David Chelsea's Blog, page 47

Portland Pink

Today the cherry blossoms are out at my house, and it seems an appropriate moment to share the fruits of my latest side project. Regular readers will remember my series of minty green house photographs posted daily on Facebook. I wound up that project last November after posting one hundred images, but I didn't stop taking pictures of houses. Instead I began began looking for houses of a different color at the request of my cousin Sophia Sherman, who lives in Washington DC and who really has a thing for pink.

David Chelsea is watching:

"Big Love- The Complete Fourth Season"

Pink houses are not as easy to find in Portland as minty green, but through diligently combing the side streets I have managed to photograph fifty or so, posting the images to Sophia's Facebook page as I find them. l have just posted ten of my favorites to Flickr, starting here.

Naturally in the course of looking for pink houses I also run across a lot of minty green houses, and sometimes I can't resist photographing a particularly good example:

Cousin Sophia plans to visit Portland next week, and I expect we'll find time go out looking for pink houses together.

Want more? Here's a recent New York Times article on pink buildings in New York City.

Stumptown Preview #1: Perspective Grids

The Stumptown Comics Festival approaches. This year's event will be held at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland on April 16th and 17th. As usual I will be attending, signing books and selling artwork at my own table, but this year I will also be doing a presentation, a demonstration of drawing in perspective using the pre-existing grids from the DVD which comes with my new book Extreme Perspective!

David Chelsea is listening to: "Packing For Mars" by Mary Roach

The presentation will include a slide show of sketches drawn over grids- a number of them done during down time at previous Stumptowns.

Grid Disc

Perspective Grid

Here are links to some speeded-up videos that show the process:

Perspective Grid Speed Drawing Demonstration

Cylindrical perspective grid speed drawing demonstration

Fisheye perspective grid speed drawing demonstration

Extreme Perspective! Slide Show and Drawing Demonstration

Saturday April 16th 2:00-2:45pm Room A104

8th Annual Stumptown Comics Fest

April 16 & 17, 2011 • Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR

Tickets are available now through TicketsWest Online and at participating TicketsWest retailers!

A Model Family 3

Illustration from the New York Observer, late 90s

Here is a late addition to my series of posts about illustrations featuring my family as models- this one has Eve keeping a close eye on baby Ben (who is now fourteen and taller than me). After so many years it is impossible to remember what the story was about, but my guess is it has something to do with cognitive development.

David Chelsea is listening to: "The Point" by Harry Nilsson

The Three Phases Of The Girl With The Keyhole Eyes

Line Drawing

David Chelsea is watching:

Here is a glimpse of my working method on The Girl With The Keyhole Eyes, a comics story which will be serialized later this year in Dark Horse Presents. I begin with a line drawing in ink, then scan that and save it to my computer. I print out a version of that drawing in pale color (in this case, green) onto a sheet of watercolor paper and paint over that. When the color painting is done, I scan it and then paste the line image as a top layer in Photoshop, moving tiny bits of both layers around so that they align perfectly. Once I'm satisfied, I flatten layers and save the frame as final art.

Watercolor Painting (note register marks)

Final Art

Perspective Police!: The Defense

Joost Swarte comic from The New Yorker

David Chelsea is reading: Spark: How Creativity Works by Julie Burstein



Kim Thompson of Seattle, Washington comes to the defense of Joost Swarte, whom I took to task in my last blog post for his inconsistent use of horizontal oblique projection in a recent New Yorker piece:

Ah… but the million dollar question is, if you integrate the "fixed" panel into the ENTIRE PAGE, does it work as well?

Try posting the whole page with your "fixed" panel in it and I think you'll find that your "mistake" is a narrative necessity to keep the space visually coherent and graspable from panel to panel, and full adherence flattens it out too much and disrupts the narrative. (Each panel needs SOME signifier of "depth.") Besides, aren't both isometric and horizontal-oblique inherently irrational enough (neither is what the human eye sees) that the added irrationality of the perspective floor and bottom of the lamp become moot? Maybe you aren't seeing the forest for the trees — or the ground below the trees that comprises the forest because you're looking at it from a horizontal-oblique perspective.

–Kim Thompson

Original panel

Kim,

That is a valid aesthetic defense, but my problem with aesthetic arguments is that they are cultural constructs subject to the winds of fashion, whereas the rules of perspective- and of variants like horizontal oblique projection- derive from the geometry of vision, which is fixed and immutable. That each panel needs SOME signifier of "depth" may be valid today, but a newfangled style of deliberate flatness could come along tomorrow to toss that aesthetic rule in the waste basket.

Cheers,

David Chelsea.

My corrected version

A valid rebuttal, sir. And there are of course many cartoonists who DO embrace that flatness. The problem in this strip, of course, is that setting aside the last panel the four other panels do contain depth and the variation in POV itself is visually disruptive enough that an additional violation of the reader's sense of space might cause the whole strip to fall apart.

Best,

–k.t.

Well, let's try the full strip with the new panel:

Got an example of iffy perspective to show? Be a whistleblower! Send an e-mail to me at davidchelsea(at)comcast(dot)net and include Perspective Police! in the subject line.

Perspective Police!

Happy April Fool's Day! No fooling, today I'm starting a new feature on this blog, where I use my expertise (as demonstrated in my two books Perspective! and Extreme Perspective!) to demonstrate the lapses, inconsistencies and violations of Perspective Law in my fellow artist's technique. Call it "Perspective Police!"

David Chelsea is listening to: Ben Folds Presents: University a Cappella!





My first example is a strip from a recent issue of the New Yorker by internationally renowned Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte. Strictly speaking, this piece has no perspective in it at all. As I pointed out in a recent blog post, Swarte likes to use isometric construction as an alternative to perspective, which he does (flawlessly) in four out of six panels in this strip. But in the fourth panel he varies the pattern by switching to an another parallel drawing style known horizontal oblique projection, which is defined as a view from an infinite distance of an object or scene which has been rotated horizontally but not tilted. In such a view, all surfaces parallel to the ground are seen edge-on and are therefore invisible (An equivalent method called vertical oblique projection is simply the same construction turned on its side).

Cube in horizontal oblique projection

Architectural drawing in horizontal oblique.

The rules of horizontal oblique projection require Swarte not to show the tops of tables and chairs or the floor, and to place any objects resting on the floor- including the feet of both characters- on the bottom line. Swarte follows the rule regarding the tables and chairs, but can't quite bring himself to leave out the floor, and he sets the objects resting on it at a number of levels (also, unless the lampshade is tilted, we really shouldn't see the underside of it).

Original frame by Joost Swarte

A case can be made that leaving out the floor would make for too crowded-looking a space; but I don't think that bringing the drawing in line with correct construction, as I have done in my reworked version, destroys its quality at all.

Frame Corrected

In other paraline drawing news, my fellow Portlander Adrian Wallace opens the latest installment of his webcomic  Jumbo deLuxe with an isometric panel, and gives my website and new book a shout-out as well. l can only return the compliment.

Panel from Jumbo DeLuxe by Adrian Wallace

Got an example of iffy perspective to show? Be a whistleblower! Send an e-mail to me at davidchelsea(at)comcast(dot)net and include Perspective Police! in the subject line.

Return To The Chronic Rift

I once observed that the World Wide Web is like the second coming of Public Access Cable; in the case of a program called The Chronic Rift, this is literally true. This talk and interview show about science fiction, fantasy and comics began on public access TV in Manhattan in the 1990s, ended after a few years and then was revived recently as an audio-only podcast.

David Chelsea is listening to: "Kind Of Blue" by Miles Davis.

l myself was a viewer during its public access days and even sent fan mail; reproduced above is an envelope depicting hosts Keith R. A. DeCandido and Andrea Lipinski (I also sent caricatures of them in the style of HATE cartoonist Pete Bagge; both drawings appear on the Chronic Rift website) Later l appeared on the program myself to promote my first graphic novel David Chelsea In Love and also as a presenter on their annual awards show.

Keith and Andrea à la Bagge

Keith and Andrea host the current podcast incarnation along with regulars from the TV show such as Judith Furnari, John S. Drew and Orenthal Hawkins. Andrea interviewed me again for the podcast recently. Our talk was mostly about my new book Extreme Perspective!, but also touches on the old days in New York, Portland radio station KBOO, the 24 Hour Comics I've drawn, the deaths of digital puppets in animated movies like Mary And Max and How To Train Your Dragon, and two comics stories I have been working on for Dark Horse Presents, Snow Angel and The Girl With The Keyhole Eyes. You can listen to or download the audio file here.

One last artifact from the old days: a postcard sent out to friends advertising my interview which alludes to one inconvenience of public access- local cable companies could not always be relied on to play programs when they were scheduled. Fortunately this new interview is downloadable and can be played any time. The Chronic Rift crew is also making the old cable shows available in streaming video on a twenty year anniversary schedule. My first appearance was in early 1992, so that program will be available some time next year.

The Chronic Rift

I once observed that the World Wide Web is like the second coming of Public Access Cable; in the case of a program called The Chronic Rift, this is literally true. This talk and interview show about science fiction, fantasy and comics began on public access TV in Manhattan in the 1990s, ended after a few years and then was revived recently as an audio-only podcast.

David Chelsea is listening to: "Kind Of Blue" by Miles Davis.

l myself was a viewer during its public access days and even sent fan mail; reproduced above is an envelope depicting hosts Keith R. A. DeCandido and Andrea Lipinski (I also sent caricatures of them in the style of HATE cartoonist Pete Bagge; both drawings appear on the Chronic Rift website) Later l appeared on the program myself to promote my first graphic novel David Chelsea In Love and also as a presenter on their annual awards show.

Keith and Andrea à la Bagge

Keith and Andrea host the current podcast incarnation along with regulars from the TV show such as Judith Furnari, John S. Drew and Orenthal Hawkins. Andrea interviewed me again for the podcast recently. Our talk was mostly about my new book Extreme Perspective!, but also touches on the old days in New York, Portland radio station KBOO, the 24 Hour Comics I've drawn, the deaths of digital puppets in animated movies like Mary And Max and How To Train Your Dragon, and two comics stories I have been working on for Dark Horse Presents, Snow Angel and The Girl With The Keyhole Eyes. You can listen to or download the audio file here.

One last artifact from the old days: a postcard sent out to friends advertising my interview which alludes to one inconvenience of public access- local cable companies could not always be relied on to play programs when they were scheduled. Fortunately this new interview is downloadable and can be played any time. The Chronic Rift crew is also making the old cable shows available in streaming video on a twenty year anniversary schedule. My first appearance was in early 1992, so that program will be available some time next year.

Amazon.com joins Team Chelsea

Having a website of my very own has been fun so far, but it is time I put it to work. My friend Tyler Morrison told me that his software site brings in considerable revenue through Amazon Associates, a program that pays him a percentage of sales (between 4 and 15% depending on category) that result from links from his site to Amazon.com, and I have decided to follow suit. This move is long overdue, since I have already been providing links to Amazon for years free of charge.



First up, here are links to my new book Extreme Perspective! and its predecessor Perspective!. I get royalties from Amazon sales already (though less than from copies sold in bookstores), but more wouldn't hurt.

My two graphic novels, David Chelsea In Love and Welcome To The Zone, are both out of print but still available in used or remaindered copies on Amazon. Jeff Bezos makes money from these transactions- why not me?

Likewise for the many anthologies for which I drew short comics pieces. Since all of these books were either for charity, projects which paid a straight fee, or low-selling independent titles, l have not earned royalties from most of them- until now!

lt is not just my own books that can earn me $$ through Amazon Associates. Might I recommend some books that I have read recently, or am currently reading? Adrian Tomine's graphic novel about planning his wedding is a fun, quick read. Posy Simmonds's comics remake of Madame Bovary is more substantial. I very much enjoyed What I Loved, a novel by Siri Hustvedt about the loose lives of New York bohemians, and Game Change, a behind-the-scenes look at the last Presidential election (soon to be a movie with Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin). Right now I'm reading The Canfield Decision, a 1976 political thriller by former Vice-President Spiro Agnew (did I mention I like political books?) I work a lot to audiobooks; the one I'm currently listening to is Globish by Robert McCrum and I plan to follow it with Barack Obama's memoir Dreams From My Father.

Amazon also sells CDs. The one I woke my family with this morning was Ingrid Michaelson's Be OK. What's in the CD drive in the Prius? XO by Elliott Smith, one disc from a Greatet Hits Collection by Yorkshire comedian and ukulele wizard George Formby, Phoebe Snow's first record, a disc from the Have A Nice Day Rhino series, and disc three of ELO Flashback.

Here's what my family has out from Netflix right now: A Beautiful Mind, Season Four of Big Love, and Season Seven of Curb Your Enthusiasm. We have also been watching Series Four of Doctor Who (the one with David Tennant and Catherine Tate) on Netflix streaming and a library copy of Wonderfalls, a charming but short-lived TV series about a possibly insane woman who hears the animal figurines she sells at the gift shop at Niagra Falls talking to her. One viewing is enough for my family for most of these, but I think you'll want to own all of them on DVD.

I have only scratched the surface of what Amazon sells. How about board games? Since it rained at the beach last week, we spent a lot of time indoors playing Settlers Of Catan….

Lastly, I give props to my siblings. My sister Anny's CD Tangle-Free World has some catchy tunes and a fine watercolor cover by yours truly. My other sister Teresa's picture book The Fourth Little Pig has an empowering message for little girl expressed in faultless rhymed tetrameter.

Even if you decide not to take my recommendations, you might consider making dchelsea.com your permanent Amazon portal. The beauty part of Amazon Associates is that I get the kickback from whatever you buy on Amazon from printer ink to major electronics provided you get there first by clicking a link on my site. All monies collected go into the family budget, otherwise known as The Feed And Clothe Ben And Rebecca Fund.

RIP, Geraldine Ferraro

Caricature from The New York Observer, 1990s

Caricature from The New York Observer, 1990s

And Elizabeth Taylor:

Sketchbook drawing, 1980s