Archive for March, 2013

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Sketch a Day (Cartoonist week): Hergé

Monday, March 11th, 2013

Hergé-500px

After last year’s enormously fun watercolour commission frenzy (see the results here and here), I’ve decided this year to try doing a sketch a day (for as long as it’s still fun). Each week will have a different theme*, and what better theme to kick things off than Portraits of Cartoonists! And what better cartoonist to start with than…

Hergé (Georges Remi, Belgium, 1907-1983)

Writer, illustrator, Boy Scout and tortured artist, Georges Remi is best known as the creator of Tintin. Remi pioneered the Ligne Claire style that dominated Franco-Belgian comics for a generation. An asteroid discovered in 1953 is named in his honour (1652 Hergé) and another (1683 Castafiore) bears the name of one of his creations, the Milanese Nightingale.

(pencil & watercolour on 300gsm paper)
A5 (148 x 210mm, 5.7 x 8.3 inches)

Buy this sketch!
US $ 50 (+$5 postage)
SORRY – SOLD

*Note: I reserve the right to repeat a theme if I like it too much to stop.

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Making scratchboard art with Line Hoven

Friday, March 8th, 2013

Working1

Line Hoven Liebe schaut weg Reprodukt german comic

Get this book!

Yesterday I attended a workshop run by Line Hoven, whose beautiful graphic novel Liebe schaut weg (Reprodukt) is due to come out in English as Love Looks Away from Blank Slate Books.

Line is visiting New Zealand (along with fellow German cartoonist Mawil) thanks to the Goethe Institute, whose exhibition Comics, Manga & Co: The New Culture of German Comics is currently showing at the St Paul St Gallery (alongside an exhibition of New Zealand comics, Nga Pakiwaituhi). Line and Mawil are also doing workshops and other public events in Wellington next week. Thanks also to AUT University and the Auckland Arts Festival.

Line

Line Hoven using my coloured pencils to make something fabulous

Line works with scratchboard (also known as scraperboard), and her workshop was the first time I’d really tried it. Scratchboard is an art board with three layers. The top layer is black ink, covering a layer of white chalk. You use a knife to scrape away the black ink, making a white line.

I’ve always been intimidated by it as a medium, but Line quickly overcame that fear and everyone there was soon happily scratching away, discovering a whole new way of making art. By the end of the day, I’d fallen in love with the process, which is slow, pleasurable and almost meditative. Each movement of the knife reveals a bright new line – kind of like pulling away the curtain to let in the light. It’s delicious.

The work I made was based on the cover of Atlas #2. It’s 250 x 307 mm, and you can buy it below (sorry – it’s sold).

ylena scraperboard

(Click for larger image)

YLENA
(250 x 307mm, 9.8 x 12 inches, scratchboard)

US $100
+ $9 postage
SOLD

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ART SALE: Hicksville page 59

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

hicksvillepg59-SOLD

CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

OK, so yesterday’s art sale went so fast it left a few people disappointed. So here’s another page at the same price.

This is the original art for Hicksville, page 59. Marker pen on ivory board (430mm x 297mm, 16.9 x 11.7 inches).

Leonard Batts interviewing Dick Burger in Los Angeles. Includes some memorably ironic dialogue: “I guess there isn’t much of a comics scene in Hicksville” and “Just forget about Hicksville, okay? There is nothing interesting about Hicksville. We’re not going to talk about it.”

My favourite thing about this page is the black border. If you look closely, you can see decorative patterns drawn behind (or within) the black. That’s because the black border was inked by my adorable wife Terry, and when she got bored she would start drawing patterns and flowers and Pacific motifs before covering it all with solid black. None of that is visible in the printed book, of course, but it’s clearly there in the originals.

US $ 79 (including postage)
SORRY – SOLD

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ART SALE: Hicksville page 97

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

HicksvillePg97-sold
CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

Time to clear out some art. I normally charge a lot more for original art, but today I’m in the mood to clear stuff out. So… prices slashed! etc etc.

This is the original art for Hicksville, page 97. Marker pen and correction fluid on ivory board (426mm x 292mm, 16.8 x 11.5 inches).

Leonard Batts is finishing a letter to his editor, when another page of Augustus E’s mysterious comic appears.

US $ 79 (including postage)

SORRY – SOLD

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Print sale: Netball over Treviso

Saturday, March 2nd, 2013
Click for larger image

Click for larger image

These limited edition prints were made for the Treviso Comic Book Festival in Italy last year. The theme of the festival was “comics and sport” and New Zealand was the guest country (as reported at From Earth’s End and Pikitia Press). Hence the image of a saintly Silver Fern over Treviso.

They’re high quality Giclée prints on heavy German etching paper.
Dimensions: A3 (297 x 420 mm, 11.7 x 16.5 inches).
Shipped rolled in tube.

Price: US $49 (including postage)
(Signed by the artist)





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