Extinct Print:

I wanted to share a print I did in 2002. This was an experiment I was trying for an exhibit called 'Zoo' in Flint, MI at the Buckham Gallery (which was later renamed and rethemed to just be an 'open call for entries'...but only AFTER I did a 'Zoo' piece). The piece is made up of 18 three inch linoleum block prints which I printed with water based ink on velum mylar. Because of the transparent nature of the mylar, I was able to hand color each mini-print using markers (a hodge podge of Charpak & Prismacolor) Below I arranged the individual mini prints in the same configuration as the original above, but so that you can click on each one for more detail.

Upcoming Appearances:
New York Comic Con (Archaia booth): Oct 8-10
Mid-Ohio Con: Nov. 6-7

Inks to Colors:
Last week I was working on a piece I thought it would be nice to share on Ustream. So I set up my camera rig over my lightbox and recorded the inks. Then I scanned the piece and recorded the flatting process of coloring, and pushed on into the night with a third recording where I rendered and finished the piece...almost. In the last steps of the last stage of rendering, Photoshop crashed, and (since I didn't save once because I was thinking about narrating the ustream) I lost the whole thing and had to rescan. Next day, without streaming, I rescanned and recolored the piece. The finished piece is above. The videos* mentioned (including the fatal crash) are below:
*They are each over an hour long, and the sound quality is a bit 'underwater-ish' but per request, I have posted them.

Inking:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9598593

Flatting:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9601657

Rendering:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9603291

Upcoming Appearances:
West Hollywood Book Fair: Sept. 26
New York Comic Con (Archaia booth): Oct 8-10
Mid-Ohio Con: Nov. 6-7

Oz:
Lat week I mentioned Audio Books, and Oz is one of the series I have yet to find a version of where I enjoy the reader. And as much as I'm a fan of the Land of Oz and as much as it inspired me as a kid, I have never read an Oz book from start to finish, which I'd like to fix.

Oz started for me when I was in 2nd grade. The annual tradition of it being shown on television was coming up and classmates of mine were very excited about it. Somehow, we, as 2nd graders, decided we would do a Wizard of Oz play for the school...or at least our class. Our teacher told us "no", but with the work we had already done (some parents, including mine, had started helping us with our costumes.) we were allowed to have 2 mornings to spread our performance over for the 2nd grade classes of Pierce Elementary and their parents. I was the Tin Man, who remains to this day my favorite of the characters.

In High School, I started looking towards doing children's book illustration as a profession. I remember when 'finishing' this drawing (it has no background!?) that I was ready to be hired to do book illustration. Luckily, I never went out looking for work with that attitude. What this piece shows me more than my cocky mindset, is that I was thinking about the work seriously. I had done countless Oz themed drawings between second grade and senior year, but I was making design choices here, thinking about composition, and using a variety of media.

This series of illustrations I did after college (so about 5 years after the other drawing). In college, we were steered away from illustrative subjects and work, and focused more on expression and abstraction. So, for a few years I tried to re-learn what I had been building up to before University. These were to become my portfolio to try and live as an artist. I was also trying to do my definitive versions of the characters, somewhere between paying homage to John R. Neil (my favorite Oz artist) and my own sensibilities. I had planned to do more characters (Ozma, Jack Pumpkinhead, Dorothy, the Patchwork Girl...) but after these 4 I must have moved on to other projects.

More recently, I was asked by Stephen Gettis to do a piece for his Literary themed collection: 'Hey Oscar Wilde, It's Clobberin Time!'. Oz was the 2nd piece I did for him (the first being Wind in the Willows) and I took it back to the origin for me...discovering the Tin Woodsman.








Fan Art: This week's piece may look familiar: "I know I've already submitted this piece before, but I made major changes to it after seeing how much attention you pay to the background features. thanks! -Charlotte Cheng"
No, Thank You Charlotte! I like the idea of improving through revisiting older work!
If you would like your fan art posted here, email your work to ericebon (at) hotmail (dot) com



Upcoming Appearances:
West Hollywood Book Fair: Sept. 26
New York Comic Con (Archaia booth): Oct 8-10
Mid-Ohio Con: Nov. 6-7

Listening:
While I love movies and enjoy several TV shows, they are not something I can enjoy while I work. It's too easy to be distracted visually. So I tend to rely on Old Time Radio (OTR), and various audio books to keep me moving through my work. Seems about once a year I post something about OTR (past posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) Mainly I listen via Sirius satellite radio, but I also go to the sites mentioned in the 5th post if I'm in the mood for something specific.

As for Audio Books, I recommend Stephen King's IT read by Stephen Weber and Wind in the Willows read by Terry Jones. But my old fall back series is Harry Potter read by Jim Dale. I have gone through all 7 of them nearly a dozen times, and I still enjoy them very very much. I have been told that the UK versions read by Stephen Fry are better, but I have not heard them. I have enjoyed Fry reading other books, but I worry that Dale's versions are so deeply in my head now, I'd have a hard time with a different reader. In any case, talking about this has given me the chance to share the recently colored version of the Professor Snape commission I did at San Diego. I find that coloring some of these quickly is a nice way to ease into coloring a larger Mouse Guard page (and this one had a very limited palette, so it was all the easier)

And just recently (through a subscription to Audible) I found dramatized versions of the Winnie the Pooh books read by a full cast including Stephen Fry (Pooh) and Judi Dench (Kanga & Narrator). They are delightful. I had forgotten how much I like the style of writing A.A. Milne did with the Pooh stories. It inspired me to do this quick warm up piece where I tried a new coloring/texture technique of overlaying tinted crosshatching (after I decided the inks looked too clean compared with the definitive E. H. Shephered's illustrations.

Fan Art: This week the fan art comes from Derek McLean who sculpted Lieam and Saxon in FIMO. He also shares: "I had made a Kenzie also, but it was defeated by my cat, and shattered on the floor." Sorry to hear how Kenzie met his end, but, Thanks Derek!
If you would like your fan art posted here, email your work to ericebon (at) hotmail (dot) com

Upcoming Appearances:
West Hollywood Book Fair: Sept. 26
New York Comic Con (Archaia booth): Oct 8-10
Mid-Ohio Con: Nov. 6-7