Here’s my entry to the Observer/Random House/Comica 2009 competition:
see previous 2 posts below for all I have to say about this for now.
To see more of the complete field of entries click here
Starcross’d Entry
November 9th, 2009Observer/RandomHouse/Comica competition 2009
November 7th, 2009A great call for ‘unsuccessful’ entries:
go to brokenkode.com read the post and add your own comments and participate, I certainly am.
see also previous post ‘Starcross’d’
Starcross’d
November 3rd, 2009We’re all on the alert for paying opportunities these days and I clearly wasn’t the only one to spot the Observer/Random House/ Comica Graphic Short Story competition.
I had a fledgling story that I thought could fly. An ageing ‘loner’ goes back to the village where he grew up and where the inhabitants have good reason to resent and fear his return. Told in first- person narrative, the picture 
panels initially show just the shadow cast by the protagonist onto the inhabitants and scene of the village. Only at the close is he actually shown, and then in the crucial landscape that made him what he is. These panels (hand rendered watercolours) were assembled into page compositions with text all in Photoshop.
Having seen the competition prize-winners posted this week it occurs to me that by comparison my entry must have appeared to the genteel judges as jarring, unpleasant, sexist and 
latently violent. And there I was thinking I had come up with quite a striking little number, a little bleak perhaps, but laced with some bitter chuckles.
What was happening here? Aren’t comics supposed to be jarring, unpleasant, violent and funny all at the same time? Here in the UK I’m thinking Beano (before emasculation), 2000AD, Viz, the If Chronicles…… And that’s just in my lifetime- the English tradition has always embraced the garish, the ribald, the gruesome, the grotesque, and been totally ‘upfront’ about it.
So I had clearly made a mistake, made a wrong call. These well-mannered winners are part of a new ‘form’ – they are this thing called ‘graphic short stories’. Looking at both this and last year’s winners there are clear characteristics to the form.
First and most obviously is the childlike ‘naif’ drawing and colouring that is complemented by the ‘teenage’ looped handwriting for lettering. I’m not sure whether this is a ‘style’ as such, maybe an affectation to distance the works from the accomplishments of cgi enhanced graphics (and all their values and associations) or an open acknowledgement of a limitation in technical skills that are no longer studied or taught in their traditional ‘hand-made’ manner? It could also be seen as charming, tactile, and, paradoxically for a shared style, individually expressive- clearly the judges all think so.
This ‘look’ entirely suits and draws out (sorry) the best in the subject matter. Parents and children (the getting of ‘golden’ moments), husbands and wives (eternal misunderstandings), pets and humans (sometime talking cats).
So I’ve learnt something but unless I undergo a change of heart both in inspiration and style I won’t be returning to this competition next year. It’s no place for my kind of stuff.
A Painting of Two Halves
October 21st, 2009St Paul’s Bay, Lindos, Rhodes.
watercolour 428 x 248 mm
This well known location on the island of Rhodes made a strong impression on me a few weeks ago when I attended a close family wedding there. This watercolour painting was made for the happy couple as a souvenir of a highly memorable occasion.
The afternoon of the day before the ceremony I spent some time walking around the bay assessing various views where the small white chapel is the focus. The obvious angles, already well covered in tourist photos and prints for sale in local shops, didn’t seem to capture the key experience of walking up the steps into the chapel precinct where the weddings actually take place. Only this view, to my eye, contained all the elements that really made the scene- including the bay itself and the Acropolis of Lindos in the background.
So, sitting on the low stone wall flanking the slope down to the water of the bay( with my calves catching the burning sun), I began some exploratory sketches setting up the composition and relative proportions as experienced rather than photographed (see blog entry ‘Award for Excellence’ March 2009)
Clearly there was an issue of composition to deal with- the scene divides itself all too neatly in half: the foreground chapel and its precinct on the right and the distant Acropolis and bay to the left. How was I going to properly render these disparate elements yet unite them in a single composition?
Only in the act of painting the scene did the solution present itself. I had already decided to radically ‘crop’ the promontory of rocks edging out from the chapel precinct to bring the Acropolis closer in to the centre of the picture. In the colour study rehearsing tone values, the first sky wash went in and I then tentatively added the complex establishing wash for the key foreground shadows making up the steps, trees and chapel. I put this in with the same sky wash, purely out of convenience, and, ay caramba, the solution presented itself – BLUE. Blue underpainting in concert with the blue sky running across the upper half of the painting would unite the composition.
The blue wash layers, deepened in the foreground with red to violet, were balanced with muted neutrals, both warm and cool, for paths, and the volcanic rock outcrops of the Acropolis. Deep greens for the tree next to the chapel and those on the distant horizon added the final colour counterpoint ‘punching up’ the whole effect.
Fine art limited edition prints of this painting are now available please go to the main site via the ‘home’ link opposite and click on landscapes in the right hand menu.
In the words of the song-
August 15th, 2009‘Every picture tells a story don’t it’ 
‘A Perfect Beach’ watercolour 340mm x 247mm
Some watercolour painters rarely include a human figure in their compositions and then only to provide scale to the real subject- usually a magnificent landscape or a dominating city scene. Others concentrate solely on the figure usually in the form of an ‘alla prima’ type virtuoso study. Here the figure may be a nude or a character- a beauty, an eccentric, someone with their life experiences ‘written’ on their features ready to be set down. Others still paint to demonstrate a facility, a technique, for showing how dramatic light falls across a group or an individual and the depth and intricacy of counter shadow that is formed.
This watercolour, ‘A Perfect Beach’ started as an exercise to extend my painting technique to ‘handle’ a foreground figure. Using a magazine clipping for reference I laid in the main figure in two simple flat washes: one for her basic shape and the second to indicate broadly her areas of shadow.
Wanting something more I laid in the horizontal wash for the sea horizon as some sort of balance against the upright figure of the young woman.
Now I really had a problem. Being an illustrator by inclination I now felt that in order to continue this exercise with any sort of conviction I needed answers to the questions I had unwittingly provoked in my own mind. What was she doing there by the sea? Where actually was she? I needed a story. Or else abandon it.
It seemed that if a story was ever to emerge that would fit this start, then more figures were needed. Interaction was required. So in went the couple at the shoreline and the lapping waters in which they stand. Simple almost ambiguous strokes were the order here. At this stage, these two were only the other half of a pictorial argument I had yet to stir up.
Still without any clear storyline, I switched to developing the ‘where’. To match the lapping blue waters I put in the headland with the hints of rocky shoreline and ‘Aegean’ pines in groups. I lifted out streaks of the sea around the rocks and extended the sea horizon upwards, all to integrate the ‘new’ headland into the composition. Staying with ‘where’, the terrace wall, chair and table went in. The table was nearly a disaster. The combination of lack of paper at the picture perimeter and a deckle edge to the sheet caused the dark wash to bleed ‘inside’ the paper sucking it up towards the main figure. Furious tilting and blotting followed! I’d broken the first rule of watercolour. I’d started without a clear plan.
Nevertheless these moves had been crucial- two key gestures within the story were now evident. The foreground figure was either getting up from the chair, startled, or sitting down horrified. And the beach couple were in dispute. Either she was pulling him back or he was dragging her away.
Using more of the same flesh and shadow tones, deepened and warmed, I laid in more overlapping washes developing the foreground figure and allowing each to dry before continuing. I lifted out parts of the earlier washes to give her a swimsuit- only partially successfully around the shoulder straps. Fine drawn shadow areas similarly brought out the shore couple together with appropriate splashes of ‘costume’ colour.
I decided to stop- the second golden rule of watercolour. I liked what I now had even though it was still not settled in my head- what was going on! The title I gave it, which really only works when you say it out loud, reflects this uncertainty. Anyway, which one is the ‘bitch’?
Fine art limited edition prints of this painting are now available. Please go to the main site via the ‘home’ link opposite and click on ‘landscapes’ in the right-hand menu.
A Bonus
July 2nd, 2009Getting it
This is a ‘Baffledman’ feature for more go to Homepage and click on ’strips and stories’
Buzzard numbers rise
May 21st, 2009
About
March 19th, 2009
I began my career as an architect specialising in concept design and graphic presentation during the ‘boom and bust’ years of the 1980’s and early 90’s.
Disillusioned with the compromises and commercialised values of those times, I taught studio design part-time at the Liverpool School of Architecture for 10 years followed by a shorter stay at the Manchester School. The stimulus of coming into contact with talented students who were to go on to become leading young practitioners provoked a sequence of theoretical designs that were shortlisted in international architectural competitions. Encouraged by the celebrated critic Martin Pawley, this career phase culminated in a series of controversial self-illustrated articles published in the international journal ‘World Architecture’ during 1993-4 see blog ‘Dislocation’
My consultancy ‘Ideas Illustrated’ features renowned practices SOM(London), Pentagram, and Arups among its many clients. Looking at recent projects, my work as designer of the children’s hospice, Ty Gobaith, in the Conwy Valley, North Wales, and my artwork for the highly successful interactive exhibits at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea stand out in my mind.
‘gilbert pictures’ was set up in April 2006 when its website went live online but really my creation of limited edition prints dates back to 1989 with the Editions Gallery at the Bluecoat Arts, Liverpool and has continued with local galleries Benards and Morgan Roberts in North Wales. My series of images ‘Light on the Orme’ were the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum gallery, Llandudno, and my work has also featured in the ‘Coast’ and Mid-Wales Open exhibitions.
I have received two ‘Awards for Excellence’ from the American Institute of Architectural Illustration, the first in 2007 and again in 2009- see blog ‘Award for Excellence’ Now I am putting a toe into the uncharted waters of graphic novels-cum-comics with Illustrated Stories- word and pictures in unique combination- see blog ‘Comics for the Mature reader’
You can see and read about my illustrations, prints and comics at www.gilpics.com.
Dislocation
March 19th, 2009Halting production of ITV’s long-running drama, ‘Heartbeat’, also means clotting the lifeblood of Goathland, the real village setting for the series. Every year 1.2 million visiting fans bring vital income to ‘hotels, souvenir shops and other businesses’ there. Loss of this revenue stream ‘will kill village’. (1)
This news stirred up in my head a similar story I had heard on the radio a few weeks ago. The gist was that fishermen from a small port had secured permission to build a jetty and access road to ease their laborious transport of catches from boat to shore. This, however, was all to be subject to a judicial review brought on by a group of well-heeled second home owners alarmed that the project was going to ruin the picturesque port. Although based in London and the home counties they are to argue that that their own ‘local’ industry, ie letting holiday homes and bringing in visitors, will be jeopardised by the destruction of the local environment by the fishermen and their local industry.
English social history is not short of examples of absentee landlords overriding the interests of local people but this all seemed to me to be something different, something new- as well as strangely familiar.
The great chroniclers of patterns of settlement in England and America, such as Hoskins and Mumford, have always been able to demonstrate a direct functional relationship between a place and the human activity there. Locations within or on the edge of an agricultural hinterland and beside a river crossing or along a major route became market towns. Foundries were built close to sources of iron and coal, the streets of workers housing grew around them and soon there’s an industrial town. The infant film industry seized on the twin opportunities of reliable sunlight for shooting and cheap hillside lots in California etc. etc.
Now what functional relationship is there between a TV series and the foundation of Goathland village, between holiday lets and the springing up of a coastal port? For the first time the answer is none whatsoever. Production company and investment income alike are parasite, feeding on the empty husk of meaning of place- its external appearance embodying ideas of ‘heritage’ and of ‘tradition’
15 years ago I wrote about the coming society ‘……absolved of the responsibilities of physical proximity for its workings’ and characterised by a ‘……withdrawal of the imperatives of function and usage from the real outer city.’(2) I should have added ‘the real outer countryside’ as well. And I should have paid closer attention to the human consequences of this literal dislocation of economic power from the everyday, real, world of you and I. What else are we looking at today in the recession- lives blighted or put on hold, dereliction in the towns- but just such a lack of connection?
(1) Observer 08/03/09 News p23
(2) ‘The Beauty of the Morning’ in World Architecture no 32 see also issues nos 26 and 29 for a wider discussion of the effect of this dislocation on our surroundings.
Comics for Mature Readers
March 18th, 2009I’ve been sending out review copies of my ‘Baffledman’ comics. Though a lifelong devourer of comics, I’m new to the world of creating, publishing and publicising them. With no inside contacts and with no track record, I felt I couldn’t just send out the copies cold and urge ’ review this’! So I had to stop and think about the USP of my work.
What I came up with was:
‘They’re not Teenage, not Fantasy, not even ‘Adult’ in the explicit-sex sense despite what’s on the cover.
They’re Baby-Boomer, that huge market of long-time comic fans with money in their pockets but nothing much (in the comics world)addressing their interests, concerns and lives-lived.’
I should have done a search before I used that phrase ‘Baby-boomer’. It seems to have been hi-jacked by the ‘nostalgia’ ward of the comics industry for reprints of titles largely from the 60’s. In other words those old mags read by the baby-boomers in their youth. So up against revisiting the adolescent fantasies of ‘Thor’, ‘Fantastic Four’, Hulk’, ‘Green Lantern’, et al, I’m pitting my (Baffled)man, a ‘boomer’, reviewing the world now:
‘Baffledman and I first met a while ago when he showed up off to one side in the mirror. We’re both crackin’ on a bit but he’s the taller, slimmer, better looking one.
We’re mostly silent and stare out at the sea. Every now and then he’ll turn and lean in to me and come out with some story, maybe a recollection, something on his mind, or something that’s just happened. I’ll come back here and put it down into word and pictures. But he never looks at these.
He’s already seen a lot- sometimes too much. Agreeing that we understand little of it all and that we’ve certainly never known the ‘score’, it’s a matter of laying things out, a putting in order. Like smoothing out a letter crumpled into a ball. There’s a certain comfort in that. And there are times when it has to be done.’