So summer is here my friends and lovers!
Our garden is growing very well these days and the summer abundance is starting to roll in. We haven’t had nay peppers or tomatoes quite yet but they will be along soon enough. I did these pieces this week with the idea of making pieces that could be hung up in a child’s room. If you were a kid would this get you excited for vegetables?
~Greg
So I finished a new piece recently, I wanted something that I could take my time on. The concept for this first appeared in my sketchbook on an October evening around Halloween. I think I even had the final all mostly sketched up that same evening. I’ve been painting and inking it in installments, taking my time on each step, I’m quite please with the result!
~Greg
Recently I have been reading a book called Blue Hills and Shoefly Pies written by Ann Hark in 1952. The tales from its pages predate the publication by at least 12 years. In the book she travels and visits with people, putting together a compelling book of tales. The tales range from a hunt to determine the cryptic writings on a magic mirror (including instructions on making your own, which I may do a piece on later) to the ordinary, every day (visits with neighbors and outdoor picnic lunches). The places she cites are places I have been occasionally and places I frequent. And, while some places, such as Lancaster City’s Southern Market are no longer around, the library still is. While on a journey to the library Miss Hark came across an account of a monstrous figure in Pennsylvania history and lore.
Thomas Quick Jr. lived in Pike County which is close to Carbondale in Pennsylvania. (Pike county shares a bank with Lake Wallenpaupack, perhaps you’ve heard of it, it’s mentioned in this episode of the office. He grew up in a time where there were few other white settlers. He was friends with the Native Americans and learned many of their forestry skills from them. In time more settlers arrived, and with them came strained relationships with the Native residents. Attacks on white settlers became more frequent and Tom fell out of touch with his former friends. One day, as he and his father were crossing a frozen lake they were ambushed. Tom was shot in the leg and limped to the bank, his father, however, was shot and then scalped alive in front of Tom’s eyes. At that point Tom swore to slay 100 indians as the sole goal of his life. One evening, as he sulked in a tavern, he met a native fellow. As they talked and the drinks flowed, Tom realized that this fellow belonged to the party that slayed the elder Tom. Not only that, the man proudly proclaimed it when he realized he was talking to the younger Tom. So Tom murdered him. And he didn’t stop there, accounts say that Tom didn’t exclude anyone from his warpath, murdering women, children, and families all together. And so Tom became a monster, a terror, and a hero to be admired, depending on who you were to ask. Tom’s story, as it turns out, ends one of two ways, with him on his death bed, beseeching his friend to bring an elderly Indian that he knew lived nearby so that he could complete his goal. His friend was quite reluctant to do so, and in some versions he didn’t, leaving Tom one murder short of his 100. In other versions he completes his grisly task and dies shortly after with a content look on his face.
(Illustrator’s Corner) I debated doing a piece about this monstrous fellow, but ultimately I decided to do it. certainly, I didn’t restrain myself from making him look wretched, (I imagine even monsters feel the toll of murdering families). But I thought it interesting and potentially still relevant. We live in times that are rife where various groups of people have tenuous relationships (immigration anyone?) And, while, thank God we have enough order that a grisly task like murdering 100 people is not tolerated, that hate and desire to do harm can still linger. It is still possible to hate 100 people relentlessly. It’s not much, and I’m a nobody of an illustrator, but illustration (and art) addresses people, that’s why it exists. I made this piece because of that.
~Greg
So I sat down to draw, having an idea of what I wanted to draw, then this came out, only the eggplant is the same. I’ve done pieces about things being stolen in the past, there’s something appealing about an unseen, invisible world doing what it will. Today I sat down to work on a piece about a fellow by the name of Tom who was a living, breathing monster. That story was found in the copy of Blue Hills and Shoefly Pies by Ann Hark. I had checked it out at the library several years ago but hadn’t managed to finish it then. On a whim I looked it up and have been swept away in her tales of journeys across Lebanon and Lancaster counties. In many ways the world she writes about is only a memory on the pages anymore. However I have been taken by the book upon this second investigation. Fingers crossed, I’ll have my illustration and the tale of the monster named Tom ready for you by next week.
So I recently dusted off copies of the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix. Once again, I enjoyed them thoroughly, exciting and thrilling adventures in a vivid world of life and death. So, of course, it got the wheels in my head turning. So here’s what I came up, an illustration of Lirael in death. Honestly though, my sketchbook was becoming inhabited by sketches from this world before I started the piece so it was only a matter of time.
The other day my wife and I went about the essential business that comes with recently moving, that is, exploring the local library. While there I found an interesting book about Pennsylvania Dutch folk tales, some of them are silly jokes, however, there was a section of tales about a fellow whose name is translated to Pumpernickel Bill. Pumpernickel Bill is generally someone you want to avoid, a lazy and unmotivated fellow, he frequently has dealings with the Devil, and, while he outsmarts his infernal opponent, he’s still a character that is a bit odd and best avoided. As it goes, while no one seems to have met Pumpernickel Bill in person, a friend of a friend always has. I read these tales and immediately got the urge to illustrate them, so here is the tale, taking place over the course of three harvest seasons:
In the first season the Devil approaches Pumpernickel Bill and asked to join in a joint venture. They would work together growing crops for a season, and at the end of the year the Devil would claim what is above the soil and Bill, what lies below. That year Pumpernickel Bill planted potatoes, leaving him with abundance and the Devil with nothing of value.
In the second season the Devil approaches Bill again, offering to take that which grows below, leaving Bill with the crop above the soil. That year Bill planted wheat, leaving himself with abundance and the Devil with nothing of value.
In the third season the Devil finally schemed to claim his fair share, laying claim to both the top and bottom of the plant. Pumpernickel Bill thought for a while, knowing it was a large demand. Finally he agreed, and that year planted corn, leaving himself with the abundance of the ears of corn in-between and the Devil with nothing of value. The Devil, seeing he had been outsmarted a third consecutive year, vanished, vowing to never farm with Pumpernickel Bill ever again.
One night I couldn’t sleep, (possibly it was that coffee or two at 8:30 PM). So at midnight I woke up and worked until this was done. I finished at 2:30 and didn’t even feel tired at work the next day, I was just so jazzed to have this finished. This piece was the last thing I made during that late October creative jag. Unlike everything else though, this was done with pastels, which I hadn’t used even longer than my gouache, yikes!
In other news, my Barons of Tea Kickstarter project is still going strong. Feel free to swing by and check it out! If you like Tea, Oceanic Adventure, Treasure, Ghost Pirates, Travel or Fun is probably up your alley.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/406317258/barons-of-tea-the-board-game
~Greg
So I was reading this book all about vanilla that I pulled off the shelf at the library on a whim. I expected it to be interesting generally, but I was immediately swept away by all of the fascinating things there were to know about Vanilla. And so, without further ado, here is the story that this piece illustrates:
Once upon a time in New Spain the upper class women discovered a mix for hot chocolate that would be all the rage for many years to come. They were so infatuated with this beverage that they had their maids bring it to them frequently, so frequently, in fact that they could not even forgo their beloved drink during mass. Their defense was that the sermons were simply too long and dull and that this would help them stay awake. The Bishop’s response was to outlaw the beverage during mass, with the penalty of excommunication because clearly this drink was an addictive devil’s brew, made to upset the service. The women took this decree in stride and stopped going to mass at the cathedral, instead going to the local convent, where they could continue to summon their hot chocolate maids as they pleased. The Bishop refused to be confounded, and made a further decree, everyone had to take mass in the cathedral or else suffer excommunication. Certainly that took care of that…for a very short while, for the Bishop was soon poisoned. This poison was delivered to him, in his hot chocolate!
I read this tale and realized that I immediately needed to make a piece about it. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.
~Greg
