Radiant Comics

This week I’ve read three graphic novels. Or maybe they’re collected editions. Whichever they are two of them were old and one was new. At least it was new to me. It came out five years ago in 2016.

The first is “Black Hole” by Charles Burns. This was originally published in single issue form over a nine year period from 1996-2004 (350 pages). It’s a book I always meant to check out back then but somehow never did. It’s an indie book published by Fantagraphics and I’m an indie comic reader who has bought a lot of books published by them over the years. I’m not sure why this one slipped by me.

I bought the hardcover collected edition back in 2006 and that’s the one I still have. I only remember that I read it back then and was disappointed by it. But I also remember thinking that it may have been me and not the book. Sometimes I read things and they hit me wrong but it’s me and my mood and not the book. I usually know when this happens (it’s actually rare) and give it some time until I reread the book. Somehow fifteen years slipped by with me thinking, “I really should reread “Black Hole.” So I finally did.

“Black Hole” is considered a classic by many comic book fans and I can see why. The art is clean lined, well drawn, and precise. It’s a tour de force of lush ink work. There is a prettiness to the horror of the art. Yes, this is a horror comic.

“Black Hole” is a story that takes place in a world where a STD gives you horrifying disfigurements. The lucky few only get small disfigurements. It stars teenagers and their lives as they live with and without the disease. If you catch it you’re generally cast out of society. But the story doesn’t involve the ones doing the casting out very much. It’s almost all about the cast out teens.

The horror has not only to do with being turned into a monster but also with being cut adrift from friends and family. None of these kids have a strong support system and they easily cut themselves off from their families and live in the woods. They still have the hopes and dreams of teenagers though and have to cope with those.

“Black Hole” is certainly not your average horror comic. It has some sad and horrific moments, especially in the third act, but a lot of the scariness come from these teens having their world change in an instant and not being able to cope with it. It’s a very emotional book filled with dreams and nightmares. Good stuff.

The second book I read this week is the one that was new to me. “Garden of the Flesh” by Gilbert Hernandez. It’s a small book at only 4.5×6 inches. It has 96 pages with only two panels on a page. I didn’t even know this book existed until this week. I read it described as blurring the line between erotica and porn. I like Gilbert and I like blurred lines so I was in.

The book is about Adam and Eve. It tells theire story plus the story of their two sons Cain and Abel and it throws Noah in for good measure. And everybody is having sex. First we get Adam and Eve having sex then Eve and the Devil. After Cain murders Abel he goes off to find a wife to have sex with. Finally we get Noah out finding a wife to have sex with and then it flashes forward to his children and their spouses having sex as the arc is being built.

I enjoyed the book and there were plenty of drawings of people having sex but I found it to be neither erotica nor porn. Having just read (a few weeks ago) the erotic comic “Birdland” that Gilbert made in the early 1990s this one seemed less concerned with being erotic. It was more matter of fact. It was more like “Here are the chaste stories you’ve heard all your life with sex, that they all obviously had to be having, thrown in.” I liked it.

The third book I’ve been reading this week is the collected “Puma Blues.” It runs 545 pages and I bought the original issues of this series when it was coming out back in the mid 1980s. They came out with this collected hardcover back in 2015 and it’s been on my wishlist ever since then. I finally decided to buy it this week as the price dropped down to $20.

A note on the binding of this book. It was terrible in that the spine was glued solid. The book would barely open. It looked to me like it had a sewn binding so the book should open and the sewn part should bend off the spine itself. It didn’t. So I took a hacksaw blade and worked it between the spine and the sewn binding until I released all the glue. Now I can open the book and everything seems fine. I’ve never had to do that to a book before.

“Puma Blues” itself is about nuclear and environmental anxiety. It was made from 1985-1989 but takes place in the near future of the year 2000. Though there are many characters the main one is a man who is working at an isolated lake measuring the ph balance of the lake as the government works to counteract the effects of acid rain. He spends a lot of his time watching old videos his deceased father made and contemplating what he believes in and what he should do with his life. He is also ex-military and I think he suffers from PTS.

A lot of this book is about wildlife and the environment. There is more wildlife drawing in this book than in any other I know of. Sometimes you get pages in a row of the animals living near the lake. It’s a type of visual storytelling only found here. It’s really nice.

There are other characters and events going on in the story and they all seem to illustrate the general anxiety of our lead. Everybody is trying to deal with how life is in the year 2000. It’s not post apocalyptic in any way but there are challenges.

It’s written by Steven Murphy and drawn by Michael Zulli. The writing style is interesting in that sometimes it comes to the front with a lot of words but often it moves to the back as the drawings take center stage. Zulli’s black and white art is filled with lots of lines that are kind of disordered in the beginning but by the middle come together with some of the most detailed drawings of animals I’ve ever seen in a comic book.

“Puma Blues” is also interesting in that sometimes the words and pictures tell a parallel story. They words are telling you one thing while the pictures show you another. Then they join up in the literal again. The story moves smoothly from the symbolic to the real very well.

“Puma Blues” was a favorite of mine back in the 1980s and I think I last read my single issues about ten years ago. It’s still a favorite and I’m enjoying reading it in this new form. I miss the color covers though. They’re not in the book.

As I write this it’s the new year. January 4, 2022. I’ve got a bit of a January malaise right now as I try to figure out what to do, creatively, in the next year. It’s a question I ask myself all through the year as I decide what I want to work on but somehow in January the question seems bigger and more formidable. Last year it actually lead to me deciding to buy some color inks and trying to figure out a style of drawing with them but most years I usually putter around a bit before deciding to just get working on any old thing to get me going.

Yesterday I finished a big ink drawing (22×30 inches) by the name of “Pasture Ready.” I had a lot of it done before Christmas but then it sat around for ten days until I finally got back to it. That doesn’t usually happen but between the holidays and some back pain I didn’t feel like working on a piece that large.

In looking at some of my previous Big Ink Drawings I checked the dates and saw that I haven’t finished a Big Ink Drawing since the middle of June. I know why I haven’t. I worked on a series of five 24×36 inch paintings all summer and into the fall and they take a lot of time. The paintings take about two weeks to complete as compared to about three days for a big ink drawing. But it did make me a little bit sad to see it had been so long between Big Ink Drawings. I felt like I was like I was neglecting them somehow.

I saw a meme that said between Christmas and New Year’s Eve you should strive to be your least productive self. To take it easy and give yourself a break and some time off. I thought that sounded like a good idea but I like to be creative so I got a few things done. Yet I stayed away from pushing myself to get stuff done. That is my least productive self.

One of the things I worked on during that week was some art cards. Not a lot of them. I was only doing two of them a day for about five days. I got some new markers for Christmas. They are knock-off Sharpie markers that are branded by Amazon. I already have a ton of markers to begin with so they were a bit of an indulgence.

I have about a hundred Copic markers and their corresponding refills, about 30 Sharpies, about 30 Bic markers, a Shin-Han 72 marker set, a couple of Pitt Brush pen sets, and various other markers that I bought over the years in order to sample. There was no real reason for me to want a new set except that I like to try new art supplies and the marker were cheap. Only $10 for a set of 24.

Each day I thought I was going to get more marker drawings done than I did. Each art card size (2.5×3.5 inches) marker drawing takes about 20-30 minutes to make. But each day I only got two of them done. Maybe it was the back pain (which wasn’t terrible but back pain is never good), maybe it was the time of year, or maybe I was embracing that meme but I couldn’t get more than those two art cards done a day.

Whenever I get a new set of markers the first thing I do with them is make color swatches. I have a file I print out on Bristol board for the swatches. It’s a whole bunch of small rectangles with room under each for the name of the marker color. So I fill in the box with a marker and then write the name underneath.

The problem with this is that neither Sharpies or their Amazon knockoffs have names on then. There is no sky blue or flame red. And one of the things a Sharpie won’t be permanent on is itself. If you write on the barrel of a Sharpie with a Sharpie it will rub off. It’s the same with the Amazon ones.

After some trial and error I finally found out that a Sharpie paint marker will work for this task. Write on the barrel of a Sharpie with a paint marker and it will stay. I lined up all of my new Amazon markers and wrote the name of each one on the barrel. I went with Red 1, Red 2, Red 3, and so on. No fancy names just a number. Red 1 is the lightest red and Red 4 is the darkest.

The Amazon markers are fine markers that are nearly identical to Sharpies. They have nowhere near the versatility of an art marker (Copic, Shin-Han, Prismacolor, etc.) does but they can lay down some solid color over the small area of an art cart. Nice bright pleasing color.

One more thing that I was working on in December, and now in early January too, are my aforementioned color ink drawings. I’ve been working on one today and will get back to it after I finish writing this. I put in an order for some art supplies last week and among them were some new color inks. A dark blue, a dark red, and a few oranges. Now I’m trying to work those new colors into the style.

One other thing that happened recently was that the side tray on my drawing table broke. That’s the plastic piece that runs along the side of my drawing table and has lots of little cubbies and pen holders to keep all my supplies close at hand. I had to take all my art supplies out of their various places, unscrew the side tray, fill the wood that had broken with wood filler, screw in the side tray again, and put all the supplies back in place. Usually this would be a very annoying task. But at this time of year it gave me something tangible to do. Something I could accomplish and be satisfied with. And I built it back stronger than before. That’s a good feeling.

Big Ink Drawings, art cards, and color ink drawings. I’m getting creative things done. But my brain still looks at the new year and asks, “What does it all mean? What will the future bring and how will it affect me?” These are big questions that have no real answers but a lot of us seem to ask them anyway. Give me a few more days and I’ll be sure to figure it out!

Every Saturday I post what comic books I bought that week. For some reason it never occurred to me until now to post a recap for the year. So I looked at my posts and then made a master list of all the comics I bought in 2021. I left out the single issues that I tried out but never bought any more of.

The Boys: Dear Becky – 8 – This wrapped up the latest “The Boys” series that came out in 2020. It was good.

Cerebus in Hell – 10 Issues – Each issue is a new number one and the cover parodies some famous comic book cover. Other than that it’s a collection of Cerebus in Hell webcomics. I find it amusing but it might be narrowcast.

Monstress – 31-35 – This series continued into the 30s this year. It’s a good fantasy story with some fancy art.

Monstress: Talk Stories – 2 – The wrap-up of a two issue “Monstress” mini series that looks at the past of a few of the characters. It adds to the mythology of the series.

Norse Mythology – 4-6, V2 – 1-6 – Volume one wrapped up and then we also got all of volume two. P. Craig Russel and a series of artists adapt Neil Gaiman’s novel which adapts old Norse Mythology. This is an excellent series. High marks.

Usagi Yojimbo – 16-24 – The main Usagi comic. This one has been on my pull list since the mid 1980s. It was good then and it’s still good now.

Usagi Yojimbo: Wanderer’s Road – 2-6 – One of the Usagi reprint series in color for the first time.

Usagi Yojimbo: Dragon Bellows Conspiracy – 1-6 – A second Usagi reprint series. Also in color for the first time.

Taarna – 1, 3-6, Taarna Elements: One Shot – I missed issue two of this series but it was still good. It’s from Heavy Metal and is about a powerful woman warrior for guards the universe. Or some other heavenly piece of space.

Crossover – 3-10 – A series that stars super heroes from all over the comic book world and their creators! Yes, the people who make comic books are also in this weird meta-book.

HaHa – 1-5 – A mini-series from the writer of “Ice Cream Man” plus five different artists. Horror stuff. I enjoyed it.

Big Girls – 6 – The wrap up of Jason Howard’s post apocalyptic comic where people get turned into giant monsters. Fun stuff.

Home Sick Pilots – 2-10 – An ongoing comic that’s about punk rock musicians, ghosts, government spooks, supernatural giant robots, and the angst of the young. This one is pretty out there.

Kaijumax Season 5 – 6 – The wrap up of giant monsters in prison stories.

Kaijumax Season 6 – 1-5 – A new season of giant monsters in prison stories!

Nocterra – 1-6 – Sunlight turned black and also turned people into monsters. Keep the lights on or go feral. Yep, another post-apocalyptic comic.

Red Mother – 12 – I liked this horror series a lot. Weird sacrificing to the Devil type stuff happened. This was the last issue.

Savage Dragon – 256-260 – Erik Larsen continues his long running series and I continue to enjoy it.

North Force -0 – A repackaging of a recent issue of Savage Dragon that introduced the Canadian super hero team North Force. I really didn’t need to buy this one (since I have the Savage Dragoon issue) but I did anyway.

Ant -1 – Another series by Erik Larsen. Only one issue is out and I have no idea if it is an ongoing series or not.

Crimson Flower – 1-4 – A strange Matt Kindt and Matt Lesniewski mini-series. It’s about revenge and horror. I love the weird art.

Once & Future – 15-23 – A mini-series that turned into an ongoing series about people in the UK fighting to stop mythical creatures from taking over the place. They’ve gotten a lot of issues out.

Rain Like Hammers- 1-5 – Brandon Graham’s latest mini-series. This one put him on the map for me. It’s a weird, futuristic, sci-fi story with great art. It’s up for series of the year with me.

Die!Namite – 4-5 – A zombie crossover story from Dynamite Comics. These were the final two issues before they relaunched it into a second series. This series was fun but I was okay with not buying series two.

Post Americana – 2-7 – A fun Steve Skroce post apocalyptic comic. Good artwork and storytelling but nothing special in the story. I’ll buy whatever he does next though.

Spawn – 314-324 – I’ve been buying Spawn just because it’s the last of the $2.99 comics. I’ve never had it on my pull list before. It’s adequate but not magnificent. I also bought Spawn’s Universe – 1, King Spawn – 1, and Gunslinger Spawn – 1.

Dead End Kids: The Suburban Job – 1-4 – A solid story about some teenagers who find a bag of drug money and the trouble it causes them.

Fear Case – 1-4 – Matt Kindt wrote this one and Tyler Jenkins drew it. I usually like both of their stuff but this one was a bit of a miss for me. It was a horror story about a scary bag.

Psychodrama Illustrated – 4 – A wrap-up of a Gilbert Hernandez mini-series. His stuff is always good.

Resonant – 7-10 – Another post-apocalyptic series ends. It was okay.

Birthright – 46-50 – A long running magical fantasy series comes to an end. I bought 50 issue of it so I obviously think it’s good. 50 issues is a lot these days. Most series never come anywhere near issues 50.

Casual Fling – 1-4 – A mini-series about infidelity, blackmail, and crime. It was fun. It was more like an episode of a TV show than a comic. That’s rare in comics.

Radiant Black – 1-10 – A new ongoing superhero comic. A few twists and turns in the first year of this one. I look forward to more.

TMNT: The Last Ronin – 2-4 – For the first time ever I’m buying a Teenage Mutant Turtles comic. It tells the tale of the last days of the turtles. It’s good.

The Picture of Everything Else – 2-3 – This one stopped coming out but I was liking it. A horror story set in early 20th Century Paris about the painter who painted the Picture of Dorian Grey. I want more.

Terry Moore’s Serial – 1-9 – I buy everything Terry Moore does. It’s all good and this is no exception.

Ice Cream Man – 23-26 – Lots of cool covers and lots of fun horror stories. What does the Ice Cream Man have to do with it all? Who knows?

Goon – 13 – Only one issue of the Goon this year. Will there be more? I don’t know.

Karmen – 1-5 – This one is in the running for comic of the year for me. Guillem March tells the story of a dying woman and the angel (or whatever) that has to guide her to the afterlife. Lots of good art and storytelling and a story to ponder.

Deep Beyond – 1-11 – Only one issue left of this 12 issue sci-fi story (with a little post-apocalyptic fun thrown in). I’ve enjoyed this one all year.

Bitter Root – 11-15 – A good horror comic that seems to have come to an end. I’m not sure if there will be more of this but if there is I’ll pick it up.

Orphan and the Five Beasts – 1-4 – We’re still one issue away from the climax of this James Stokoe comic that is like a Hong Kong karate movie. The art is the star.

Geiger – 1-6 – Yet another post-apocalyptic comic. It was only a mini-series but more stories set in this world are coming.

The Silver Coin – 1-7 – A horror book that has a different writer every issue but Michael Walsh draws every issue. It reminds me a bit of a modern, and more adult, 1970s DC mystery comic. I like it.

Bloom – 1-4 – A mini-series that came out of nowhere for me. I saw the art in Comic Shop News, liked it, and then bought the comic. I’m glad I did. It’s a cool story about an artist who finds a model and then supernatural stuff happens. Very early 1970s trippy.

Grendel: The Devil’s Odyssey – 5-8 – We finally get an end to this mini-series. It was a weird ending that set it up for another series but I’ll buy that one too.

Locke & Key: Sandman: Hell and Gone – 1-2 – I finally started buying Locke & Key in single issues. Though I know almost nothing about the Sandman I thought this was a great story.

Love and Rockets: Volume 4 – 10 – One issue is all we got this year from Los Bros Hernandez. I’ll take it.

Outcast – 48 – The last issue of another Image comic that I’ve been buying for years. A good series.

Hey Kids! Comics! (Volume 2) – 1-6 – Howard Chaykin’s look at comic book history continues with a volume two. If that’s not enough to get you on board what is?

Time Before Time – 1-7 – This time travel gangster story started strong, wavered, but then picked up again.

Manifest Destiny – 43-45 – Only three issues this year (the third came out just this week) from this comic that is a cross between Lewis and Clark and a fantasy story. It’s wrapping up somewhere around issue 50 and I’ll be sad to see it go.

The Department of Truth – 1 (sixth print), 6-14 – I discovered and jumped onto this one this year. After reading the first collected edition on Hoopla I put it on my pull list. Lots of conspiracy stuff.

The Great Gatsby – 1-2, 2 Gold Foil Edition – I’ve been on a Great Gatsby kick this year. I reread Gatsby, read three books about Gatsby, read two Gatsby graphic novel adaptation, and am now enjoying this third (and best of the three) adaptations.

Vinyl- 1-6 – It’s a cult of killers versus a gang of serial killers in this over the top mini-series. With an FBI agent to two thrown into the mix to give us someone to relate to.

Groo Meets Tarzan – 1-4 – Not the best Groo story but issue one has a double page spread that made it all worth it.

The Me You Love in the Dark – 1-5 – A horror mini-series about a woman falling in love with a ghost. Or maybe it was just lust. Either way it’s a horror story so you know it’s not going to end well.

Elric: The Dreaming City – 1-2 – Another adaptation of Moorcock’s brooding anti-hero. I liked it. Only two issues though.

Dead Box – 1-2 – A weird horror not-quite-anthology. There are continuing parts and little self contained sub-stories about a strange town that’s isolated from a lot of the world.

A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance – 1-3 – it’s the visual storytelling that make this book. The story is about a guy who is trying to help people by posing as a hit man. Lots of intriguing stuff but not many answers yet.

Guillem March: Laura – 1-2 – I’m guessing hat the success of “Karmen” made them want to print this comic which is full of Guillem March’s earlier work. Not as good as “Karmen” but still good.

What’s the Furthest Place From Here – 1-2 – Another post-apocalyptic comic. This one is a little more quirky and peaceful than most. At least there isn’t over the top violence.

Newburn – 1-2 – I picked up two issues but that might be it. This was okay but didn’t grab me.

The Magic Order Volume 2 – 1-2 – Magic Order volume One was solid and I expect this volume to be too.

Regarding the Matter of Oswalds Body – 1-2 – A mini-series that appears to be about the crew who helped swap out Lee Harvey Oswald’s body. A good first two issues.

White Ash: Season Two – 1 – I liked Season One of this comic about a town that secretly has dwarves and elves living in it. This issue was good too. The art is terrific,

Lady Mechanica: The Monster of the Ministry of Hell – 1 – I finally decided to try a Lady Mechanica series and so far I’ve liked the first issue.

One Shots
Here is a list of the one shots I bought. They are mostly from After Shock Comics and are magazine size. I generally liked them all.
Corset – One Shot
The Beauty: All Good Things – One Shot
God Killer: Ashes – GN
God of Rumors – GN
Eden – GN
10 Years to Death – GN
After Dark: A Horror Anthology – GN
Miskatonic: Even Death May Die – GN
Tales of Mother F. Goose – GN

Bad Idea Comics
These are all the Bad Idea comics that I bought. I worked for Bad Idea this year and did the production work on these comics. You can find my name on the credits page. They’re all good comics too.

Odinn’s Eye – 1-2

Refuse x Last Resorts – One Shot

Monster Kill Squad – 1-2

Pyrate Queen – 1-3

Passive Aggressive – 1

The Lot – 1-4, 1 NFP

Eniac – 1-4, 1 NFP

Tankers – 1-3

Whalesville x Rocks and Minerals – 1, 1 NFP

Slay Bells – One Shot

Facsimile Editions
This is a list of the Facsimile Editions I bought this year. They’re all reprints of old comics.

Invincible: Amazon Promo Edition

Captain America – 117 Facsimile Edition

Amazing Spider-Man – 101 Facsimile Edition

Graphic Fantasy – 1-2 Facsimile Editions

Black Night – 1 – Facsimile Edition

Werewolf by Night – 32 Facsimile Edition

Conan -1 Facsimile Edition

Ink Dreams #1

I’m ending the year 2021 in a similar fashion to how I started it. I’m working on some color ink drawings. Back in January through March of 2021 I bought an art supply that I have never used very much. Color ink. I’ve been using black India ink for decades and occasionally used a color ink here and there but I never developed a style with them. When I used color ink it was usually just one color and I used it just like black ink. Or I thinned it out and used it like watercolor.

At the beginning of the year I worked on a bunch of color ink drawings ignorer to come up with a new technique. They were mostly small, 9×12 inches and under, and they were mostly made up of multiple stokes of different colors. I wasn’t going for realism or even simplicity. They were all about building up a complex line drawing with many brushstrokes of color. In the end I thought they were okay but limited.

One of the roadblocks I ran into with the color ink drawings was their lack of surface. Ink and paper are totally flat. When I’m making a painting with acrylic paint and canvas the painting has surface. That’s how thick or thin the paint is and how the paint is applied to the canvas. That is a huge part of painting. The surface of the painting affects how it’s seen. An artist has to manipulate the surface to get what he or she wants.

In my book surface is the difference between a painting and a drawing. A painting has surface and drawing doesn’t. Even when the painter chooses to make the surface of his or her painting smooth and level that’s a choice. It takes technique and craft to make a painting “surface-less.” With a drawing that happens naturally because ink, pencil, or whatever sinks into the paper and doesn’t build up on top of it.

Scent Armor

When I was making the ink drawings at the beginning of the year I eventually reached a dead end. I didn’t love the technique but I also didn’t hate it. I thought it just wasn’t there yet. And it made me want to paint. I missed the sense of surface. That’s when I bought five 24×36 inch canvases and spent the summer (and part of the Fall) painting them. The ink drawings were swept aside.

I finished the last of the five paintings in mid-October. It’s a lot of work to make one of those painting. Each one takes about a week. So I was burnt out on painting by the time I finished the fifth one. Plus with a bunch of paying work to do and the Holiday season right around the corner I had no energy or ambition for anything big. So I spent most of my time working on smaller things. Mostly my “Covers to Comic Books That Don’t Exist” series plus the Paste-Up Mash-Up cards that I recently invented.

After a while I got bored doing the same sort of stuff over and over so I looked for something else. I like to skip around from medium to medium so this wasn’t unusual. That’s when I got it in my head to jump back into color ink drawing. I don’t think I touched the inks from about July to December so they were fresh to me again.

Hypno-Love Girls #16

I didn’t feel like making a new pencil drawing so I decided to look through my vast archive of drawings that I’ve made over the decades. I have then all scanned in and digitized so I can easily look through them on my computer. I picked one out, a nude drawing of a woman, and printed it out on a 9×12 inch piece of drawing paper. Then I got to work with my color inks.

I started with the 9×12 inch size because I remembered that the in drawings seemed to work best at that smaller size. But after doing the drawing I felt constrained by the small size and so decided to move up to an 11×17 inch piece of paper. I think doing those five 24×36 inch paintings made me more ambitions about the ink drawings. I think I was more tentative in the beginning of the year but now wanted to open things up more.

The second drawing was also of a nude woman and I think it works better at the 11×17 inch size. The color and brush strokes are both bolder. Overall I think the drawing has a better flow to it and is more impressive.

I decided to keep working at 11×17 inched and so that lead me to the idea of reworking one of my faux comic book covers. I made about 15 “Hypno-Love Girls” covers over the years but I haven’t worked on one in a while. That’s because they were middle of the road quality for me after I finished them. I always liked the concept but the execution wasn’t there. I was never sure what was missing from them. So I decided to try making one with color ink.

Tanya Dakin Portrait

I still don’t think it’s 100% there yet but I think it works better than the one in just black ink. The drawing is much livelier and fits the “Go-Go” theme better in my eyes. I’m going to keep working on this series.

After that I wanted to do a portrait. I dug out a drawing I did back in 2009 of model and photographer Tanya Dakin and blew it up on an 11×17 inch of paper. Then came the brush and color inks. I like the way this one came out. I think this is a good technique for portrait drawing. The multiple color brush strokes give the drawing a feeling of energy and life. This is my favorite of the ink drawings so far.

The last color ink drawing I did was another of my faux comic book covers. The Enigma Prism #4. This one presented me with a lot of lines in the clothing outside the figure and empty space inside. It started as sort of a reverse silhouette. At first I was going to leave the inside of the figure empty but as I went along I knew I needed something in there. I went with a lot of thick brush strokes that almost become objects.

Enigma Prism #4

I’m not 100% sure of what I think of this one. It’s different than the others and in some ways it’s a success but in others it’s a failure. I almost like it. The problem is that I have no idea what I could have done differently to make me really like it. It’s solid but not spectacular. The Tanya Dakin portrait is much more spectacular. Maybe because it was a better drawing in the first place. It’s tough to figure this stuff out when trying a new technique.

So there it is. My end of the year work. It harkens back to the beginning of the year but has a little more skill to it. We’ll see if I can totally crack this nut next year.

I got a fourth 24×36 inch painting finished in the beginning of September. In the late Spring I bought five 24×36 inch canvases with hopes of making five paintings over the summer. I originally wanted to get ten canvases but beside it being too expensive for me at the time I knew I would never get anywhere close to ten painting done. One painting takes about a week to complete. Ten weeks of painting wasn’t going to happen.

The name of this painting is “Green Berries” and I made it from scratch. That means I didn’t look through my backlog of drawings that I’ve made over the years but instead I started by making a new drawing. I wanted to do a face so I pulled one of my inkbooks off my shelf and looked through it for an old ink thumbnail drawing that interested me. I found one.

I was in kind of a weird, impatient, and nervous mood as I was making this painting (not one of my usual moods) and in hindsight I think that shows in both the drawing and the painting. I wanted to draw and paint a face but the face came out with an intensity to it that isn’t usually in my faces. I’d say my faces are usually a little more happy, calm, or passive.

Years ago, back in my student days, I once had a teacher observe that my paintings could make the viewer uncomfortable because the people in the paintings were often looking at the viewer more intensely than the viewer was looking at the painting. I had never noticed that before but I’ve noticed it since. This painting has a particularly intense look on the guy’s face.

I often draw androgynous faces but usually think of them as being male or female. You may see them differently than me and that’s okay. Despite me having long hair all my life I often think of my long haired androgynous characters as female. This character definitely has long hair and in the beginning of the painting I saw him as a her but by the end of the painting I saw him as a he. That doesn’t happen very often with me and my paintings. Even if they are androgynous.

I think something in the intensity of the face changed for me as I was painting it. It the beginning I saw it as my usual passive face looking out at us with a little intensity but as I worked on it I think I put in my own intensity. Usually painting and making art in general calms me down and focuses me. But my weird nervous mood continued as I worked on this one.

I made the painting in the usual way. I made a drawing, transferred that drawing to the canvas by gridding it up, and then I pained in the line with a dark purple. For the other three painting I tried something new and used a purple acrylic ink for the line but I switched back to purple acrylic paint for this one. I was almost out of the ink and now I’m almost out of the paint. I have to buy some more dark purple paint and ink.

I didn’t make a color sketch of this one on the computer as I usually do. Instead I took a photo of the purple line painting and figured out the first colors using Procreate on my iPad. I’ve used that method later on in my process but for this one I used it from the start. I think I figured out the blue and pink face first with the orange hair second, They were the easy bits. The blue eye, purple behind it, and red triangles took a while longer. I think the green of the hat was the last of the main colors that I figured out. Often the colors come easy to me but not with this one. I tried a lot of variations.

In general this one didn’t pull together until the very end. It has a lot of paint on it. Little marks of paint. They’re what made all the color work. Though I like it now as I was working on it I wan’t very happy with it. That could have been my weird mood too.

What vexed me the most was the hair, green hat, and the giant eye. It took a long time to get those right. I started the hair by laying down four different shades of orange. Two shades for the hair behind his face and two shades for the hair in front. But I had to do the front ones twice because the shades of orange didn’t have enough contrast so I made one of them lighter. I think I changed the other one too. Then I went over the purple lines again but with more vigor. It was only after I added a third shade in the front hair and red tick marks plus green tick marks in the back hair that it come together.

After that I slowly built up the brush strokes on the rest of the painting. The green hat came first as I put down a purple line and purple marks. That was fine but the yellow squiggly lines are what really made that area work. They may be the best lines in the whole painting as they stand out so well.

The big eye on top took a while too. I count six concentric half circle rings of tick marks but it took me a day to get them all in there as I worked on the painting. One ring of marks would get done and as I worked on other parts I would see that I needed another ring of color in the eye. Five times I came to that conclusion as I worked. I really like the way that big eye came out. I wasn’t sure it would ever pull together but it did.

My fake writing along the jawline of the face is another thing that helped a lot. I often work with flat color but something like that fake writing can get me some depth. Just that small change in color makes the jawline bend back in space a little and gives a more three dimensional look.

The last thing I painted are those small circles on the face with spirals in them. They finished it off. I don’t think I’ve ever used those particular designs on a face but they work for me here. I dig ‘em. The rest of this painting was dogged determination and work. Some paint here, sit back and contemplate it, more paint here, take another photo, use that photo to make yer another color sketch in Procreate, and then put down those colors in paint. It takes a while but I like it when it’s done.