Archive for July, 2010
Pogo “Bangarang”
Check out this remix of audio/visual of Hook! This creation from Pogo provides great insight to what I’m drawing next for Peter & Wendy (in addition to an episode of Fresh Prince, a Cap-Sac, a snow cone, and a hoverboard).
Also, I was recently able to visit Peter in Kensington! We hung out so much, but now I’m playing catch up. More from Neverland soon.
One side will make you grow taller…
Welcome to month six of the Report! Okay, today’s Alice post is a little different. Because of a freelance job that fell into my lap over the weekend, I was only able to complete one of the two illustrations I had planned today (working in the limited palette I’d used earlier in the project). I’m in the middle of drawing the second one (which is the bigger scene, introducing the Caterpillar), but it may not be ready til tomorrow or Wednesday. Still, it’ll be here soon, and below you’ll find an in progress photo of the inking….
Posted by: Meg Hunt
Book: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (purchase on Amazon)
(click to see big)
In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, `One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.’
`One side of what? The other side of what?’ thought Alice to herself.
`Of the mushroom,’ said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.
Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand.
There’s something really fun in bouncing back between loud and quiet scenes and lush and pulled back colors. No matter what though, I find that Alice continually enchants me every time I draw her. Even though she’s not my character technically, she is this funny little creature who keeps pulling me into Wonderland, even the quiet moments like this one. You know she’s going to grow and shrink and do all these crazy things, so it seemed good to pull back and show her mulling over the choice– which side? In drawing this scene, I found myself really loving the drawing itself– I’m thinking about adapting it into a one or two color letterpress print.
In other news, due to schedule issues and wanting to expand the blog a bit, I’m happy to say that we’re going to start having a new feature on Picture Book Report– reader illustrations. There are a lot of talented people out there who love books like we do, and after seeking a few people on Twitter the other day, I got more than 65 responses! So, be on the lookout– when I get illustrations of favorite scenes in, we’ll be sharing them from time to time, especially on those weeks where we don’t have anything planned.
Tomorrow will be a new post from Mister Will Bryant, and hopefully I’ll have my other scene up later this week too! Here’s a teaser in the meantime:
A Wrinkle In Time Chp. 5; The Tesseract
Moving to Chicago, Illinois and a new apartment and job hunting are not exactly the best working conditions for illustration work, but Chapter 5 is finally complete and I hope it was worth the wait!
A Wrinkle In Time
Chp. 5; The Tesseract
When we last left our heros, they had finally discovered where the Murry father had been this entire time, enveloped in a black amorphous thing shrouding a planet. The news of this for Meg, the fact that her father is not only alive but in immediate danger, is too much for her to handle and she begins to throw a fit. They have to go rescue her father and to get there, they will have to tesser, that concept no one will explain to Meg.
After Meg blows off some steam, a plan is set, to go forward and put an end to that black cloud and its dastardly ways. Our party tessers, an experience Meg still can’t put her finger on, the great gust of wind thrusting her into absolute nothingness. Except this time, there are complications. The trio of witches tesser our three earthen heros onto an actual two-dimensional planet that presses them flat and rips the oxygen from their lungs.
A quick correction saves our heros who travel to one more planet, a little unappealing rock in Orion’s belt, the air itself grey not with fog but something equally as opaque. As they walk through the grey, Meg bickers with Mrs. Which, the person responsible for almost getting them killed on the two dimensional planet. During the arguement, Mrs. Whatsit’s age is revealed as 2,379,152,497 years old making her the youngest of the three women.
Eventually they come upon the mouth of a cave and follow a flickering light at end of a rocky hallway. Inside is the Happy Medium, a joyous woman drapped in flowing mauve robes laughing at what she is watching in the crystal ball clutched in her hand. Introductions are made and Mrs. Whatsit explains to the Happy Medium that they wish to show the children “their home planet”. Instantly all the humor floods from the Happy Medium’s face at the prospect of having to look at something so troubling.
Reluctantly, the Happy Medium lowers her crystal ball and lets the three children peer into its surface. Inside, galaxies whiz by as their view draws nearer to the Earth. At first the Earth appears as Meg remembers from her Social Studies textbook but soon the malaise returns, that cloud of blackish smoke choking their planet. Its the same Dark Thing they saw from the peak on Uriel. The three ask what they can do to combat such a thing and Mrs. Whatsit explains that their planet has been fighting the good fight for quite sometime. People such as Bach and Ghadi and Beethoven and Madame Curie and Einstein have been combating the darkness for a long time and on Earth, a minor blip in the entirety of the universe for which the children should be proud.
Stay tuned next month for a new set of illustrations that will hopefully be on time! Thanks for your patience everyone!
