Saint John Bosco and the Dog Grigio

 The latest story for my book is about the beloved St. John Bosco, an Italian priest who lived from 1815 to 1888.  One of the big differences between this story and the others in this collection is that most of my information for this story came from neither hearsay nor legend nor hagiography.  It was from the pen of Don Bosco himself (Don is the Italian title for a priest).  He wrote extensively.  I haven't had time to read all his writings, but I did find out from him about the wonderful, possibly angelic, dog that protected him in the times when he needed protection.   

This picture is of  Don Bosco as a newly ordained priest, in the sacristy where a shivering, underdressed teenage boy is trying to escape from the cold on the one hand, and from the broom of an unhappy sacristan who doesn't want young ruffians in his holy domain.  Don John knows that his own ministry is going to be to boys, and he recognizes this scruffy lad as his first.  

This is before the dog comes into the priest's life, but I had to describe what kind of person he was.  He was a man who loved before anything else, and he knew to whom he was dedicated.  His boys were the reason for, and the center of his life.   

St. Melangell and the prince

Wales.  6th century.
Melangell is praying in the woods where she lives as a hermit.
Prince Brochwel is hunting on his land, annoyed because he has been out all day without running across any game.
Finally, late in the day, the dogs catch the scent of a hare and give chase.  But what gives?  The hare is hiding in the folds of Melangell's dress, and the hounds, cowed by her peacefulness, refuse to do what they have been brought along to do: grab that hare.

The density of the greenery was fun to play with.  The dogs are taken from modern hunting dogs.  It is likely that sixth century hunting dogs would not have been as uniform in size and shape as the ones they breed now especially for hunting particular game.
The prince would have hunted with a bow and arrow, but would have had a knife, and possibly some other tools as well.  He seems not to have taken a servant with him on this expedition.

Melangell is a true woman of God, and her prayer is so deep that she is unaware of the dogs, or the approaching prince until he accosts her.

May I learn to pray like that.

St. Modomnoc published in the Valyermo Chronicle

Modomnoc on his way to the boat that will carry him home to Ireland

It's nice to have some of my stories published, even if they are not exactly in the format I set them up for.  Fr. Aelred, who puts together the quarterly magazine for St. Andrew's Abbey, was asking one day if there were female oblates who had work to put into the magazine.  I happened to be there, and asked him if he would entertain the idea of stories, rather than nonfiction articles.  He said Yes, and to send them to him electronically.  When he received them he said he would very much like to publish one.  So that happened last summer.  Then before Christmas he said he would like to put another one into the Winter issue.  I had to scurry to get pictures ready, but a deadline is always useful.  I got this picture and one other done for the Winter issue, to go with the two pictures already finished.

The magazine arrived in our mailbox yesterday.  Considering that the format I planned on is a book with 8.5" x 10" pages, and the Chronicle pages are 5.5" x 8.5", the words and pictures came out quite well.

This is the story of St. Modomnoc, a 7th century Irish lad who goes to Wales to study for the priesthood, and is made beekeeper for the abbey.  He makes such a deep and loving connection with the bees that when it is time for him to go back to Ireland,  all the bees follow him there.   

This image is of a specific place in Wales, a beach near Menevia Abbey where Modomnoc studied. It seems like the most likely place where Modomnoc's boat would have left from. 

Illustrating

Illustrating a story is different from making a picture, which is different from being a good draw-er.  I was always a good draw-er, so I thought I could illustrate.  It turns out that the essential skill is only the first step, and not even absolutely necessary at that.  In fact, it can be a detriment because a person who is confident that their work looks good may tend to lean too heavily on how attractive the image is, and not delve into the internal issuesof storytelling.  How does the picture express the feel of the story?  How does it tell something that the words don't or can't tell?  How does the picture fit into the placement of text on the page?  How many pictures does a story need?  What events in the story do you choose to illustrate?  How do you make each page beautiful in itself?  (That was one of Seth's main considerations when he was making his comic book pages.)

It has taken me ten years of struggling with the process and the discipline to even begin to formulate these questions.  Clearly I am a slow learner.

But little by little I am making images for the stories I want to tell, and putting them together.  It's only by actually DOING that a person learns these things.  Without doing it, I think you always think that the rules don't actually apply to you.  You think your work is above, or at least outside the rules.  Learning humility seems to be a vital part of this process.

Here's an illustration for the story of Martin de Porres and the mice.  Initially the picture did not have pots or shelves in the background, and Martin did not have the tonsure (that peculiar monk's haircut).  I was just throwing out pictures for certain segments of the story, without seeing how it all fit together.  But, then I reread a book I have on Martin, and rewrote the story so that it was more true to his life, and was going to toss this picture.  I did however like the structure of the picture, how his finger and the mice are all pointed toward one place, and decided I could still use it if it were altered.  

Now it seems to fit better as the final image in the story.  

From now on, however, I'd like to make most of the images blend into the page a little bit more, and not be so very rectangular.  That's Seth's influence.  

Roxy and the Crows

Crows are smart and funny.  They are also very social beasts, and they take care of each other.  I heard a story from a driver who witnessed this event, about a group of crows in the street, clearly distressed, who flapped and cawed, beseeching the driver of the car not to proceed until they had moved an injured crow to the side of the road.

For a project for an illustration class, I did this picture for an as yet unwritten story about our next door neighbor Roxy who is about seven years old, and St. Benedict's Prep School in Newark, NJ, and an injured crow.  Benedictines are great; I am a Benedictine oblate myself.  They have a serene way of understanding that good things take time and practice.  This school is a modern miracle, an educational oasis in the middle of downtown Newark.  And Roxy is so full of energy that it was hard to picture her sitting still, though she is an animal lover, and so I am pretty sure she could do it if a crow's well-being was at stake.

Here is Roxy in a more characteristic pose, twirling in joy. 

Naming the Animals

Adam names the animals

God loves to create.  He made animals of shapes and color combinations and processes that we could not have imagined.

At an illustrators' workshop a few years ago I met Iain McCaig whose job it was at that time (I don't know if it is still his job) to design monsters for George Lucas.  Design creatures: what a job!  Talk about playing God!  Because it's a monster, by definition a creature unencumbered by reality, the boundaries are wide open, and one is limited only by imagination.  Iain showed us how he freed his mind from the strictures of an unimaginative day or not enough caffein that morning.  He led us through a process that used objects at hand to reimagine as monster parts, and challenged us to design our own monster.  It was great fun, and when we were finished I had drawn a creature that I would not have imagined without using his method.

God did it (does he still do it?) his own way, from scratch.  There is a niche that needs a creature, and he finds a way to fill it, always with panache. 

Adam in this picture has not yet eaten the awful fruit.  He is a simple, straightforward, guileless man who has been given the joyful mandate to give names to all the animals as they parade before him.  He gives them names and so asserts his stewardship over them. 

I tried to include in this picture as many genres of animals as I could without getting confusing, and still have an elephant as the centerpiece.  (Could a picture of animals in general NOT include an elephant?)  So there are mammals, birds (one extinct), reptiles, and an insect.  They have to stand in for all the animals that are outside the border of this picture. 

Cut paper art

It has been nearly a year since I've posted anything here, so maybe it's time to put up a representative sample of the kind of work that I've done lately.  This is St. Martin de Porres, a Dominican monk from Peru in the early 16th century, a man of prayer who was known as a healer, but did not stop there.  He also cared for animals large and small.  The most famous small story about him concerns some mice that had overrun the monastery.  He invited them to live outside the walls in a place he designated, and they followed his suggestion, solving the monastery's problem while doing providing the mice with a proper home.

Working with cut paper is quite a different process from any work where one fills in a drawing with color from a brush or pencil.  First of all, there are the many gorgeous papers to choose from. Textures, colors, varying translucence, the papers bring their own personalities to the work.  It's like working in collaboration with a group of artists who all love beauty.

Then the size of the picture makes a difference.  I can't do details that are too fine; they would just be lost.  I have found that just redoing a watercolor picture in cut paper doesn't really work well.  The sort of image that watercolor does best is quite different from the sort of image that cut paper does well.  Sometimes there is energy in a scene that I would not have been able to express in watercolor, but can do with cut paper.  Perspective doesn't seem to be as big an issue with these works; they will never be photorealistic in any case; I can let them suggest rather than show the action.

This work to me now is a pleasure and a joy.  I hope that translates to others.