posted: June 22, 2010

I got a call from David Talbot in January 2009.  David is the Design Director, Editor in Chief, and visionary force of The Talbot Players in San Francisco California. David had a project. The assignment was to create 22 full page illustrations for a story titled, Shadow Knights.  The story was about Winston Churchill's SOE (Special Operations Executive.) It is the story of many brave men and women who served as spies for the British in Norway and France.
I can't show all of the work because Simon & Schuster has yet to publish it. The book is due out in the fall, along with another book, Devil Dog, illustrated by Spain Rodriguez. I illustrated the covers for both books.
However, I got permission from David to put a little sample up on Drawger.  What follows are both book covers; Devil Dog and Shadow Knights respectively. My friend, Paul Rogers, kindly agreed to do the typography.
 

posted: June 17, 2010

I painted this portrait illustration of Bill Cosby for Fred Fehlau and the Playboy Jazz Festival.  Along the way, I documented the process by scanning the drawing (1.) then the drawing with shadow shapes (2.) then the added tonal washes (3.) and finally the finished result (4.)

There were no pencil lines laid down to guide my brush drawing.  I draw with a Raphael Kolinsky #8, round sable, watercolor brush, and I start where I like.  
The medium I used is FW Acrylic Inks, and the surface is BFK Rives printmaking paper. The image is approximately 20 X 20 inches.  I started in with Cosby's right eye and worked out towards the edges of the face, as opposed to starting with the shape of the head and working towards the smaller interior shapes. I find that I am much more sensitized to the topography of the head, and the life in the face when I proceed this way.

When I was a student learning to paint portraits, my education consisted of observational drawing, awareness of line, shape, and tone, some proportion, technique, design, composition, the study of color and value of color, and the anatomy of light.
Since then, curiosity and pedantic obligation has lead me to study Leonardo Da Vinci's proportions of the human head, and various anatomists identification of the muscles in the face and head; the obicularis oris, glabella, Levator labia superiors alaeque nasi, dilator nasi and greater alar cartilage of the nose, nasolabial furrows, nodes, orbicularis oculi, the philtrum, yada yada yada.

Of course, anatomy is not drawing, and nothing can replace empathy for people, their character and personalities. For me, knowing correct proportion intensifies the wonder and glory of life's imperfect faces, and knowing something about the muscles of the head demystifies the subtle forms that are the underpinning of the human visage.
 

Portraits

posted: March 4, 2010

 I got a call from Martin Colyer at Reader’s Digest London in September 09.  Martin had a friend named John O’Reilly who was creating a magazine for illustrators titled, ”Varoom.” They asked me to write an article for the Winter 2009 issue. The article would be about my work, and would appear in a section of the magazine called Notes on Drawing. I happily accepted their invitation.

 

The folks at Varoom, and AOI are big fans of Drawger, and they’d love for you to check them out.

http://www.theaoi.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=41

 

Varoom tracks the very latest in the world of illustration, discovering the new styles, exploring the world of illustrators and the people who commission them; digging deep into the big social, political and cultural ideas expressed in current illustration, showing the most exciting, provocative, moment-defining work, and revealing the creative and human stories behind it.

Varoom Magazine.

 

Drawing In The Real World by Jeffrey Smith.

 

There is an important connection (in my work) between figure drawing and narrative illustration. The connection is empathy, and storytelling. The first order of business in drawing the figure is empathy. When I teach my students to draw, I ask them to try to understand the model, much like a story. What is the pose expressing, and what is peculiar about the model? I refer to the art model by name. And I try to point out that when Jennifer poses, she brings an entirely different idiosyncratic expression than say, Sarah. Both women have the same anatomy, and both tell a different story.

 

My experience with students is that they need to feel risk in order to see clearly. To that end, I ask them to begin the drawing, not where they are comfortable, but rather, where it means the most. I ask them to begin with the center of gravity in the pose.  Very often, this tends to be in the middle of the figure, not the head.

From that beginning, I encourage them to find the lines that best describe the gesture of the pose as they move up towards the head, and down towards the feet.  I ask them to draw each line with energy, and commitment, and to be descriptive.  In other words, draw those first lines as finished lines, but with sufficient speed so as to feel the gesture in the body. Draw every line with a sense of risk. I want them to grow the drawing with rhythm. That process of deliberate commitment and thought provoking risk is exactly how I like to make an illustration.

 

The Security Management illustration is about true crime. In my universe, this is called a re-creation illustration. The story was based on a rash of bank robberies that occurred in Mexico. The editors wanted to talk about the many ways that security technology effectively fights crime. I’m not very interested in security technology. Bank robbers on the other hand, are a different story.

 

To re-enact a story, you must understand the essence of it. The key words for this article are security, and crime. The symbols I chose were criminals and cops. As it happens, I am of Mexican decent.  And whether by nurturing, or by nature, crime is something I have empathy for.

 

For reference, I used myself as the model for the Mexican bank robber. I placed a spot light straight over my head, and cascaded my hair forward to emphasize wildness. I thought of Di Nero in Cape Fear. Setting the camera on a tripod, I used the self-timer button to take pictures of me in the pose. I thought of the guy on the ground in the North Hollywood bank shoot-out as he lay dying. Danger in his eyes; fatigue in his bones.  I went to Google images to find the interior of a bank.  It took me the better part of 2 hours, but I finally found a bank interior that “felt” good. I found some reference on Mexican police and I was good to go.

 

 

To tell a visual story clearly, you must create order. Primarily, this is a picture that uses foreground, middle ground and background. Abstractly, I used triangular composition, and my primary idea was to arrange the heads of the criminal and the cop, and the hands of the criminal, into a triangle. But many secondary triangles began to appear once I started using rectilinear drawing in the lower part of the criminal’s legs.  And then I began to see why the bank reference was so interesting.

It was loaded with circles, triangles, and reflections. Pattern is a beautiful thing! I trapped the lights in the foreground and used atmospheric perspective in the background.  But perhaps the most compelling thing in the image is the danger in his eyes and the fatigue in his body, the figure drawing.

 

The Playboy illustration was for a story titled, “Nobody Move” by Denis Johnson. It is a fiction story written in a Noir style. This illustration is based on a narrative moment when Juarez catches Jimmy Luntz. He wants his money!  And he’s going to torture Jimmy until he gets it.  So the words I focused on were sadistic and torture.

Growing up in a small, two-bed room house as the youngest of 6 children, I have some empathy for that!   

 

Knowing I wanted to shoot reference, I started to think about hiring models.

Earlier in the story, one of the characters describes Jimmy’s body as slightly feminine, so I hired a female art model to pose as Jimmy Luntz.  I was very excited about this. I thought transformation might give the illustration just the kind of weirdness it needed.

 

I used myself as Juarez because I needed 2 figures in the shot. Juarez’ face was already fermenting in my imagination, and I have Francisco Goya’s wild-eyed, insane demons to thank for that. I sat the art model in the chair, naked from the waist up. I tied her hands behind her back, and buckled a belt around her feet (who says illustration isn’t any fun?) I posed as Juarez and thought of the great Spencer Tracy in the 1941 classic, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; the way he drives Ingrid Bergman insane. I found the dog lamp, the chair, and the exterior, gable end of the house on-line. With all of my reference composed in Photoshop, I tilted the frame and subtly arranged arms, legs, and shadows into a triangular composition.  I used interior-exterior for scale change, and color contrast. Lastly, I designed the light shapes to create movement, balance, and abstract design within the composition.

 

The differences between fiction (Noir) and true-crime (re-creation) illustration can be substantial or nothing at all.  Fiction is supposed to be a literary work based on imaginary people and events, but not always. The editor of a magazine might not want the characters in the story clearly portrayed, but then again he might. A fiction assignment is probably not going to revolve around a likeness. And I will probably feel more inclined to use a degree of transformation and distortion. In fiction, the illustration often feels like a very real dream.

 

 

 

 

True crime, or re-creation assignments are about real people and real events. It usually means that you have to paint a likeness of a recognizable person in a specific situation (though not in the example I’ve offered here.) The illustration might pivot on the available photographs of the main subject in the story. When I visualize a narrative image, it is with that reference in mind. And in the end, it has to feel real. 

 

In any case, figure drawing, fiction illustration or true crime illustration is about telling a story with empathy. An illustrator must recognize the story in whatever he is looking at, be it real or imagined. But the truth is that I have a tough time knowing the difference between what is real, and what is a dream. I suspect, in art, there really isn’t any difference at all.

 

 

 

What follows is my article, and the images that accompanied it.

posted: August 17, 2009

I got a call from David Bamundo at The Wall Street Journal.  He needed an illustration for an article about Thomas Pynchon’s new book, “Inherent Vice.”

The deadline was short, and there wasn’t much text to refer to.  I was asked to do the assignment because I am known in some circles as a “Noir” illustrator.

David wanted a portrait of Pynchon.  But the portrait had to be somewhat obscure.

Evidently, the media has not seen Pynchon in a very long time. This fact added to the mystique and allure of the author and his new book.

I decided to focus my pictorial sights on mirrors and reflections. Mirrors are often used as a psychological force in the narrative design of Film Noir imagery.  This was my way into the assignment since I didn’t have the story. 

 

As an illustrator who works on very short deadlines, I am often forced to photograph myself for reference. In other words, I am my own model. I donned one of my many fedoras, a Sam Spade trench coat, and a.45 caliber, U.S. army issue, Hell-fire handgun.  I also tried using a cigar.  I set 2 large mirrors next to me, one on either side.  I set my Omni light low to the ground and behind me, and I shined it upwards.  I shined it over my shoulder and across my face.  I was hoping for rim light.  Rim light is to Noir what heavenly light is to Giambattista Tiepolo.  I set my camera on a tripod, well below eve-level.  The eyes of the devil, or the dying, were upon me.

 

Mirrors. I think, create ambiguity and distortion.  And you don’t need a mirror to know what the mind creates. Eh? In this picture, the mirror might be a doorway, and the reflection of the main subject might be a dead guy. Or not.

As for the story, well, I guess I blew that.  No palm trees, or California surf culture represented here.  But hell! If Raymond Chandler in Los Angeles, and Dashiell Hammett in San Francisco can skip that stuff, so can I.

 

I decided to add several illustrations to this blog that seemed connected in some way. The subjects are mostly sitting, the viewer is engaged, and pictures are dark, all artificially lit. Everyone is trapped, aberration everywhere and so seemingly, all is perfectly Noir.  And in the air there is the tap, tap, tapping of keys.

 

Noir

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