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Draw #26 Fall 2013 (magazine review).

As you can tell, as I dip back 5 years, from the 26th cover of ‘Draw!’, the opening interview is with Joe Jusko, cover artist for many a comicbook cover and poster. He reveals, early in his career, he experimented with various mediums before settling on LiquidTex acrylics because it dries fast. I tend to prefer it in tubes myself whereas he goes in for the Soft Body variation that comes in bottles. I hadn’t known about mixing glycerin with water to keep the colour damper longer for painting skin tone that he learnt from a Vargas book or how much he was self-taught.

Technically, so am I with a little more tuition from a good art teacher at school who said I should work at everything on the canvas than in isolation which tends to serve me in good stead. Even so, you’ll learn a lot here, including keep a decent photo morgue of various things that you might have to work from. I would add that the bigger variety the better.

Although I can see people thinking that being on-line that you can always seek out a particular item but the biggest drawback is often not a big enough selection and sooner or later everyone will have plundered from the same well. The more variety the better, so get as many sources as possible.

I hadn’t realised that this was the first issue where artist Jerry Ordway started his series as he explains how he draws and inks prepping a commissioned piece of work with a multitude of characters. I liked his comment that even he doesn’t like to ink over too tight a set of pencils as it just duplicates work he’s already done.

His point about squinting at art to spot deflects on page or canvas learnt from school is valid, although looking at the work in a mirror or distance works as well. Any means to see your work from different ways stops the eye getting stale looking at it. I was taught a different use for squinting as working from life as it removes secondary shadows when drawing or painting from life which can obscure getting the right detail.

There’s a long interview with Jim Rugg who creates in independent comics. He relies a lot more on chiaroscuro than detail but gives an interesting contrast to the other artwork here. Saying that, Rugg does show some other variety allowing for some flexibility in style/

Mike Manley and Brett Blevins’ section on ‘Drawing Dynamic Figures’ in putting weight into the figures’ activities so they give a, shall we say, realistic movement we call gravitas in the UK. The various examples should make you think, especially when figures are falling. Although they don’t go as far as showing characters flying, these rules still apply. After all, capes and hair will still whip back in motion and you need to consider what happens when they stop in mid-air and which frame of moment you need to be effective.

Finally, Jamar Nicholas looks at a variety of correction white fluid pens, showing examples and his hoping these pens will still be made. Some of them aren’t so hot as they mix with the black ink creating greys. I did wonder if there might be a use for that option so don’t totally ignore them if you want a tone without using grey ink. Thinking further, if you are picking out white-out pens in different countries to the USA, any solvent-based correction fluid is bound to react with some inks. In the UK, there is a water-based Tippex that I find useful and it dries just as fast.

I wasn’t sure how much interest I was going to have beyond the Jusko interview, but as you can see from the rest of what I’ve written, I’ve read and reacted and leant. ‘Draw!’ isn’t designed for a passive read. If you draw or paint, then prepare to react and match experiences or something to try.

GF Willmetts

May 2018

(pub: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2013. 82 page illustrated magazine. Price: $ 8.95 (US). ISSN: 1932-6882. Direct from them, you can get it for $ 7.61 (US))

check out websites: www.TwoMorrows.com and http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_59&products_id=1116

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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