If you missed this week’s posts, click to find out more about

• How to Make Comics
• Nirvana and the Beach Boys
• New Album Artwork
• Draw a Picture, Win a Backpack

Wes recently released his self-titled album and is currently touring with his new songs. It was a pleasure for me to make the artwork for the album–Wes had a vision for the artwork from the beginning, with a simple line drawing and handwritten text. I think it all came together nicely in the end and I couldn’t be happier to have one of my drawings attached to such affecting music.

You can find Wes and his music online at http://weskirkpatrick.com/

Way back in high school I was listening to a local radio station playing in the background while I finished my homework. Out of nowhere, this mashup of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B” came on the radio:

Isn’t that great?! I love how the smooth Beach Boys harmonies play against the jagged cuts from Nirvana’s grunge guitar. It’s something I haven’t been able to forget. Since joining SoundCloud a couple of weeks ago, I’ve found some really great sounds from all kinds of musicians, including unreleased songs from Sufjan Stevens, the mesmerizing flute of Hannah Sterry, and more great mashups from a user called Vaporware.

Some Favorites

Ben E Kings vs The Police:

Sufjan Stevens, Give a Little Love:

Hannah Sterry, Autumn’s Leaving:

Are You on SoundCloud?

If you’re on SoundCloud, get in touch and share your tunes. I’ve been working on a new album with a slew of new songs and I’ll be periodically dropping them into my account. I’d love to get your thoughts on a song or two and I’d love to hear what you’re up to, as well.

LEARN HOW TO MAKE COMICS | JUNE 10-14

Do you have children ages 10-14 that want to make comics? I’ll be teaching a five-day comics class at Higher Ground Learning in Salt Lake City, June 10-14, covering everything from generating and filtering story ideas, developing characters and story arcs, laying out comics pages and speech bubbles, making a rough draft, and publishing opportunities for comics-makers.

I would have gone to great lengths to have attended a class like this when I was a boy, and I couldn’t be happier to share my love for making comics with the youth. For those of you who have attended my workshops and presentations in the past, you can expect more of the same, with a lot more workshopping and a closer look at the comics-making process from beginning to end.

Spread the word and sign up now for A Graphic Novel This Way Comes–class space is limited! 

David Hockney has been a favorite artist of mine for over a decade now. I love how his seemingly sloppy and improvised images utilize heavily academic techniques and approaches, as well as hint at historically important works. Hockney is not only an artist, but an art historian, who is concerned with the ways that pictures have been made over time. Hockney has studied ancient Chinese scrolls, as well as film, theatre, and works from Picasso, and is constantly working with modern technologies including cameras, fax machines and iPads.

Whether you are looking at his photo-collages, paintings, or his drawings, it is obvious that a curious mind is at work. I’m always fascinated by the ways in which Hockney addresses depth and volume, as well as composition, and subject matter. Pearblossom Highway (above) is a good example of Hockney’s ability to describe an otherwise mundane scene in an exciting way that considers both the image-making processes, as well as a satisfying end result.

Drawing Makes You See Things Clearer

“Everything Hockney does is about seeing what’s around us, and seeing it better. Recently, he went out in the Yorkshire countryside, where he has been painting for the past two years, and stopped his car beside the road. “I took one of those Japanese sketchbooks and I’d draw different grasses in the hedgerow. After 2 1/2 hours I’d filled the sketchbook, and after that I saw that hedgerow a great deal more clearly.”

“If you’d just photographed it, you wouldn’t be looking in that way. Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache. The image is passing through you in a physiological way, into your brain, into your memory — where it stays — and it’s transmitted by your hands.” That way of working, in Hockney’s view, is well worth preserving.” (Why I Paint Instead of Just Picking Up a Camera, Bloomberg, USA 9/18/2006)

Secret Knowledge

In 2001, Hockney published Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, an ambitious work that set out to study the use of optics used in creating drawings and paintings over the last 1,000 years. Though much has already been published on mirrors and lenses, Hockney was able to shed light on their importance in creating work, as well as specific processes used with camera obscuras and lucidas.

Since reading Secret Knowledge I haven’t been able to look at Caravaggio’s work the same. The book is a fascinating read and I highly recommend to all my friends that are practicing artists and art historians.

Below is a video interview with David Hockney, where he explains and demonstrates the use of camera obscuras and camera lucidas in the artwork of the Old Masters chronicled in his book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdisyiLOtmM

The Camera Lucida Today

How thrilling it was for me to find NeoLucida on Kickstarter last week! Basically, the project is run by two college art professors that have also read and loved Hockney’s book and want others to experience the camera lucida first-hand. Within an hour after backing the project, all 2500 camera lucidas had been spoken for. A few days later the project owners decided to produce a second run of lucidas, and those also sold out in record time. While all 8,500 camera lucidas have been spoken for, I recommend keeping a close eye on the project. Every now and then someone will have to back out of their pledge, and that spot can be snatched up by an observant or lucky donor.

Drawings From the Camera Lucida

To wrap things up, here are a few images I found that were created by artists using a camera lucida. How relevant do you think this technology is today? Is the NeoLucida the best way to utilize portable optics for drawing in 2013? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.

Portraits by Pablo Garcia, created with an antique camera lucida (c.1900, left), and the NeoLucida (right).

From About.com: “A camera lucida can’t teach you how to choose what to put in or leave out of a drawing or painting, nor what kind of marks to put down. But, by eliminating the need to measure while you’re drawing to get the perspective accurate, it will increase the rate at which you work and free you up to experiment more as you haven’t invested so much time in one picture. The two pen figure studies above were both done in five minutes (they’re done on A2 paper).

 John Herschel, Cape of Good Hope Observatory, 1837

As part of my Kickstarter project I invited everyone (backer or not) to draw their own monsters to be included in a special community look-n-find scene. The finished community look-n-find would be made up entirely of everyone’s submissions, with some bits and bobs of my own.

The Time Has Come

Today is the last day to submit your monster doodle! Make it big, make it small, make it slimy or wiggly or bumpy. Send your monster to jess.smiley@gmail.com as a 300dpi jpg to be included in the community look-n-find.

Related articles

• Preview My New Book! (jesssmartsmiley.wordpress.com)
• Rumpus on the Run: A Monster Look-N-Find Book is Where’s Waldo with monsters (lostateminor.com)
• Hi. My Name Is Jess & I Make Rad Pictures (jesssmartsmiley.wordpress.com)

My piece is called “The  Traveler” and is available for purchase as a 13 X 19″ archival giclee print via Light Grey Art Lab for just $15.