Saturday, January 21st, 2012
I just finished reading a book called Pandemonium and Parade – Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yokai by one Michael Dylan Foster. The book is a discussion of the way traditional Japanese monsters and spirits were viewed/believe in/studied over the last few hundred years. It is a pretty academic text, but I found it quite interesting.
The cultural conception of yokai has gone through a number of changes over the centuries, but I was fascinated to discover one of the earliest ways yokai were consciously studied was as an encyclopedia or bestiary. It is interesting to think about the current concepts of “monsters” in Japanese popular media as being bred from encyclopedic collections. Odd to think of something as frivolous seeming as Pokemon being the cultural descendent of Japan’s introspective obsession with it’s own supernatural/folkloric history. It is also interesting to note how the notion of making up new creatures for the sake of describing and collecting them as entertainment (Pokemon) actually goes all the way back to the author of the first recorded yokai specific encyclopedia, Toriyama Sekien.
If you’re interested in bestiaries, monsters and discussions of what these things reveal to us about the culture that created them, check out Foster’s book. If nothing else, the chapter about the late 20th century will make you wish Mizuki Shigeru’s work would get translated and released here in the US.
This week we get a new print in the gallery. I’m sure you all agree, this is very exciting. The February print is coming along nicely as well, so there is more excitement to come in the weeks ahead.
Saturday, January 14th, 2012
I spent most of my studio time this week drawing grass. It was exhilarating. You might think the prospect of spending several hours in a row rendering a field of grass would make doing just about anything else look attractive, but every time I had to stop drawing grass and go do anything else I always felt just a little sad. Go figure.
This week’s image also has a lot of grass on it. It is a color version of one of my editions from last year.
I should be pulling the January edition tomorrow, so look for a new etching next week.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go wrestle with some website code. Mental challenges keep you sharp, right?
Saturday, January 7th, 2012
We are just 1 week into the new year and things are getting busy already. I am on track to edition my January print within a week, with work beginning on the next 2 prints already. Stay tuned here to see those prints as they start coming off the press.
Megamoth Studio has a new website for the drawing classes. We are still working on getting all of the extra features updated, but about a million thanks go to Soojin for getting the bones of the beast up and running. I am also excited because I will begin putting the new Megamoth Anthology together soon. Sometimes it feels like a lot of work, but mostly it feels awesome.
Speaking of awesome, I landed myself a large stack of comics over the holiday. I wanted to highlight Daisy Kutter – The Last Train by Kazu Kibuishi. Kibuishi is probably better known for his work as the editor of the Flight anthologies and his continuing series, Amulet. It must be acknowledged the Wild West steam punk is pretty much always a good thing and Daisy Kutter is a great example. Kibuishi’s stories skew towards a slightly younger audience in terms of narrative, but they are the sort of stories I was looking for when I was a younger audience. They are full of adventure, magic, suspense and great visual designs. After reading it, I found myself having to draw something like it.
I sometimes enjoy hand-working my prints. It’s actually a pretty important part of my process to hand-work early state proofs to decide how to proceed on a print. Every once in a while I will watercolor an artist’s proof of a finished print. The results look something like this:
That’s it for this week. Until next time!
Sunday, January 1st, 2012
Happy New Year everyone.
It is easy to feel a bit of deflation coming down from the intensity and hubbub of the High Winter Holidays. For many people a bit of deflation is really a relaxation that is necessary and much deserved after working hard to keep spirits bright through the darkest days of the year. Just remember we have a whole fresh year ahead of us.
2011 was a year full of many things. There were challenges, hopes, failures and triumphs. It was a year of big events for me, though the old axiom about the ratio of change to sameness in life has certainly borne itself out in many ways. As the year 2012 gets underway, ticking seamlessly over on the clocks of the world, we must continue, all of us, to keep our aspirations and hopes in mind. A moment’s pause is the perfect opportunity to compose oneself for making the very best of all that is sure to come.
There should be a lot of exciting new things coming this year. New opportunities. New shows. New art. I am looking forward to it.
Best wishes to all of you!
Monday, December 26th, 2011
Here is December’s print. “We’ll Go Together”:
I originally intended to have an etching for this month, but this came out first. January will be an etching month. It will be awesome.
Sunday, December 18th, 2011
My apologies for missing last week’s post. I was in Sacramento manning the Megamoth Studio table to Sac-Con. Sac-Con was a small but fun convention. If you are local, I can recommend it as a fine way to spend your day. If you are not local, you might consider the guest list before deciding to go. If there is a guest you want to meet, it is a great convention because lines are so much shorter than at any of the bigger shows.
In other news, I just finished reading I think is the last book of The Black Company by Glen Cook. I found these books to be very entertaining and a very nice change from the usual fantasy lines. There is something nice about taking a careful look at the trudging, miserable life of a soldier and punctuating it with some of the most ridiculously splashy magic battles I have ever read. The long build up between battles and the sort of awed helplessness of the soldiers and captains as their plans, long in the preparation, go into effect or are completely destroyed by the caprices of reality is the most satisfying treatment of this sort of thing I have read in a long time. It’s also interesting to see someone really examine the sort of havoc that would be produced by sorcerers who really applied themselves to the art of war.
If you like the fantasy genre, go check out the Black Company. They are not all great, but the first 3 make a very solid arc and the last 4, Glittering Stone,
make another to close it all out.
Of course, you may be here for a drawing. I know that’s what I come here for. Here you go:
Sunday, December 4th, 2011
This week’s drawing was originally intended for a wine label for the Benziger Winery Imagery Artist Collection. I ended up going with a different image entirely, but there are a few things I liked about this one. I may have to develop this one into a print at some point.
Have a good week!
Saturday, November 26th, 2011
Not a lot to report for me this week. I have been playing too many video games, and that’s all there is to it. I did make a little drawing though, and here it is:
It’s for the SF Olympians thing. Enjoy!
Sunday, November 20th, 2011
I believe I mentioned something about a new edition last week. This week, I give you an image of the new print, “It Flew Without Grace (This Way, That Way)”:
It is the second in a series of etching I am doing based on a hand-made book I did last year. The first was “That’s When I Knew It Was Ending (This Way, That Way)” as seen in the gallery. I should have another one ready to go next month.
