Monday, December 17, 2012

Gloria in excelsis deo

Glory to God in the highest!
(It sounds more glorious in Latin though.)

This image was done in an effort to make the sort of small, iconic drawings that can be found in books of liturgy, drawings that are meant to symbolize, rather than explain, a text.
I love the drawings by Br. Martin Erspamer, OSB, which are often found in Catholic liturgical guides.
I am not sure my particular style is suited to such a use, but how can I know unless I put enough true effort into the making of them?
I've done a few more, but this small one is the only one related to Christmas.  

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Hiking by a stream

In the interests of helping Tofu read English (his Japanese reading is super, but he has much less opportunity to practice English), I have been sending him little stories, with pictures to go with them.  This picture is for a story about a boy named Tofu and his fictional canine friend Jonny, spending a cool Saturday morning floating dandelions down a stream to see which ones go the fastest (incidentally a surprisingly fun and unpredictable game).

When I was younger and thought I was a pretty good artist, I was concerned almost exclusively with how realistic my figures were.  That is still an issue, and I still have a long way to go, especially in drawing from my imagination rather than from life.  Nevertheless, it is not everything in a picture.  I must aim for the whole to be harmonious: form and color and the movement need to come together in a way that could be called beautiful.  Even in a picture such as this one, whose purpose is to accompany a reading lesson, if it is put together carelessly, it would be better to ditch it as not worth showing to anyone, much less sending to someone I love in a faraway place.  Everything I do is worth the time.  It's all for God and from God, who made every insect, every leaf, every molecule beautiful.