voices in my head (or whatever)

Apropos of nothing except that my isolated at-home working process usually requires me to have some sort of white noise on in the back ground so I do not go stark raving mad, I've recently queued up TED talks on my ipod to listen to while I work (in regular rotation with varoius TV shows, news,  a variety of music, podcasts, or audio books,)

These two just have me head over heels so I just had to share.

Sarah Jones holds all the voices in her head


and

Jamila Lyiscott is articlulate.


love them. both very very much.
Okay, back to work.
(and here's a sneak peak at what that looks like:)

fiery fishies

So, as I'm wont to do,  I went to IMC with several sketches to stare at (and ambitions of finishing all of them).

 I already talked about my week of working on that one in the lower right hand corner.  And the one on top will be a separte post all together.  But I just managed to pull that one in the lower left hand corner through the gap as well. Here it is:*

 

swimming with fiery fish

(* for some reason, blogger is putting a greenish cast on these images... here is a more accurate reproduction of the art's color.)


Swooning and surrounded by flying red fish. Are the fish being juggled?? Is the figure flying in their slipstream? Dancing with them?  When I took this one to IMC it was with the thought of shoehorning it into the "Dragon Rider" assignment. A bit of an interpretive leap, but I liked the image and wanted to make something of it. Back to calling them fish now, not dragons. But, anyways.

Here, putting this one together, from start to finish, a few in-progress shots:

The first rough sketch was a wild experiment, where I really stretched the human figure, extreme elongated distorted limbs. And rough slashing away with red marks. The fish were almost an after thought in this preliminary sketch. 

Then I began to rein in the figure, getting it a bit more under control, removing the random red slashes and incorporating the fish as the red emblems instead. 

In the middle of the painting process there was a point where I thought about toning down the red and making the fish golden instead. But during IMC Rebecca Guay did a demo painting in which she incorporated red fish in a figure's hair. It was just so perfect and I love red so much, that's where I finally took it. 

The final painting will be used by Rose Lemberg for an upcoming anthology she is editing, An Alphabet of Embers.

awesome IMC insecurity, inspiration and such and such

The other day, Jon Schindehette wrote a post about art envy, insecurity, and comparisons.  An excerpt:

"About half way through the the Drink & Draw I had a really authentic conversation with one of the better artists at the event…and guess what he was worried about - folks looking at his sketches and judging him for it. That suddenly put my entire life in perspective. I realized that it didn’t matter how good I got, how secure I was in the knowledge of my skills - I would always look at artists that I admire and compare myself to them....

There is nothing wrong with wanting to do better things - to be a better person, but it is an issue when we are comparing our insides with someone else’s outsides." ~read more 

 It feels fitting to lead off talking about Illustration Masters Class 2014 with that, because, dammit, feeling insecure about my work that was the story of my life for the whole week. And you know what made it a tad bit more bearable?  Hearing Mike Mignola mention his own insecurities as an artist. So, Yes, thank you to all the incredible artists there at IMC (both faculty and students) for being BRILLIANT and supportive, and also for being vunlerable.

Now here's a few pictures :)


My preliminary sketch; this week I wanted to take something I had worked out digitally, and try my hand at traditional mediums: Here's my preliminary digital sketch (was calling this my attempt at the "fairy warrior" assignment)

So it begins:

day 1 crit session. Iain McCaig, Rebecca Guay, Scott Fischer, Mike Mignola, Greg Manchess, and Irene Gallo

my station, before the paint was poured

Meanwhile... some of who did what where:

Greg Ruth demo's mad sumi ink skills

James Gurney captures Allen Williams in action

Donato Giancola being brilliant

Mike Mignola breaks down storyboarding

Scott Fischer explains his analog photoshop process

Rebecca Guay demo (watercolor and gold leaf ink)

Then, back to what I'm attempting:

wherein I transfer my drawing and begin splashing stuff on it.

After multiple variations and methods and experimentation (and frustrations with trying to revive old paint handling muscle memory) here's what came of it.

"blood faerie"... finished. Watercolor, pencil, ink, and acrylic paint.

Well, and also, I was able to grab Rebecca Guay, Julie Bell, Irene Gallo, Zoe Robinson, and Lauren Panepinto and host a spontaneous recorded discussion. It was a brilliant brain trust and the conversation was amazing. More coming about that soon. (Hint: WOMEN DESTROY FANTASY. Hell yes.)

Rebecca Guay, Julie Bell, Irene Gallo, Zoe Robinson, Lauren Panepinto, and I. WDF roudntable

illustrating Good Ghoul Gone Bad. Plus photo reference

Finally getting my feet back under me after a week in Amherst for the Illustration Masters Class. (More about that later.)  While I was gone, D.B. Starler's piece Good Ghoul Gone Bad went up at Fireside Fiction Co.

Here's my illustration for it:

illustration for Good Ghoul Gone Bad

For his one I grabbed my kid's nerf gun and acted all badass to get some photo reference. Here's what that looks like:

chk chk ~ PEW PEW PEW!

Speaking of photo reference, here's a few that Annalisa Schaeffer took of me for her piece while at the Illustration Masters Class (here's her illustration in progress). I will always jump at the chance to put on leather gauntlets, grab a rapier, and dangle from a banister.

Thank you, D.B. Starler for writing an awesome story in which I got to play with nerf guns and draw tentacles, and thank you Annalisa Schaeffer for letting me get in touch with my inner fairy warrior.

Okay, enough about that. Back to work.

getting my hands dirty

Because we just got our assignments for the upcoming Illustration Masters Class.  And while I'll bring my laptop and tablet, I'm going to be spending the week getting my hands dirty with actual pigment suspended in liquid-y mediums (both of the aqueous and oil variety).

HOWEVER.... it's just for kicks.  Because seriously.

(no, I won't be mixing my own egg temepra paints)

Here's some sketchbook dabbling with paint, just working through brustrokes and glazes and color chart type stuff,  because it has been a long time. Thank you Bill Carmen and Rebecca Yanovskaya for being my reference imagery and inspiration.

pthalo blue, mars black, and yellow oxide study using Bill Carmen art as reference

cobalt blue and burnt umber study using Rebecca Yanovskaya's art as reference

divergent styles etc etc etc

Two entirely different illustrations I did last month for two entirely different clients.

1)  This piece for the hard sf story "Catch a Fallen Star" by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks for Fireside Fiction Magazine:

2) This piece to accompany an essay about theodicy, "Arrayed in Silence I gave Him Nothing" by Jacob Baker for Sunstone Magazine:

To me, it looks like to totally different artists did these two pieces. What does that say about me? I don't know and I'm putting that on a back shelf to think about some other time.

Now here's a few really inspiring things cool people have shared the past week or so:

~An artist and her 4 yr old collaborate on artwork together.
~(Which reminds me of when my kid and I did this kind of stuff together.)
~ Examples of some of the best street art of 2012.
~These parents convincing their kids that their toy dinosaurs come alive at night.
~Russian graffiti body artist, Znag, and his mind blowing tattoo work.

ROBOTS!!!

After you have gotten your fix of modern military science fiction, you really should go check out the quirkier side of kickstarter with HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!!  Based on the short story of the same name by Keffy R. M. Kehrli published at Lightspeed Magazine, that delicious little piece of fiction convinced editor John Joseph Adams that a whole anthology based on the concept of  improbable kickstarters needed to happen. After all the kickstarters I've been involved with... I CONCUR. 

My part in this is small, I just drew some robots. These ones:

illustration by galen dara for FUND MY ROBOT ARMY

A little something about me: I don't think I could draw a nice neat straight line to save my life. My robots tend to be loopy.  Here's some WIP sketches as I played with robots:

initial loopy-style robots

preliminary grouping for a robot army

eventually the grouping went this way, for simplicity and the ominous robot factor.

For more info about Help Fund HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY and for KITTIES!! watch the trailer:

 
(And to conclude, you really must keep the Women Destroy SF special issue of Lightspeed on your radar for next year)

expanding #sffwrtcht

Last night was #sffwrtcht and it was an awesome experience (here's the full transcript if you are interested).  Thank you so much Bryan for having me on!   There was more to say than I had time for, not to mention aspects that simply go beyond the 140char limit. This question in particular is one I keep thinking about:

.@galendara What advice can you give for other fan artists who’d like to move beyond fan spec work into professional sff art? #sffwrtcht
— SFF Writer Chat (@sffwrtcht) October 10, 2013

That's something I'm still working on myself, but I do have a some ideas based on things that have helped me to get where I am right now,  So grab some salt, here goes:

~Get involved in art events where you can interact with other artists: off the top of my head I'm thinking of such online events as 24 hr comic day, Inktober, 30 character challenge, recurring Art Order Challenges,  #draw365, and #DrinkandDraw but there are many other opportunities as well.

~Create new work on a regular basis and share it (on flickr, facebook, twitter, whatever is your preference.)

~Look into instructional opportunities like the Illustration Masters Class and SmART school. They are worth the money spent not just in terms of the knowledge and training you will receive but also in expanding your connections in the art world.

~Attend conventions, both art centered (like Spectrum and Illuxcon and Comic Con) as well as more writer oriented conventions such as Worldcon, World Fantasy Con, World Horror Con, etc.

~Get your work into the Art Shows at those conventions.

~Sign up for a booth at those conventions.

~Send work in for inclusion in art annuals (Spectrum 21 opens for submissions this month.)

So there you go, what I was not able to fit nicely into 140char last night during SFFWRTCHT last night

Oh, wait, one more thing. On the importance of connections (because many of my suggestions are about making connections). Bryan asked me what role connections played in my success, and this sums up exactly what has helped me get where I am now:

@BryanThomasS a writer friend mentioned to an editor friend that he had an artist friend if they wanted illustrations #sffwrtcht
— galendara (@galendara) October 10, 2013

That was my big break. Where it all began. I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for that initial connection.  (Thank you John!)

And now, because it's Inktober.. here, more stuff that crawled out of my pen the other day.

antlers and branches. sketch by galen dara

AFP tarot deck kickstarter

Guess What? The Amanda Palmer Tarot Deck I created art for four years ago (and then the project got shelved indefinitely)... It's BACK IN THE WORKS! A kickstarter to fund it launched last week and has already surpassed it's funding goal by double.


Keep in mind, the only way to obtain one of these decks is to make a pledge before the kickstarter ends on September 4th. 78 cards, each one created by a different artists, this deck is going to be amazing.  I am so thrilled to be a part of it.

A little background: I owe Amanda Palmer an enormous debt of gratitude for getting me back into art to begin with. It was 2009 and it had been years since I had painted anything when she shared a whole bunch of photos of herself nekkid for anyone to appropriate and interpret artistically as they pleased.  Crazy, right? But it happened to be the the jump start I needed. I picked up brush and paint and started working again.

When the idea for the Amanda Palmer tarot deck started floating around shortly afterwards I was all over it. I initially planned on doing the Three of Swords, but I had also just finished dying over her Who Killed Amanda Palmer Photographic Evidence collection and decided that the Ten of Swords, with it's over-the-top melodrama was just the thing for me. I went with a stabbed-in-the-back-AND-thrown-over-board-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean setting. Why?... Well, why not?

Valya wrote a beautiful post about just how perfect a tarot collaboration with Amanda Palmer is:

"For those unfamiliar with her work, Amanda’s songs, while fiercely intimate, are also iconic. She sings about abuse, addiction, abortion, heartache, love, abandon, regret, and hope; and her songs give voice to the dreams and fears of fans around the world. That would be enough to endear Amanda to her fans, but she takes it further to connect with them on a personal level at shows, ninja gigs, and online. Amanda opens herself up, and people often walk away saying that the experiences were intimate, inspirational, and transformative.
That is what the Amanda Palmer Tarot is about: Intimacy. Inspiration. Transformation." ~read more

And now, here's a few of my preliminary studies and work-in-progress shots for the AFP 10 of swords.

preliminary studies for the AFPtarot

studio shot of the painting in progress

another studio shot, painting in progress

final painting, 10 of Swords. AFP tarot.

(Makes me want to start painting again. Digital is awesome and perfect for what I do, but I miss getting my hands dirty.)

For more updates and info about the AFP tarot project check out their tumbler, twitter, and facebook page. 

getting over the bump.

so I have this serial story to illustrate, and I only have the first installment. I'm struggling to figure out what will be the *pivotal* image to pull out, to work with. But mostly, I'm just a tad dry, creatively speaking. So today, I found myself doing thumbnail after thumbnail and it wasn't even for the project any more, it was just because. And I was pulling up images I love from Scott Bakal and Yoshitaka Amano and doing thumnails based on some of their art work.  JUST BECAUSE.


and it felt great.

Tomorrow, I'll get back to work, the *real* work (see if I can make any headway on that serial.) But today, it felt good to just draw a bit. I do not do that nearly often enough.

(BTW... the moon was *epic* tonight.)

Thumbnails etc

Over at BookLifeNow I have a new post where I walk through creating the illustration for The Ballad of Marisol Brook. Go check it out! 

Since I'm making an effort to have thumbnail sketches be a pivotal part of my process, here's a few recent ones:

Definitely something I'm rusty at (and impatient with), but need to commit to do, even if it's just one or two per project. (Dan Dos Santos does a good break down of the thumbnail process.)

Now just for kicks... here are some notebooks and sketchbooks from famous authors, arists, and visionaries (because I love this kind of stuff, and I need to get back in the habit of sketchbooking/notebooking.)


Okay, back to work.

having it all. or not.

Yesterday I had a good conversation with a friend. About living the creative life, day job vs creative work, when creative work is your day job, time management, etc. What sparked the conversation was an Onion article; Find the Thing You Are Most Passionate About, Then Do It On Nights And Weekends For The Rest Of Your Life. The Onion did what it does best; using satire to push real buttons. This one pushed a lot of my buttons. (That's a good thing, regardless of your opinion about the article, having your buttons pushed is a good thing.)

This morning, Amy Sundberg wrote a post along the same theme. But not satire, simply real life situations and facts:  Nobody Can Have It All. An excerpt:

"It’s so much sexier to talk about priorities in terms of what you can accomplish with them, as opposed to what you have to give up. But the accomplishment and sacrifice come together... Priorities are set based on how much we want something, but they are also set based on what we’re willing to do without. You’re willing to not have much of a normal social life? Then you can be a concert pianist. You’re willing to not see your kids very often? Then you can be a high-powered CEO. Most of us don’t have choices that are quite as extreme, but the core principle remains the same." ~read more 

Finding what works. What you want. What you have control over. What you are willing (and able) to sacrifice.  Right now, in your current situation. (It's what I'm trying to do.)

Anyhow. Here are three random cool things that actually do relate to sacrifices and priorities, but mostly they made me tingle with delight just a bit. 

1) Onna-Bugeisha: Japan, 19th Century. “An onna-bugeisha (女武芸者) was a type of female warrior belonging to the Japanese upper class." (read more) 

3) Filipina actor, Marian Rivera as the Visayan warrior, Amaya welding her sword for justice. (read more) 

and 3) And the latest Star Trek trailer. (Evil evil Benedict Cumberbatch!)

pretty pinterest (plus viewer data algorthithms, plagiarism etc)

When buzz about pinterest first hit my ears it was in the form of housewives giddy over finding cool recipes, cleaning tips, crafty ideas, and exercise routines to obtain the perfect buttocks.  Not really my thing.

Then I got involved in the Geek Love anthology project and Shanna Germain invited me to begin pinning to the group boards there and Oh...! a whole new point to these pretty pins revealed itself. I joined up and jumped in and eventually began to make my own boards. (Shanna recently wrote here and here about creatives using pinterest for inspiration, collaboration, etc.) I used pinterest for collaboration again when I started work on the Glitter and Mayhem cover, Creating a joint pinterest board where John Kilma, Lynn Thomas and I could throw shiny stuff at each other as the anthology took shape.

Now let me combine that with something else that's in the back of my mind and I think it is connected: I'm thinking about the way we create. The rubbing of elbows, the sharing of ideas, the give and take (both with other artists as well as with our audiences.) We don't create in a vacuum and social media increases the white noise around your creation. I observe some illustrations I've done that I love with all my heart get very little response while others that I'm more ambivalent about get much more fanfare. It has me thinking of the way Netflix is using viewer data and algorithms to give viewers 'exactly what they want' and ereaders are tracking audience reading trends to 'help authors create even better books'. There's no judgement there, just something I think about. For someone trying to make a living at this, creating work that get's good public reactions is pretty important. On a slightly different track, here's a rather sobering and controversial foray into artistic plagiarism in the Heavy Metal art scene. Not sure how much that applies to the topic at hand, but it's on my mind quite a bit lately: I use inspiration and reference material from a wide assortment of places but want to make sure that the end creation is authentically mine and could never be accused of plagiarism.

Anyhow, back to pinterest. Yes, I do love it! All the pretty pretty things I can find there. Inspiration, new discoveries, other people's variations on similar ideas, a wider visual world all nice and neatly organized. (Sort of.) And yeah... I am even thinking of starting a board for recipies I want to try.

Meanwhile, here! Two things found just this morning on pinterest:

1) A new artist I am swooning over. Full Mano, embroiderer artist working in Paris. (More here.):

Embroidery altered photo by Full Mano

and 2) More delightful art from Ann Siems:

Messengers by Ann Siems.

Okay, that's all. Back to other stuff.

hobbies

A thought that's been growing lately... That I must give up my hobbies in order to become a 'real' artist.

It's an uncomfortable thought, I like the little things in my life to add diversity.  Running, biking, hiking, rock climbing. (I've really missed my speedbag, lately.) Curling up with a book to read, sitting down with a notebook to jot thoughts and ideas. I like to cook. And to plunk around on the guitar.

(All this plus the essentials of being a partner and a parent.)

In several conversations with fellow artists recently I've asked them what they do in their free time when they are not making art and overwhelmingly the response has been along the lines of 'oh, I had to give up hobbies when I started my art career.'

Recently a friend posted this, the writing rules of Henry Miller. Number 11 jumps out at me:

 "Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards."

(Of course, the other rules did allow for for friends, recommending against being a draught-horse.) 

Anyhow, just time-management and balance on my mind as it frequently is.

Meanwhile, here's an illustration I did for Abyssus Abyssum Invocate, written by Genevieve Valentine. 

new scanner, life drawings (NSFW) & sore leg sketches

Finally got a scanner with a bit more room to move around in. This one. With an 11x16-ish scanning surface.

So now when I break out the watercolors on the big pad of 14 x 17 inch paper, I CAN SCAN IT. Mostly.

Here's from a recent life drawing session.
(NSFW)
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marker, pen and watercolor on 14 x 17 inch paper

pen and watercolor on 14 x 17 inch paper

And also on just regular old 9 x 12 inch sketch paper, something the old scanner would have winced at.

ball point pen on 9 x 12 inch paper

Just for kicks, here's a few sketches doodled this weekend while driving home from a race in Southern Utah. I thumbed through a running magazine and drew from the photos in it's glossy pages, trying to take my mind off my sore legs.

micron pen over several pages of sketchbook

Excited to have a scanner again. Planning on using real drawing-on-paper stuff in some of my upcoming work. (Ooh, btw, have you seen this Wolverine movie poster?)

And, that's all. Just had to share.

Now for randomness... here's an open letter to a beloved busy person. It's a must read.

Cairn at Slater Woods.

One of the things I loved about the IMC was everyone working from the same handful of assignments.  Innumerable ways each could be interpreted, everyone bringing their own particular skill set and working method to the project. Several people working on the same story but with incredibly diverse outcomes.

The story that I picked, Our Human, was also tackled by quite a few very talented individuals at the IMC (like Nick Kay, for example) and was illustrated for TOR by John Jude Palencar.

One of the other assignments was The Cairn in Slater Woods. (A story involving a red-headed ghost, a cairn, and a forest with bottles hanging from trees.) Here is Marc Scheff's version, a work in progress look at Lauren K Cannon's interpretation,  Paige Carpenter's take on it, and also Mark Williams.

And here is the version that Irene Gallo commissioned Eric Fortune to do.

It got me thinking.  About finding "my ways" of doing things. "My Style."  Just something that's been on my mind a lot lately.  So, on a whim, I tried my own hand at Cairn in Slater Woods:

 

Not displeased with this first try. I may do another couple of versions. For diversity. for practice? I may try my hand at all of the other IMC assignments. For diversity. For practice. For portfolio building.

Just a thought.

(In my copious spare time, yah?)