David Chelsea's Blog, page 45

Camera Lucida: It's Not Just For Nudes Anymore.

This weekend is the opening of Oakwood Gardens in Hillsboro, Oregon. I quote from the opening invitation by owners Mike & Julie Safley:

Camera Lucida

David Chelsea is reading

"Paying For It"

by Chester Brown

"One by one, our four children flew the nest and left for college. With our home feeling empty, and wanting to see more beautiful things grow and flourish, we decided to create a small garden to surround and enclose our home at Northwest Alpacas.

To educate ourselves for the project ahead, we enrolled in the Master Gardener Program through the Oregon State University Extension Service and joined the Oregon chapters of the Hardy Plant Society and the Native Plant Society. We pored over the pages of more than one hundred gardening books and toured dozens of gardens in the United States, Canada and Europe.

We sought the guidance of garden designers Lucy Hardiman of Perennial Partners and Laura Crockett of Garden Diva Designs to help bring our vision to life and together we became a collaborative team. We started by clearing several miles of Himalayan blackberries along the creek and river. After five years of hard work and planting thousands of shrubs, bulbs and trees, we created Oakwood Gardens, named after the majestic 300-year-old oak tree on our property.

Stipple drawing for notecard

The small garden of our original dream has evolved into ten acres of delight to share with friends. Our grounds have an Old-World ambiance and feature a walled white garden with a pergola, a garden house, and a potager surrounded by a cottage garden. The formal beds around the house culminate at a three-tiered koi and water lily pool. Across the nature pond in the larger landscape you will find a picturesque waterfall. Take a walk over the bridge to the sanctuary garden and reflecting pool; then stroll down the path to the Amish wedding gazebo nestled in the woodland.

We are dedicated to the ongoing restoration of the creek and the Tualatin River frontage that runs on the edge of our property. We hope you will join us for our opening and we extend an open invitation to your friends who enjoy gardens.

Mike & Julie Safley"

Julie is a fan of my decorated envelopes and commissioned me to create twenty watercolor botanical illustrations on envelopes for the Hardy Plant Society, to be sold at auction to benefit the Oregon Chapter. Unlike the envelopes I have blogged about previously, these do not have addresses and stamps already on them; these are blank and can be addressed to whomever the lucky winner chooses, or to no one at all. Each comes with a matching note card decorated with a small stippled illustration in ink.

All of the pieces were drawn from life. I created the art using a camera lucida, a 19th Century optical device I usually employ for nude drawings (click here for my blog post about camera lucida nudes). I've added scans of a few of the pieces to an album of camera lucida drawings at Comics Lifestyle, starting here.

Eve and I are planning to attend the event, so if the timing is right, you could have a chance to Meet The Artist.

Oakwood Gardens Opening

June 25 & June 26, 2011

1:30 to 5:30 pm

11785 Southwest River Road,

Hillsboro, Oregon 97123

Email: info@oakwood-gardens.com

Website: www.oakwood-gardens.com

Dark Horse Presents #2

2 frames from Snow Angel

It is Wednesday, June 22, and time for you to trot, gallop or canter down to your local comics shop to pick up a copy of Dark Horse Presents #2, the comics anthology which contains the second installment of my serial "Snow Angel" as well as the following features…

Sanford Greene and Chuck Brown: "Rotten Apple" Part 1

Robert Love and David Walker: "Number 13″ Chapter 1

Neal Adams: "Blood" Part 2

Howard Chaykin: "Marked Man" Part 2

Paul Chadwick: "Concrete: In a Wound in the Earth"

Carla Speed McNeil: "Finder: Third World" Part 2

Richard Corben: "Murky World" Part 2

Michael T. Gilbert: "Mr. Monster vs. Oooak!" Part 2

Patrick Alexander: "The Wraith"

David Chelsea is listening to:

I Think I Love You

by Allison Pearson

A digital version will be available next month. You can download the digital version of issue #1 here.

The art for Snow Angel was colored using a combination of watercolor and Copic airbrush. Rather than using plastic frisket, I cut masks using yellow Post-it Notes.

The final installment of "Snow Angel" will appear in Dark Horse #3 this August.

airbrushed panel with Post-it Note frisket

Finished panel

Pushing The Envelope One-shots

I have been scanning a lot of decorated envelopes sent to me by longtime correspondents like Geoff Seaman, Amy Schoppert, Elsa Warnick and Steven Abrams, but I have also heard from some people to whom I only wrote for a short time who have saved their one example for years.

David Chelsea is listening to:

"Started Early, Took My Dog"

by Kate Atkinson

Dreaming of Chaz

Chaz Weigler is a friend from high school days who worked for a while at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut (which gave me a chance to caricature the famously brooding playwright as "Gloomy Gus"). Chaz later changed his name to Will Weigler and wrote the book Strategies for Playbuilding: Helping Groups Translate Issues into Theatre. While still Chaz, he found his way into a dream which I wrote down in a diary and later made into part of the 24 Hour comic "Everybody Gets It Wrong!", (which is half of the Top Shelf booklet 24X2).

I never met Jeremy Pinkham; he was an editor at Fantagraphics's porn imprint Eros Comics when I was pitching them some proposals. I guess Jeremy shared my enthusiasm for 60s singer-songwriter Laura Nyro, whose portrait appears on the front of the envelope; the nudity collage on the back is obviously a demonstration of my porn chops (nothing came of the Eros proposals- they wouldn't meet my price).

Anne Clark is an old girlfriend who probably counts herself fortunate that I never put her in a comic strip. Anne didn't send me this envelope; instead it turned up in one of my files (BTW, Anne is "Clark Jr." because her father owned a clothing store called Clark Junior).

Letters To Steve

Another of my far-flung correspondents has sent me a batch of decorated envelopes. I met Steven Abrams when he was an intern at my first publisher, Eclipse Comics. Later Steve was my assistant on Welcome To the Zone, and now he works for the Jimmy Kimmel Live show in Los Angeles.

Steven Abrams with other Jimmy Kimmel staffers

David Chelsea is reading

"The Book Of Dreams"

by Federico Fellini

Unlike the letters to Geoff and Amy, which go all the way back to the 70s, these are all recent, as can be seen from the Liberty Bell "forever" stamps. Many of them are drawn over the computer-generated perspective grids included in my new book Extreme Perspective!

There are a fair number of nudes, tasteful and not, included in the selection. The reclining nude is a colored version of this camera lucida drawing (click here for my blog post about the camera lucida). The bondage-themed nude is a frame from my upcoming comic The Girl With The Keyhole Eyes.

Steve is an artist himself, and every once in a while he reciprocates by sending a decorated envelope of his own:

Passing The Word Along

David Chelsea is watching:

Ponyo

Fom the Dark Horse Blog:

DARK HORSE PRESENTS COMING TO THE DH DIGITAL STORE

Continuing a week of announcements regarding the future of Dark Horse's flagship title, we are proud to announce that Dark Horse Presents #1 will be available digitally on June 15 at Digital.DarkHorse.com!

Subsequent issues will be available digitally approximately one month after release in comic shops, for $3.99 an issue.

This inaugural issue contains all-new stories from Paul Chadwick's Concrete, Carla Speed McNeil's Finder, and Michael T. Gilbert's Mr. Monster, as well as new material from Richard Corben, Howard Chaykin, and David Chelsea.

"Dark Horse Presents launched our company twenty-five years ago," said president and publisher Mike Richardson. "As we move into the digital age, it only seems fitting that DHP have a prominent place in this new frontier. We are excited to share these stories with a whole new kind of comics fan, in a totally new format."

Head over to Digital.DarkHorse.com now to download hundreds of your favorite Dark Horse titles!

The Girl With The Keyhole Eyes: The Last Preview

Here are some frames from The Girl With The Keyhole Eyes, a three-part comics story for Dark Horse Presents. I just finished the last pages and sent them to the editors yesterday, and the first part should appear in the fall.

David Chelsea drives:

A Toyota Prius

The second installment of Snow Angel, my first story for DHP,  will be in the June issue.

Irvington Houses

The Historic Irvington Home Tour is this coming Sunday, so I have posted an album of drawings from the years when I used to illustrate the tour booklet. Since the drawings are all in black and white, it is impossible to know for sure what color the houses were painted, but I like to think they are all either minty green or pink.

David Chelsea is watching:

Troll 2

The 29th Annual Historic Irvington Home Tour

Sunday, May 15, 2011: Tickets On Sale Now

The Critics Rave On!

More kind words for Snow Angel, my story in the first issue of the anthology Dark Horse Presents:

David Chelsea is reading:

Herbie Archives Volume 3

by Shane O'Shea





The book's best installment is David Chelsea's "Snow Angel," an adorable watercolor story about a young girl who turns into a superpowered hero when she makes snow angels. Part Sam Kieth, part Charles Schulz.

-Oliver Sava, The Onion A.V. Club

I think my favorite piece in the book is "Snow Angel" by David Chelsea. It's a charmingly innocent story about imagination, and his art — which reminds me of the styles of Renee French and Richard Corben — is unconventional but attractive.

-Don MacPherson, Eye On Comics

The volume finishes with this delightful story that starts with kids having fun

in the snow. The art is basic and colored very well. The turn of the plot occurs

as one kid somehow detects a bicycle being stolen and she flops on the ground to

make a snow angel. To our surprise an angel-like being rises into the air and

takes after the thief. Yes this is a new kind of super hero and frankly

something I think is unique. I hope to see more of this character as I enjoyed such

a change from the usual hero fare.

-David LeBlanc, My View

Snow Angel is totally out of place with all the action/adventure stories, but is charming nonetheless. Chelsea's art style is simple and lacks backgrounds in almost all the panels, but is infected with joy and a child-like glee that you can't help but smile a little at the series protagonist, Snow Angel, and her little missions of goodness and terror.

-Martin John, Geekyreviews

David Chelsea's "Snow Angel" is probably the most memorable contribution; it's a largely silent, brightly coloured piece about a girl who literally turns into a snow angel, and it hovers somewhere in a grey area between dreamily peaceful and gentle superhero pastiche.

-Paul O'Brien, House To Astonish

Y un escalón por debajo, el Snow Angel de David Chelsea con tonos autobiográficos que no prescinden de lo fantástico.

Sonaste Maneco, La Bitacora De Maneco

Snow Angel, de David Chelsea, parece tener los elementos suficientes como para convertirse en un comic atractivo para todas las edades. Lamentablemente ese es un mercado cada vez más reducido en el medio, pero creo que habrá que estar pendientes del desarrollo de la historia y de su creador.

-Alberto Calvo, Comic Verso

Snow Angel by David Chelsea: This closes out the book, and it's a family-friendly story about a girl who can turn into a sort of superheroic angel when she makes a snow angel on the ground. Kind of a strange yet cute idea. It also stood out from the rest of the pack because it was told using very few words.

-Christopher Larochelle, It Came From The Bookshelf

Definitely the most original story in the book. It was very good, after reading it you want to know more about the lead character (which I consider a very good sign)

-malloc, iFanboy

Previous kind words about Snow Angel.

That's enough for now. The second installment of Snow Angel will appear in Dark Horse Presents #2 in June.

Prospettiva! Parte Due

Here are some frames scanned from the copy which arrived last week of Prospettiva! Per Disegnatori Di Fumetti, the Italian edition of Perspective! For Comic Book Artists, published by Vittorio Pavesio Productions in Turin. The little Italian I remember is insufficient for me to fully savor the translation, but it is a big thrill to know that my book will be available in the country where perspective was discovered (and I will definitely look for it in the shops when the family visits Florence and Venice this summer). A big thank you to translator and Facebookfriend Gianni Castagnetta, who let me know early on that this project was in the works (ordinarily I don't find out about foreign editions until after the fact- sometimes not for years).

David Chelsea is listening to:

Easy Beatles (Various Artists)

I must grudgingly acknowledge that I have not enough Italian to translate this back into English.

For those keeping count, this book is now available in English, French, Japanese, Italian and (I think) Korean. So far, Extreme Perspective! is available only in English, but I have my fingers crossed.

Letters To Elsa

Here are some decorated envelopes sent to my friend, the illustrator Elsa Warnick, in the early 90s when I was living in New York and she was in Portland.

Illustration by Elsa Warnick

David Chelsea is reading:

"King of the Flies: Hallorave (Vol. 1) "

by Pirus and Mezzo

I brought reprints of a couple of these envelopes to Stumptown Comics Fest last month. The romanesco broccoli image sold very well; the scary clown jack-in the box did not.

Sometimes when I am deep in work I will kill two birds with one stone by sketching something from my current project on an envelope. The mushroom-headed fellow is Shroom, a character from my graphic novel Welcome to the Zone. Similarly, the line of nude figures are characters are from a never-completed graphic novel about an underground theater in the 1970s. This was an early attempt at figure drawing in isometric projection, a process I explain in my new book Extreme Perspective! For Artists: Learn the Secrets of Curvilinear, Cylindrical, Fisheye, Isometric, and Other Amazing Systems that Will Make Your Drawings Pop Off the Page (Book & DVD) (See all Comic Strips).