Exhibition ideas

On the construction of a pantheon

Discuss how these were more then illustrations/how these were scenes from a known, overarching cultural narrative.


Humans make Pantheons.
These Pantheons are full of characters who are Human and yet More-Than-Human. 

Old gods had human shapes and human flaws and the power to literally shape the world.
Pop-culture establishes wide Pantheon-esque casts of super humans in super-human adventures who nevertheless have human flaws.
Occasionally this extends to figures extant in history, who are celebrated as heroic/larger-than-human for their achievements.

Modern Artists capitalize on this method of construction to
tell their own stories.

Pantheons cross media to tell their stories; Pantheons involve on characters with recognizable icongraphies; Artworks made involving a pantheon act as prompts to evoke the larger narrative that you already know (because it is culturally significant); Pantheons take root in the minds of their participants and change over time/across region/depending on who is telling the stories; There can be a personal component to Pantheon-ic stories (Personal beliefs/fandoms/the concept of “Headcanon")


start at xstian stuff: St Anthony's temptaiton by someone significant.
van eyck's enunciation. > Gabriel's excellent wings.
Deposition
-- Talk about earlier examples of this
Greek > ajax and achilles by exekias
Egyptian > narrative image of sekhmet possibly. gods were very human\
-- talk about modern examples.
superman and batman.
Moebius > batman image.
Moebius >
Jorg immendorf.
RAlph Steadman's Gonzo imagery
Ralph Steadman's Alice in Wonderland imagery
Alice in Wonderland original illustrations
-- Modern pantheon creation
Trenton Doyle Hancock
Moi!

Thinking prompt: the letter to myself;

This one was already written by one of my heroes, and is lamely short, but also everything I usually need summed up neatly in two words.

Don't Panic

in large friendly letters on the cover.

some studies

uploading these because the scanned versions make a big difference, since I used the ink that kind of lays on itself in layers like glass. The physical copies are dark.

edit later:
I'm not gonna lie, i totally only added these so i could link them on facebook

digital study: Pattern abckground

This time where the patterny-ness was combined with the splattery ink drawing.
the original coloration of the horse is much brighter; these are the versions which will be featured on my website. That said, now that all of the digital stuff is done, i'm going to get it printed, and the version I print will be the original brighter coloration. I didn't design this character though (nor do I own him), so I've replaced him with a generic individual.

My goal was to get the each pattern section to the same level i would do when drawing little derpy pictures of my characters/to get each pattern to be it's own coherant attractive-to-look-upon image. I still have a ways to go about that. possibly turning off the lineart layer will help...
more studies will happen this winter.

Digital Study

moving from the movie assignment-- filling in areas with pattern. Proof of concept.

There will be one more that's patterny like this.

Artist Research Short: John Howe

Another illustrator who became well-known for tolkein illustrations and has also worked on the A song of ice and fire series.
If he looks iconic and typical it's because he's one of the foundational artists in the world of sci-fi/fantasy. I remember these illustrations from when I was a wee nessbeast reading these books the first time.

interested in: coherant color in a landscape, technical skill, building landscapes, inserting fantasy individuals believably in their rolling panoramic landscapes which extend beyond the picture plane.

Artist Research Short: Ted Nasmith

An illustrator who has done some work for A song of ice and fire, and Tolkein works. Fairly traditionalist.
Would like to be able to build landscapes in some fashion like this, and also all of tehse are goauche on illustration board-- would like to figure out how the hell they end up looking like oil paintings in gouache.  Sam Lacombe says the secret is using really thirsty paper so perhaps the paper i've been using just isn't thick enough? Though I use rag paper, which is so absorbant most watercolorists eschew it passionately, so i don't know.

http://www.tednasmith.com/