounds. Shortly thereafter some primitive site-editing tools began to be used. But I always appreciated being able to do some hand-coding or massaging. Not that these skills made the site always perfectly functional--I have never applied myself to being a great coder.

Sometime in 2002 I made a huge change to the site, incorporating real shopping functionality and payment processing and all the rest. I bought a turnkey software package, since those features were certainly far, far out of the range I ever thought I could achieve in coding. And will remain so.

The site grew in complexity as I learned how to lightly tweak the ASP code that was included in the package. I managed to customize the site far beyond what I thought possible when I purchased it. I also broke it many times along the way. So did USPS, but that's another story.

These past few months, however, I have finally dipped my toe in ASP, formally. Rather than massage existing code, I've begun writing out my own, adding in some functionality that wasn't in the software package at all. Mind you this is all quite primitive, but it's been fascinating. I've often heard programmers talk in ways that were familiar to me--expressions of "flow" and processes that were familiar to me as a painter, if only by analogy. As I worked on my code, I experienced just a touch of the madness that code ninjas must attain--the same that keeps them working late into the night, tweaking, adjusting, commenting, and optimizing. Finding myself up at 4am, still actively hunting down small syntactical errors in my test code, not the least bit tired, was a complete surprise.

I'll never be a real programmer. Let's get that straight. But occasionally when you engage in the activities of another realm--maybe you're a coder who plays around on the guitar, or a guitarist who likes to draw, but you know you'll never be a real musician or an accomplished draftsman--the world opens up to you in a unique way, and you learn things that cross-pollinate into your more familiar environment. I've often maintained a variety of interests, some of which I've mentioned here or there. It would be difficult to outline how one pursuit has informed another, but I definitely see that it's happened.

I'll probably get a bit better at coding over the years. Someday, maybe I'll be a good enough programmer such that CLNT will stop looking like a bad word every time I see it.

How to Disorient Yourself

Greetings from New Jersey. Since April '05 we've moved roughly every 6 months or so, with an occasional inter-city move more often than that. Though we've had an overarching plan, I can't say that any of the towns or cities we've lived in in all that time were planned ahead of time. Typically, the actual location has been an 11th hour decision. Always, the location has been fortuitously pleasant.

For instance, 2 weeks before arriving in N. Cerney, England, we had no clue where we were going to live in England. 3 weeks or so before we moved to Asheville, we were actually close to signing a lease in Charleston, S.C.. Less than a month before arriving in Frigiliana, Spain, we thought we might move to Ronda. In each of those last cases, the alternate choice was also fantastic, but it ends up that something always steers us elsewhere last minute.

While the travel is fantastic, it does start to disorient you after awhile. In all those places, the only constants have been painting and jogging.

Both painting and jogging require a lot of discipline, discipline that is best gained through sheer willpower and force of habit--once your willpower gets you moving, inertia keeps you going. Having these constants has allowed me to fairly quickly establish a weekly rhythm, an anchor of scheduled activity.

And it's good to have them, because this particular layover is shorter than usual. So here we are, in suburban NJ, a short train ride to NYC. The goal then is to move to NYC soon, and stay put for awhile, which will be a bit of a relief. Expect more Museum Strolls as we explore the rich art collections of the region, and hopefully some more Figure Drawing, as it seems like NYC should have a ton of opportunities to partake of. I'm also hoping to step up my Plein-Air painting a bit. You may also see some posts about jogging, as I am training for my first full marathon this fall (gulp!).

But, for now, back to the artwork!

Museum Stroll: the Haggin Museum

This then is the last of a spaced-out series of posts. The past few weeks have had me up and down the West Coast: a signing at a Barnes & Noble, a signing at a Warcraft Pre-Release in Berkeley, a signing at a Magic Pre-Release in Portland. In that time, we also got out to three museums which I've highlighted here. The last was the biggest surprise: The Haggin Museum in Stockton, CA.

I became aware of the Haggin a year and a half ago, during a holiday trip back to CA. They were hosting the traveling Leyendecker show (if it's near you at any point, GO), and schedule conflcits meant that I was not able to see it. This killed me, but, it did alert me to a gem I didn't know anything about before. I resolved to make the 90-minute drive next time I was around. We did, and it was well worth it. For those of you in the Bay Area who need a great art fix, it's worth the drive. I caught this and the Cantor on the same day since we needed to pack them in. What a great art day!

The Haggin sits in the middle of an older neighborhood, in the middle of a large and well-used park. I wish all museums were part of their communities in this way. With people growing up with birthday parties and their inflated bouncy-structures in the shadow of a great museum, when people regularly walk their dogs or throw a frisbee with a good museum in their midst, it seems to me that they will inevitably wander in, where if the museums are only in the downtown area they become destinations for the locals who might not often go downtown during the day on a weekend without real need.

Gerome: image courtesy the Haggin website

In any case, the Haggin was fantastic. The museum allowed photography but made you sign a release that basically said you wouldn't reproduce the photos anywhere, which was lame. They had a wonderful if small collection of Orientalist 19c. images, some works by Vibert--a photorealist long before photorealism was really in, before color photography was such that it could really facilitate that sort of work. I don't think photorealism is the ultimate aim of realist painters, but I definitely appreciate the skill required to accomplish it, more when done in the 1800s.

One of my favorite Bierstadts, on view. Image courtesy the Haggin website

I'm also a big fan of Bierstadt's landscape works. The Bay Area is riddled with Bierstadts in various museums, and that's a good thing. As much as I love his work, I find the original paintings are not as enjoyable once you're about 3 feet away or closer. Part of it is that they always seem to be varnished satin or matte, and this kills some of the luster that oils are capable of. The other part is that Bierstadt seems to have painted for more distance viewing--back up a tad and bam, the piece comes right together and you imagine he painstakingly detailed everything. This also means his work in print translates very well. The Haggin has an impressively large collection of Bierstadts.

There were a number of other fantastic works, and some fascinating natural history items, including an Egyptian mummified cat. As my cat is getting on in health, it made me scratch my stubble and wonder....

Well that's it for the short time back out on the wild west coast. Back to the east for us!

Museum Stroll: Cantor Art Center

Tucked into Stanford University's attractive campus, but just outside the main cluster of buildings so as to remain accessible, with its own parking lot, is the Cantor Arts Center. This is a museum I didn't know much about, but I did catch wind of an exhibition that was conveniently on view: Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape. I greatly admire all three artists, but was a bit disappointed to see that Moran wasn't really well represented. The show was ok, but focused more on the places than the art, the art being used to illustrate the history of the places.

Following the show, we decided to check out the permanent collection, and here we were very pleasantly surprised, as there were a few rooms of fantastic 19c. art--enough to make a trip out very worthwhile for anyone in the Bay Area, not enough to overwhelm. Within, many of the artists whom I've raved about here were represented, along with a few pleasant surprises.

Sometimes, a piece of art may not be a favorite, but is amazing in its handling in miniature. When I take photos of these (ALWAYS without flash, please!), I stick my thumb a half-inch or so from the surface of the piece in the corner of the frame and shoot the photo. This gives me a size reference years later, and reminds me that I need to stop biting my nails.

I may enjoy tiny detail, but I'm a slacker compared to this

When photographing artwork (NO FLASH), you'll find that museums are often not well-lit, for preservation purposes. This means that unless you are a wiz with shutter-speeds and f-stops, backing out to take a photo of a full painting will usually result in blurred or very grainy pictures. In those cases, hope for a postcard in the museum store (but assume there won't be one for this sort of art, you'll have to dig past the Gauguin reproductions before you find that out). So, you are best served by getting closer to the painting and taking detail shots of parts you like. Being nearer to the image means there is more reflected light hitting your camera and your digital camera should be able to choose settings appropriate enough for a sharp image. For instance:

Vs. this:

Ok, the painting is like 5' wide, but it serves as a good example