The thick braided muscles on his forearm tensed as he lifted the axe above his head.  There was a sharp crack as the wood split clean down the middle.  He leaned down to hoist the next log onto the thick tree stump.  Again he raised the axe.  Someone could have marked time by the rhythmic motions of his body and the distinct sounds of the woodcutting.

Tom had wielded an axe since his grandfather taught him when he was eight years old.  Now, at twenty-eight, he could keep a steady, constant pace for two hours.  After a ten minute rest he’d resume his work with the same vigor he’d had at the beginning of the day.

The August noonday sun was fierce, hardly casting a shadow.  Tom paused to wipe his brow across the short sleeve of his white cotton t-shirt.  A few yards to his left, tiny waves lapped against the rocks.  He was so used to the gurgling and sloshing of the river that silence in this place would have startled him.  A strong pine scent wafted from the short, knotted trees in the woods that hugged the contour of the shoreline.  Tom knew this land better than he did the inside of his house.  He spent most of his time outdoors.

He resumed the flow of the work, his mind clear.  Just as the axe reached its peak, held in momentary suspension before descent, there was a loud crack and the blade shivered as something metallic ricocheted from it.  “What the,” Tom swung the axe one-handed down to his side and swiveled round to cover his back, bringing the axe up to his chest, now holding its broad wooden handle with both hands, ready to swing in defense.

Another bullet whizzed past his right ear.  A man stepped out from behind a tree at the edge of the wood.  “Hi Tom,” he held a rifle, casually and confidently, aimed at Tom’s head.  He was thickset, bronze-red hair hanging loose around his shoulders.

Tom lowered the axe, gripping it with his right hand, “Hi Marty.”

“Told you I’d come find you when you came back.”

“I’ve been waiting.  Where you been?  I’ve been here for over a year.”

Marty held the gun steady, “I ought to  shoot you and be done with it.”

“How many times do I have to tell you it was an accident?”

“That might be, but you were drunk.”

“And you’re telling me you weren’t?”

“I wasn’t in the raft.  At least I had the common sense to know I couldn’t manoeuvre those rapids.”

“You mean you had to throw up and that’s why you got out and jumped on land while we were still moving down river.”

“You didn’t lose your sister and your fiance.”

“You don’t think I’ve been tortured these last five years?  Sally was my girl, you know I was gonna ask her to marry me.  And I’d known Emily since before I quit wearing diapers,” Tom slammed the axe blade into the wood stump and stood up straight to face Marty square on.  “Go ahead, do it,” he crossed his arms, “I’m waiting.”

Marty stood there, frozen, lips pressed thin.  His bright blue eyes were hardly visible his face was so distorted with bitterness.  The two men stood, one longing to pull the trigger, the other calmly awaiting his fate.

Marty threw the gun down.  It fired, exploding randomly into the air, echoing off the trees and rocky terrain.  “Damn you, I wish I could,” he turned and strode back into the woods.  He vanished, the gun on the ground the only evidence he had ever been there.  Tom noticed the sound of the river, wiped the sweat from his face again and picked up his axe to continue his rhythmical chopping.

I’m trying my hand at pen and ink sketches. I have tended to avoid drawing people, so that’s mainly what I’m concentrating on just now. It’s turning out to be a great deal of fun, not to mention challenging.

I choose scenes from dvds for movies we’ve watched recently, so that I don’t spoil a movie for the next viewing of one that we haven’t seen in a while.  (I love movies). 

Sketching from dvds also provides a perfect opportunity to study the composition and layout of scenes and shots. How does the camera focus on the person in the scene? What is shown in addition? Where are the people placed and where are they relative to one another? There are so many tips to learn from directly just by doing this, which is great for honing skills to create works of art that excel in visual storytelling.

Here’s a closer look at the top sketches… (As usual, you can click on the images for larger view.)

In the past, I have often thought I should sketch, and on a couple of occasions I made feeble starts at it and gave up. This time I’m going all out – and the experience is so much fun that I can surely recommend doing it.  Even my previous short forays into sketching just for the sake of sketching have contributed to helping me get going this time. Every little bit helps….

If you were hesitating about whether ‘to sketch or not to sketch’, give it a try!

Just let go, don’t worry about bumbling it (you can always hide those – I do) and go for it. I’d love to hear from you if you sketch, or if you have any thoughts or suggestions on sketching.

Last week I did six more watercolors for the Gex book, completing the paintings for two more pages and starting a couple more pages.

There are many walking paths  in the mountains and foothills just behind Gex and every once in a while there are signposts showing directions and, sometimes, distances or walking times.  Here’s one such sign (click on photos to see larger image):

A river runs through the lowest part of the town (as rivers often do) and right next to the river there’s a fountain. This is sometimes used by a nearby car repair shop to check where the holes are in punctured tires.  The river runs just below, to the right of the railing; the house on the right is on the other side of the bank.

Close to the fountain on the other side of the river, and on slightly higher ground, there are very old parts of the town that lead upwards behind the old town wall.  The next painting shows the view looking up one of the narrow staircases from the street.

These last two paintings make up a page in the book.  The page is shown below; it’s a rough draft of the image layout just to give an idea of what it’ll look like.

I’m painting whatever scene appeals to me at the time of choosing, so the pages aren’t being completed in book page order.  Higher up the town the streets are steep, and some are fairly narrow and are pedestrian walkways only.

Looking over the wall of one such walkway the view is expansive, looking out towards Le Saleve, which is also in France, but is on the other side of Geneva, Switzerland.  If you’d like to see more about Le Saleve you can see previous posts: A Car Trip Up Le Saleve, Part I and Part II.

This painting fits on the page of the Gex book shown below.  This week I’ll paint the other scene that you can see as a sketch on the right hand side of the page, showing a view from the town looking south down the valley towards Bellegarde.

I chose a couple of bright, colorful little paintings for the sheer fun of it.  There’s a very nice cafe on the main street in Gex.  Every weekend there’s a market on this street, so this cafe is very popular with the market stall keepers and customers alike.  There will be a couple of paintings, for the book, of both the inside and outside of this cafe coming up in the future. Their cups and saucers have always been a great source of fun.

And there are often very interesting sugar cubes, bright and cheerful.

These two paintings are arranged on a page to the left of the page that will show the inside of the cafe.

Stay tuned to DweezelJazz Art blog to see the painting of the inside of the cafe, and others, as the Gex book is being completed!

In January Irene Gallo posted an article on Tor.com about Justin Gerard’s The Hobbit paintings project.  Justin is the Illustration & Story Director at Portland Studios.  Also working there is Illustrator and Author, Corey Godbey.  I’ve been reading Justin’s blog,  Quick Hide Here, and Corey’s blog, light night rains, ever since.  And I’ve found both Justin’s and Corey’s art a real inspiration.

On April 1st, Portland Studios released a short animation and set up a contest, asking why the bull in the animation was mad.

You can see the really neat animation,  “The Mad Bull”, at the Portland Studio web site.

The fellows at Portland Studios asked contestants to submit a 500-word narrative to answer the question “Why is the bull so mad?” I didn’t win the competition, but I had a great time writing my version of why the bull was so mad.  I’ve included it below, just for fun:

Having little land for crops, the people of Stonteen make their livelihoods as metalworkers and stonemasons. Pastures in the foothills sustain sizeable herds of cattle.  The townspeople have a close, respectful working relationship with their animals.

A boy, Hans, was born to the owner of the town quarry.  His father used oxen to pull stone from the hillsides.  Hans loved to build things and to train a bull, whom he called Tiku, to do many tasks. When Hans was twenty, he constructed a large metal, steam-driven machine, made to fit Tiku. He called it a Minotank.  He swore he’d develop a more efficient method to extract rock from the mountain than the traditional oxcart.

Hans’ father reluctantly agreed to let Hans train Tiku to drive the Minotank. At first Tiku was afraid of it, but Hans persisted. Seeing that the project was meeting with success, Hans’ father allowed him to include Tiku’s sons in the training.

Years became decades and eventually the entire quarry functioned with bulls driving Minotanks.  Increased output benefited everyone.  Stonteen became renowned for its artistry, masonry, weaponry, and wealth. The cattle were prized and treated extremely well.

Hans built the Minotanks in a huge barn on the outskirts of town.  He married and his son, Eric, became a gifted engineer. Eric worked with his father, now commonly known as “the Professor”.  Eric often brought his daughter, Ara, along.

Ara loved animals, and especially loved a bull called Kanu.  He was exceptionally intelligent, aware, and strong.  The other bulls deferred to him.  Kanu had known Ara since she was a toddler and carried her on his back frequently.

On Ara’s seventh birthday, everything changed.  Stonteen was isolated on all sides by high mountains, only accessible by one narrow mountain pass.  The villagers had forgotten their mastery of the weapons they forged, being accustomed to peaceful times.  They were defenseless when Valerian foot soldiers marched up the pass.

Situated in open land, Valerians had long been forced to defend themselves.  Hearing of Stonteen’s success, their army filed into the valley at night.  By noon next day they had conquered the entire village of Stonteen.

That morning Eric worked with his father. Ara and Kanu were there. The leader of the Valerian army, Commander Claudio, knew of the Professor, his son, and their work.  Kanu witnessed soldiers forcing Ara, Eric, and the Professor to leave the barn.  On reaching the Town Hall, the Commander’s headquarters, Claudio demanded they continue to maintain the Minotanks in exchange for Ara’s safety.

Most of the village inhabitants fled into the mountains; the small number remaining were coerced into serving Valerians. The bulls were forced to toil long hours, and were no longer allowed to roam free. Soldiers took Kanu’s girlfriend, Tessie, to the village center in readiness to be killed for a celebration feast.

Kanu was enraged. He lead the bulls to save Ara, Tessie, and reclaim Stonteen. He charged into town in his Minotank, the first of a legion of Minotanks.

I’ve just finished working through the book, Directing the Story by Francis Glebas.  This is a fantastic book.

If you’re interested in learning how to create a story that will capture an audience’s attention and how to portray this visually, then this is a very valuable book to have.  The book concentrates on the application of  these principles to film, but the information is pertinent to all levels of visual portrayal of stories.

It’s even a great book for someone interested in learning what it takes to create a good story, without considering the visual portrayal of it.   Glebas is extremely generous in sharing his knowledge and he does it in an entertaining way too, with lots of storyboards to illustrate his points.

Glebas delves deeply into what makes us watch movies and why we go for stories.  Having an understanding of what audiences look for in a story, he then shows us how to provide this in the storytelling.  He shows how to transfer the story from words to images through the use of storyboards.  He gives insight into what’s important in terms of camera angles, composition, cutting and editing, lighting.  He gives great advice on how to draw for the storyboards and artwork, and also discusses the importance of character expressions and design.

The book is crammed with great information and is one of the most pivotal books about art and visual presentation that I’ve come across.  Glebas explains things in a way that makes them very easy to understand.  I highly recommend it.

Well! I had plans to write a blog post these last few days, but they were foiled. I was preparing the photos for it when it occurred to me how much more effective it would be to have a slide show of groups of those photos. Hence the hold up: I’m learning how to do that.

Since January I’ve been learning how to use the Adobe software programs using the Total Training Online Courses. I’ve been learning how to use Photoshop, InDesign, Flash, Dreamweaver and in the future I’ll add studying Illustrator and probably Adobe Acrobat. The courses show through video how to use the programs. The instructors are great and make it much easier to learn these very complex programs. Whenever I leaf through instructional books on these programs my eyes glaze over and become completely blurred without focus. I take notes as I watch the videos and then later I have the information in a format I can quickly identify and relate to.

It’s great having access to all the Adobe software courses because it allows access to all the information. And if any new courses are added these are also available for as long as the subscription lasts. It’s much cheaper than buying the DVDs for the specific courses. A couple of years ago I bought a set of DVDs on InDesign and I discovered that after taking notes from them I no longer wanted to spend the time it takes to watch the videos a second time. Having the DVDs was really no extra benefit to me. The online subscription gives me access I otherwise could not hope to gain if I had to buy the DVDs.

This is taking rather a lot of time however. I had a structure in mind about which lessons I’d do first and what I needed in order to progress with the art. All those great ideas have flown to the wind. I started with Photoshop. Then I realized I wanted to add another gallery for Digital Art to my website. But I would need to redo my website in a format that is easy to edit and add to…I started the Dreamweaver lessons, which are really great. This weekend I had the idea to post an article about how I paint with egg tempera… and so… I started watching the Flash course videos with a view to preparing that blog post.

I’m having loads of fun with it, and as a result I’ve ended up making good progress in most of the programs I want to learn. My days of systematic, ordered approach appear to be over!

These courses are giving me more confidence to move forward with my plans for the art. I hope, in time, to produce digital art as well as the egg tempera paintings. I’d like to create short image-dominated books; for example, I want to paint many of the photos I took of Annecy, France, and include text next to the paintings and print this as a booklet. I’ll start by using the DweezelJazz blog posts about Annecy as a basis for that project. And as I hone my skills in writing and telling stories, I’d like to illustrate those. So there are many things I’m hoping to do, but it takes time to learn the tools required in order to create these things.

I think I’ve learned enough about Flash to create the slide show/movie to demonstrate how I approach painting with egg tempera. Stay tuned for the next DweezelJazz blog post to see how it turns out with the making of a Flash movie.

A trip to the market cafe reveals Bayeaux Tapestry sugar cube wrappers.

(click on the title for the full article and comments)