{"id":1072,"date":"2022-09-15T00:22:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T00:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/?p=1072"},"modified":"2022-09-15T00:22:07","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T00:22:07","slug":"art-journal-september-14-2022-the-creative-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/?p=1072","title":{"rendered":"Art Journal- September 14, 2022 “The Creative Journey”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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During childhood, a particular series of books caught my interest: Serendipity Books<\/i>.\u00a0 Mostly written by Stephen Cosgrove and illustrated by Robin James, the illustrations were beautiful, vibrant, and evocative of the 80s.\u00a0 To this day, I\u2019m not certain if the illustrations were rendered solely with watercolors or a mixture of watercolor, acrylic, with pen and ink outlines.\u00a0 Day after day, I flipped through the pages of Cosgrove and James\u2019 books, fascinated by each illustration.

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However, when I first began to make art, I preferred black and white pencil drawing.\u00a0 Now and then, a school art project came along which prompted me to try inexpensive retail watercolor sets.\u00a0 I was young and still learning, so those sets served me well.\u00a0 Early on, the biggest trick involved not loading too much water onto the paper, either causing the paper to disintegrate or form wavy belts.\u00a0 The application process could be unforgiving\u2026 especially when first learning.

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oil painting, on the other hand, was a one-time venture!\u00a0 The paint took forever to dry.\u00a0 By forever, I mean that I began a painting, then set it aside.\u00a0 Two weeks later, the paint was still as wet as the day I applied it to the canvas.\u00a0 \u201cNope!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I continued to work mostly with pencil and charcoal.\u00a0 By college, I began to dabble with watercolors again.\u00a0 An instructor at the Savannah College of Art and Design, David Gildersleeve, seemed to prefer them.\u00a0 He introduced our class to the secret color: Payne\u2019s Grey.\u00a0 Uncertain about what color to use next?\u00a0 Need to repair a mistake?\u00a0 Payne\u2019s Grey.\u00a0 Whoops, I made a terrible mistake with my life choices!\u00a0 Payne\u2019s Grey was always the answer.\u00a0 He also told us to throw out the tube of white paint that comes with most watercolor sets and opt for an acrylic white, as the watercolor version is mostly transparent and thereby useless, albeit for blending colors.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When it came time to illustrate the A Home Without<\/i> graphic novel, I initially tested out a sketchy pen and ink style, with a very light wash of watercolors.\u00a0 Given the heartfelt and autobiographical nature of the story, I wanted a gritty, hand drawn aesthetic, even for the dialogue.\u00a0 After a few test pages, I decided to move forward with a style that offered more vibrant colors than what I initially had in mind.\u00a0 The end result probably isn\u2019t too far removed from the artwork found within Serendipity<\/i> Books<\/i>, coupled with more cohesive line-work.

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Conversely, Tennessee Williams crafted so much of the most natural dialogue I\u2019ve ever read or heard.\u00a0 With A Streetcar Named Desire<\/i>, when Blanche is in distress, there\u2019s no doubt in the audience\u2019s mind.\u00a0 We identify with her plight.\u00a0 One day in college, as part of a class exercise, instructor Mark Kneece brought us to a local coffee shop near campus.\u00a0 Without trying to be obvious, we eavesdropped on the conversations of fellow patrons and subsequently utilized some of their dialogue into our own stories.\u00a0 I wanted that same level of realism with A Home Without<\/i>. \u00a0There\u2019s a fair amount of explicit language with Mitch Garrison, but it\u2019s necessary to convey his anger and frustration with life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lastly, I\u2019d like to close with a thank you to David Gildersleeve.\u00a0 Last year, I happened to be in a Savannah art gallery by City Market, looking through some of his work, when the lady next to me professed to be his wife.\u00a0 She then corrected herself to say widow\u2014\u201cHe passed away from cancer several years ago.\u201d\u00a0 I had no idea.\u00a0 One of his lectures is still circulating on YouTube, should anyone care to seek it out.\u00a0 In addition to various Batman<\/i> titles, he was also an accomplished fine art painter.\u00a0 I would like to show appreciation to instructor Mark Kneece, author of Verdilak<\/i>, as well as another instructor (and friend): Bob Pendarvis, creator of A Girl Called Ana Teaches Kittens How to Draw<\/i>. \u00a0Thanks for helping me grow as an artist and writer!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Warmth and Kindness,

Don
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During childhood, a particular series of books caught my interest: Serendipity Books.\u00a0 Mostly written by Stephen Cosgrove and illustrated by Robin James, the illustrations were beautiful, vibrant, and evocative of the 80s.\u00a0 To this day, I\u2019m not certain if the illustrations were rendered solely with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1073,"href":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions\/1073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sassysparky.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}