Spirit Magazine – Chill

This is an inappropriate time of year to be posting a snow scene, so I hope you’ll forgive me.

“The Big Chill,” by Kathleen George, is an emotional short story about an estranged husband and wife. It opens when the main character, Jake, comes home to realize that a transient has wandered into his living room while he was away.

For the composition, I wanted to keep Jake as anonymous as possible. There are several reasons for this, but one in particular is that I wanted the race of the main character not to be obvious, so there would be a better chance of the reader relating to Jake (of course, if such details were explained in the story, that would be a different matter altogether).

The couple’s estrangement and the transient guest both come as a surprise as the story unfolds, so I wanted to preserve those qualities while setting the stage for the reader’s curiosity.

I’ve done several 1/2 page illustrations for Kevin de Miranda of Spirit Magazine, the in-flight publication for Southwest Airlines this year, and have been pretty happy with how they’ve all come out. They’re trying out fiction in the magazine for the first time, and luckily, Kevin’s been really enthusiastic about the work I’ve been doing, inspiring me to better work by showing my sketches in the layouts, which makes for a more collaborative effort.

For this one, I wanted to experiment with a different line quality, so I drew the “inks” with a wax crayon (China Marker) on acetate. I was going for an “animation” feel to the line quality — i.e. 101 Dalmations — but I’m not so sure it made that much of a difference in the final result. It was definitely a fun challenge keeping the tip of the pencil sharp, though. The tip of the wax pencil tends to break if it has too fine of a point.

Fortunately, when I was starting this piece, New York was hit with a two-day blizzard. For those of you who aren’t in a place where it snows, the timing was lucky because a day or two after a fresh snowfall, everything usually turns brown and slushy–I wanted to draw it as white and fluffy. So, I walked around the neighborhood snapping pictures that I thought would come in handy as reference.

In other news, I’ve sold out of the Molly Grue prints from my last post, but still have some different prints left over, which I’ll be featuring on here from time to time.

9×12″ Dark Knight prints are available during the month of June for $25 + shipping, and if you also pick up a zine, postcards, or another print, I’ll throw in an original sketch or drawing from around the studio. I’ve been getting some really kind emails from the folks who have ordered both, which is why I’ve decided to keep going with the offer.

The Dark Knight Print

Also available, the original 5×7″ ink, graphite, watercolor & acrylic drawing for $500 + shipping. Originally published in the New Yorker, 2008.

The Dark Knight Original Art

Have a great week,

frank