Considering Illustration And Looking At How Things Have Changed
I am making the decision to get back to illustration. It has been over 20 years and things have changed.
As I think about illustrating I wonder do I have a style? If so, has my style changed over 20 years. Do the materials that are available to me today, for example, the 3d design programs like Mudbox or Zbrush or programs like Illustrator and Photoshop change the way I create?
I thought I would first take a look at some of the illustrators that I admire or illustrations that I am attracted to.
Franklin Booth (1874-1948) Is one of those celebrated artists
Research
Researching illustration today is much easier than it was 20 years ago. You simply do an Internet search and have tons of reference. While looking at illustration I stumbled upon a wonderful article by Paul Giambarba about the American Illustrators commemorative postage stamps. There are many links in the article and researching the work of these great illustrators can take some time.
I had wanted to work on some pen and ink, though I vacillate between incredibly detailed like Booths work and very simplistic. I am finding inspiration by the reviewing of these legends.
Coles Phillips (1880-1927)
I did like the work of Coles Philip especially that the clothes faded into the background or “fade-away girls” and wondered if I could copy this style or have Phillips style influence me on an illustration I am working on called “Make it better.”
Howard Pyle 1853-1911 is featured as the father of American Illustration. The work is good, but not one that I am drawn to. However, the depth created by the varnishing techniques of Maxfield Parish 1870-1966 has always captivated me. I can’t help but wonder, can you get this depth of field look, created with varnish using digital technology?
It was wonderful to see women artists featured on this list of stamps. Rose O’Neill (1874-1944). Though the style of O’Neill’s work doesn’t hold a personal attraction to me I am drawn to her because of her Kewpie dolls. They are a part of my childhood.
As an aspiring illustrator for my own children’s books it is interesting to read the history and styles of these illustrators. Arthur Burden Frost (1851-1928) illustrated over 90 books. I admire him for his accomplishments. A good watercolor will always get my attention.
Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935) I’m always drawn to the emotional aspect of art
I have always delighted in the artistry of Jessie Wilcox Smith. She has mastered the artistry of capturing the essence of childhood or the wonders of emotional interaction.
I have loved Normal Rockwell as long as I have loved art. (1889-1958)
Others featured in the stamp collection and in the article are:
Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911)
Frederic Remington (1861-1909)
Rockwell Kent (1882-1971)
Newell Convers Wyeth (1882-1945)
John Held, Jr. (1889-1958)
James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960)
Robert Fawcett 1903-1967)
Al Parker (1906-1985)
Harvey Dunn (1884-1952)
Jon Whitcomb (1906-1988)
Nora McMein (1888-1949)
Dean Cornwell (1892-1960)
Sculptor, Writer and Speaker
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer, illustrator and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/bridgette.mongeon
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
Listen to the Art and Technology Podcast
Visiting Richard Hathaway In Very Deep Snow
Each time I come up to my graduate residency at Goddard College in Plainfield Vermont I stop by Montpelier to say hello to the Richard Hathaway sculpture. This was the first time there was so much snow. We had to crawl to Richard and when we did Roxi was afraid she would fall in the snow. It was a humorous visit. Each of us took turns taking pictures of the group. I left a snowball, though really wished I could have brought Dick a scarf.
Goddard college each residency to visit.
Very Excited About New Marketing Brochure
We have been working diligently on a couple of different marketing plans and target markets. The first is a brochure that is going out to architects, landscape Architects, Interior Designers, and Landscape Designers.
I’m thrilled because it introduced our new digital sculpting services.
This is a tri fold brochure.It has been created by the new intern, Tiffany Post Actually she is not my intern she belongs to my husband’s company, MD Communications next door, but she has been on loan to me for the last couple of weeks. Tiffany is graduating from The Art Institute of Houston. She hopes to get a job in design. I am sure she would be open to freelance work if anyone needs anything, and at a good price. Great way for her to build a portfolio.
It can be a self mailer,
but who could put a label over that lion.
I really like the way the back came out.
Good thing the cards come with envelopes.
The printer we are using on this job was recommended by designer and photographer Christian Sizemore. She also does freelance work. WHCC has reasonable prices and does some nice work.
I would love to hear what others think about the brochure. Will be sent to printer next week.
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Sculptor, Writer and Speaker
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/bridgette.mongeon
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
Listen to the Art and Technology Podcast
Molecular Animation?
Art and Science are being merged in many different ways. It was not long ago that I interviewed Oron Catts from The University of Western Australia. In an online podcast. we talked about how they are combining artists and scientists in a collaborative research laboratory.
The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) began to see the importance of this marriage of art and science as they presented the exhibit Design and the Elastic Mind.
As their website states, “Design and the Elastic Mind explores the reciprocal relationship between science and design in the contemporary world by bringing together design objects and concepts that marry the most advanced scientific research with attentive consideration of human limitations, habits, and aspirations. The exhibition highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use. This Web site presents over three hundred of these works, including fifty projects that are not featured in the gallery exhibition.”
And now biologist are working with animation to create what is known as a new field of molecular animation. As expressed in this new York Times article, Where Cineman and Biology Meet
Inside the New World of Molecular Animation
Now, wouldn’t it be fascinating if Harvard developed a program that would combine animators with biologists as The University of Western Australia has done with science and artists? Some biologists, like Dr. Iwasa, with a grant from the National Science Foundation, traveled to California to learn animation along side those hoping to enter Pixologic. Dr. Iwasa wanted the knowledge of the animation tools to depict biological information not to animate Woody!
My intrigue with this meeting of science and animation stems from my husband Mike delaflor, a medical illustrator. Mike’s desire is to make science more accessible and understandable. He is thrilled about the idea of this new field and would like to be a part of it.
I think it’s a gold rush right now. Because a lot of the things that we have shown, have never been shown.
Robert Lue, Ph.D. Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology Harvard University.
The posted movie “The Animators of Life” talk about this new and enticing field. We will be watching closely. So Harvard, open this relationship further and encourage this marriage of animators and biologists as The University of Australia did with science and art. By the way, bring on medical Illustrator Mike de la Flor.
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-Sculptor, Writer and Speaker
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/bridgette.mongeon
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
Listen to the Art and Technology Podcast
How Did You Do That?
magazine. PICTURE 2 zsphere armature to
build on. PICTURE 3 Zsketch armature.
Picture 3 Skin to sculpt on.
- I found some architectural reference for this piece and scanned it into my computer.
- Created a Zbrush armature using Zspheres
- Drew on the Zshperes with Zsketch. I really like this feature of Zbrush 4 for the Mac
- The skin of the piece is created from the Zsketch. This makes it easier for me to sculpt on.
- The final sculpture is shown in two ways. The one with the black background is the final version
- The final version with the white background is using something called Best Preview Render.
I am a perpetual teacher. I love to share. So here is information and some screen shots on the scroll. It is created in Zbrush4.
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-Sculptor, Writer and Speaker
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/bridgette.mongeon
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
Listen to the Art and Technology Podcast
Wow, It Is Like Having An Entirely New Art Tool That Makes My Work Look Spectacular!
I have been learning Zbrush4 for a while now. Though there is so much to learn. I have to admit, I can’t spend nearly as much time with it as I like. Zbrush 4 has something called Best Preview Render. For those of you interested in checking it out there is a link to the pixologic site that shows the details.
I still must study all of the bells and whistles of this feature of Zbrush, however, I must say I am thrilled with just my few tries of this feature. For example, I am including two screen shots in this blog post. One with the render, one without. World of difference. The feature, makes me want to create. It is like pressing a button and someone coming in and making your work look great.
Now back to playing.. uhmm I mean working.
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-Sculptor, Writer and Speaker
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/bridgette.mongeon
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
Listen to the Art and Technology Podcast
Come On Facebook- Get It Together —”We Couldn’t Find a Feed Using The URL You Provide”
Perhaps you are also frustrated trying to get your blog feed to go to your personal or fans page. Are you continuing to get the response that I am? “We couldn’t find a feed using the URL you provide”
Well I had that problem with this blog feeding into my personal page and found a suggestion on the internet that helped. It said to go to your Word Press blog and reduce the amount of entries that the RSS feed will send. Reduce it to one if you have to. I only had to reduce mine to 3 and then Facebook started to import this blog. If this works for you…. KEEP AN EYE ON THINGS. I have heard it can drop you just as quickly. I would like to say that this work around has worked for the God’s Word Collectibles page on Facebook. This is an important page in that all of our podcasts are sent there. However, I have to resort to posting each podcast on the site as Facebook is not letting me use this work around.
One other suggestion in trying this work around is to not just keep trying it, instead
How to try and import your blog settings.
Go to notes
Click on notes to see all notes. At the bottom of the page on the right hand side you will see something that says “Edit import settings.”
After setting your import setting to be 3 on your Word Press blog RSS feed then put your feed in this Web URL. Word Press users can get their feed by clicking on the feed button. Usually it is the name of your blog/feed. To be sure the feed really does work. Put the url in a browser window and see if your feed comes up. Don’t forget to click the little button that says you represent and have the rights to publish this blog.
Then press start importing.
If you get the error mentioned Try clicking on the button “Back to ” that send you back to your Facebook home page and then start again. Say a little prayer, cross your fingers etc. It may or may not work. I also mention this along with the links to send complaints in a post on my forum. Feel free to post your suggestions here or on the forum. This is very frustrating for many people.
I’m So Intrigued With Paper Sculpture And This “New” Art Form
I’m going to have to write a more detailed article on this or do a podcast interview with these people. I’m so intrigued. The wonderful movie Between The Folds by Vanessa Gould. Is fascinating. Folding these incredible designs filled with emotion this “new” art form is coming to life. I can see how artists can abandon all and get caught up in the entire thing. There seems to be some magic, some secrets awaiting to come out.
As I watched the movie I jotted down some notes. I mention these because they are things I have pondered myself.
“It is like Jazz”
“The object looks Good if the process felt good.”
“It always feels awkward, like it is not going to work.”
“What do I not want to put in this figure?”
Now I need to get the names correct on who said what.
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Sculptor, Writer and Speaker
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/bridgette.mongeon
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
Listen to the Art and Technology Podcast
You Will See More Illustration On This Blog In Months To Come
In the next couple of months I will be designating some of my time in my graduate studies to illustration. For those of you who don’t know, I am in graduate school. This is my final working semester. I have two tracks in a Master of Fine Arts in interdisciplinary arts program at Goddard College in Vermont. The first is a writing track. For this part next semester I will be editing my novel.
The other part is an art track, which, up to this point, has been in sculpting both digital and traditional. But since I met the required 19 hours needed to be able to teach this I have a semester to play. I have many children’s books that I have written but I have not done anything with them because they are not illustrated. As an artist I have a hard time sending them off to someone else to do- though I am considering working with my husband who is also an artist, on one or two. So this semester I will be dabbling in illustration. It is something I did years ago. We are talking about 20+ years ago, and at that point I did it sparsely. So here is my new years adventure-illustration.
In light of that I am ramping up. Here are the steps that I took in doing a recent illustration.
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Sculptor, Writer and Speaker
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/bridgette.mongeon
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
Listen to the Art and Technology Podcast
New Year- Getting Organized
The new year is already around the corner and I find myself compulsively trying to get reorganized. 3 tasks sit ont he forefront of my to do list.
1. Backup Big Mac-
I have ordered a new internal hard drive for my Mac. I have encountered a failing hard drive and will be backing up items both on discs and through time machine. This job is really a housecleaning project.
2. To Do List?
I’m not real happy with the way my mac organizes my day. Or maybe it is me organizing my day. I want to set up goals and project and have a step by step way of completing them. I am a list maker and love to see things corssed off. Hubby says, “What is wrong with a notepad?” That does work to some extent but it gets messy very quickly and the pages get torn off and lost. So I’m reviewing software that will help me stay organized. The software of choice Ominfocus.
3. Novel Writing Software.
It has come to my attention that Word just is not doing what I need it to do when trying to complete or clean up a novel or book. I have about 3 book projects going at this moment. The two software programs I am looking at for this job is Storymill and Scrivener.
I guess I’m leaning toward Scrivener as everyone seems to rant and rave about it, plus instead of having just a educational discount they are offering a 50% discount for all of those who participated in National Novel Writing Month and finished. I’m proud to say ia m one of those. I’m also looking at Story Mill, as I really like their timeline feature.
I must not be the only one that really likes the timeline feature in Story Mill. As Tom Borowski says in this this comment thread on an article that compares Story Mill and Scrivener.
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Sculptor, Writer and Speaker
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/bridgette.mongeon
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
Listen to the Art and Technology Podcast