Talebones Present

This was my first fully digital illustration, and it was for a Talebones cover.  (See previous posts) Though still a collage, it was created completely with a digital camera and Photoshop.  Well, almost.  I forgot the face was scanned in from an old b/w photo. For this cover I wanted to do something overtly science fiction, but again in an unconventional way.  The concept was a junkyard astronaut.  Picture, perhaps, a man stranded on a world, where he must piece together a spaceship and spacesuit out of the relics and remnants (junk) of a dead civilization. Kind of a "green" astronaut (hey, I told you I was into recycling).

To collect the fragments of his space suit, I rode my bike around town with my camera looking for appropriately deteriorated and dented automobiles.  I then cut out the choice parts in Photoshop, and built the astronaut's suit layer upon layer, warping the shapes as needed and adding shadows to complete the illusion. Dig the duct tape on the yellow piece and what appears to be a bullet like hole right through the middle of the Cadillac emblem.  The moon is a hubcap from a VW wagon. and the face, that's me - a photo taken some 20 years ago.

Talebones Past

If you've been following my blog, you've noticed that I like to discuss the process that I go through when I make these pictures, in a kind of nuts and bolts way.  For me, as an artist, that's one thing that I find fascinating about other artist's work.  Whenever I pick up an art magazine, I skip right past those long verbose articles written by critics, but when I stumble on the artist's own words, I'm glued, and to the pictures too of course. So it's my hope that whether you're an artist, a writer, a publisher, an avid reader, or just a plain old blog eater, that you'll find what I have to share, both in image and words, interesting.

 

Above was my first cover for Talebones (see my posts below), and my first color illustration, considering all the interior illustrations were always black and white.

Cover images were intended to be conceptual, and not to illustrate any particular story within.  Most often, due to the nature of the magazine, they were very genre specific, space ships and aliens, which though  interesting, I didn't always feel fit a lot of what the inventive authors in the magazine were writing about.  There definitely was a dark fantasy element to many of the stories, and I wanted to create something that captured that feel and was very different from what had been done before.  With that said, you could say there is a kind of tribal/alien chic going on in this picture, but hopefully in unconventional manner. The model was my 4 year old son, who loved any excuse to have his face painted.  And me being trained in the fine arts as a painter, loved the idea of being able to combine painting, photography and collage.

Zombies, Scrap Lumber, Scissors and Gluestick

Here's another piece from the same period as the two posts below. Just to show you something with a slightly different mood.  This was a cover for a surreal collection of short stories by Mark McLaughlin entitled Zom Bee Moo Vee and Other Freaky Shows. I wanted to create a tongue in cheek image that was reminiscent of the old late-night horror movies that were so bad (read funny) that they were good.

Pictured above is poor short order cook Stuart, in the beach snack shack hiding from a zombie attack, armed with only his spatula, but to no avail.  The zombie is busting through the boarded up order window.  Keeping in the spirit of low budget B movie productions, the window is the same one used here.  I'm a big believer in recycling art supplies.  The zombie is my next door neighbor, and Stuart (not his real name) was my co-worker.  They were photographed separately and collaged together, again with good old scissors and glue stick.  There is no doubt a cut and paste feel to these pieces, and that was intentional. It's real and unreal at the same time. I love the affect.

The story does not end there, below, we see the horrible result, which appeared on the back cover. Of course, this is what happens when you lose your head.

Again, this is all collaged in.  I built the little snack shack (12" high in real life) out of scrap lumber and photographed it in my kids' sandbox.  The plastic hot dog I borrowed from my niece.  I drew two lines in the sand with my fingers and then collaged onto the final picture the prone image of Stuart having been forcibly pulled and dragged from the shack.  It's not a flawless, seemless illusion, but then it's not supposed to be, just like a B movie.

Another Photo Illustration

Here is another favorite of mine from the Talebones days.  The story was called Behind the Wheel.  This was the tale of a dark love affair, tinged with erotic overtones.  I love the form and the light.  That neck is unreal, beautiful; it seems to go on forever.Yes, it's true that many of the of the stories I illustrated back then were dark in nature.  I think it's interesting to contrast these with the recent work I did for Mrs. Annathena Gilly Gully From Puddle Rumple Tilly Willy.  As an illustrator, I endeavor to capture the spirit of whatever project I am working on, be it adult or child oriented, and use the wide range of skills that I have at my disposal to achieve my goal.

Photo Illustrations

I have to give a shout out to my brother, Patrick Swenson, for helping me get started with all this.  Patrick runs the successful  Fairwood Press, which specializes in science fiction and dark fantasy.  Fairwood Press now publishes novels, short story collections and more from some very fine authors.  Over the years, I've had the privilege of illustrating and designing the covers of some of these fine books.

It all started back more than fifteen years ago when Patrick decided to follow his dreams and  begin a small sci-fi magazine called Talebones. It was a labor of love for many involved.  He asked me, along with a small group of other artists,  if I would be willing to contribute pictures for the stories.  It was the kind of creative challenge that I loved. How do you capture the essence of a story in a picture, wrap it in a little bit of mystery, and tease the reader into diving into the story?  At the time I was working for a photographer, and the full on digital age had yet to arrive. For most, including myself, the concept of Photoshop was still a distant thought. At that time, though my background was in painting and drawing, I was drawn to the idea of somehow using photography to create the images.

Part of me thought it would be easier making a photographic image, than the time that would be required to make a drawing.  Yah, Right!  Take this picture for example, it's from a haunting little story called The Same Song Every Midnight. The idea behind the image above was to depict haunting or disturbing music coming in through a window.  I used the literal image of sheet music to symbolize the non-corporeal concept of the sound of music. For the window, I built the crude shape myself out of scrap lumber and duct taped broken shards of glass to the back of it to provide the illusion of shattered glass. I photographed the sheet music separately at just the right angle and collaged it onto a photographic print of the window with glue stick.  I then painted on the picture with photographic dyes to create shadows and heighten the illusion further.  I did quite a few of these photo illustrations for Talebones, and to this day many remain my favorites.

Book Design

In addition to illustrating this book, Mrs. Annathena Gilly Gully from Puddle Rumple Tilly Willy, I did the interior layout and design as well. One of the fun aspects to this project was to splash some personality throughout the book through the use of small thumbnail sketches. These are simple little drawings that I had a lot of fun doing. They really help to enrich the reading experience. Again, if you want to learn more about the book, feel free to swing by the author's website, or email me by clicking on my profile.

Judge's Waiting Room - detail

To get the kind of accurate detail and line quality I wanted in the judge's portrait, I needed to be able to draw it bigger than the original drawing allowed for. I'm no Jan Vermeer, I can't work in miniature. But I wonder what Vermeer could have done with Photoshop? (I know, the thought is Art sacrilege! I take it back.) Anyway, I drew the judge's arm and gavel as it is reflected on the table's surface, scanned it and inserted it into the picture frame. It's a nice little drawing within the drawing. Though maybe not worthy of Vermeer, but more Rembrandt like like in the lighting I think - kidding!

The Judge's Waiting Room

Here's another illustration from the Annathena project.

One of the challenges to illustrating this story was that, other than the principle character, Annathena, the other main characters, the Judge, the Mayor, the Teacher and the Lawyer, and a secretary had to remain gender neutral so the reader could imagine them as either man or woman. When I was trying to imagine the pictures one might find hanging in a Judge's office, I thought it would be logical to find a portrait - but I couldn't reveal whether the judge was a man or woman. Hmm?

I came up with the idea of a portrait of just the judges arm swinging a gavel. At this moment in time Maurice the parrot is causing a disturbance. The secretary (out of frame) is swinging a broom at him. The man on the right who was coincidentally reading Tropical Bird Digest is acting quite startled, as is the woman on the left, but it also appears she could be disturbed by the gavel swinging down on her from the picture, or perhaps the bee buzzing around near the ceiling, which has developed an attraction for the flowers on Annathena's hat. There's a lot going on in this picture and I had a lot of fun making it.

Annathena Cover Studies

I do love to draw, and I love line. All the drawings for Annathena were originally done in pencil, then scanned and colored in photoshop. The top image was not the first drawing I did of Annathena, but it was the image that would become the model for the character, and the cover. You can see how the image changed, the hat and the parrot of course, and the detail in the hair. Also note the large bag. If you look at the final cover, there is even more detail to the hat that has been added after the original.

Annathena - Sidewalk Picture

Here is the final version of the picture from the previous post. Guess what? The author decided that there should be a pet parrot on the hat. I embellished the hat with more flowers and feathers and added detail to the background. I love looking at the before and after drawings. I think it's fascinating to watch an image as it develops. I hope you find it interesting as well.

Annathena - Early Study

Usually the way it works is I get a complete finished manuscript to work from. For my most recent project, Mrs. Annathena Gilly Gully from Puddle Rumple Tilly Willy, there was a more collaborative spirit to the enterprise. The image at the right was an early study for a picture in which our main character is being pursued and teased by some young children. On a whim I had decided to add a bird to the hat. You will see in the next post how much the final image changed.

Long Walks, Last Flights and Other Strange Journeys

If you are not familiar with my illustration work, much of it has swayed into the realm of fantasy and science fiction. The cover for Ken Scholes acclaimed Long Walks, Last Flights and Other Strange Journeys, published by Fairwood Press, was my art and design. I'm really at home with any subject matter, letting my imagination feed off the images an author conjures up. I'll get to some more of the fantasy work in later posts, but I thought you might find it interesting to see a little more from my recent project, Annathena.

Annathena Cover

I've been busy wrapping up my latest project, a collaboration with writer Chellis S. Jensen. The book, Mrs. Annathena Gilly Gully From Puddle Rumple Tilly Willy. I encourage you to go to her site to learn more about it. It's my first foray into children's book illustration, but not the last, and I loved it. Above is the cover, which I both designed and illustrated. I want to share with you a little more about this project further on.