Drop in on artist Vicky Stonebridge

Vicky Stonebridge at work

For those of you going to the British comics convention Thought Bubble in Leed this weekend, drop in on the Eco-comics workshop run by Sci-Fi Art Now contributor  Vicky Stonebridge.

The workshop will run from 1.30pm-4pm on Sunday in the Leeds Art Gallery Tiled Hall and
admission is free.

Vicky, who's currently working on the comics project Slaughterman's Creed written by Cy Dethan, will be showing how to make your own handmade small storybooks using a variety of recycled products such as waste products, old magazines, scrap paper and packaging.

"It's quick, easy and fun to do," she enthuses.

This is a drop in workshop, but places are limited so if you want to be sure of a place you can pre-book by emailing thoughtbubbleinfo@googlemail.com.

Vicky will also have prints of her own work for sale over the weekend.

• The full programme of Thought Bubble events is here:www.thoughtbubblefestival.com/full%20programme%20new.asp

• More about Slaughterman's Creed


• Read our interview with Vicky


• Visit Vicky's web site at: www.balnacra.com

The Elements: Advice to Aspring Artists

Lee Moyer offers his useful guidance to would be or practicing artists trying to gt their break in the world of commercial art...

I critique hundreds of pieces every year. Not because I'm a Creative Director (although I have been), but because I (like you) am a consumer of art - of illustration, painting, comics, games, et alia. And the act of critique is one of the most helpful for enlarging one's own understanding and formalizing concepts that might otherwise float away...

While the following list is by no means scientific (many of the elements listed below overlay others, and many great paintings use only a few) I made it for my own reference and I hope it will be food for thought.

Print it out and put it by your drafting table or computer if it'll help.

Focus
Where do you want your viewer's eye to go? What's the heart of the piece, the crux of the biscuit?

Composition and Design
Create a visual hierarchy - A path for the viewer to follow? Something fractal? Separate elements intended for book cover, spine and back cover? Consider the surface you're working on, its aspect ratio and how that effects the harmonies and tensions of your piece. When working in a tall oval, or a wide ceiling, or a strange milled form, that's pretty obvious. But it is just as important within a normal rectangle.

Palette
There are many good ones that great painters have applied over the years. Use one of theirs or make your own!

Value
Can your piece be reduced to black and white and still read correctly?
Sometimes good pieces work their value in terms of warm and cool colors, but most need strong tonal variety to read well.

Signs by Rosie O'Neill.

Mass
Think Rodin, JC Leyendecker or Rose O'Neill.

Texture
It makes things and people seem real.

Symbolism
Personal, classical, mystical or cultural - words, numbers, objects, beings. There's no shortage of sources or end to interpretation as Michael Kaluta and Brian Despain are good examples.

Synecdoche  (Micro defining Macro)
A small area of tight or implied detail will help define vast shapes - like the windows in a colossal building or the wrinkles on an elephant. One needs the wee bits for versimilitude...

Ornament
Whether it's Mary Engelbreit's checkerboards, or Stephen Hickman's ornate orientalism, Ornament matters. Sometimes it's a sort of texture, other times the whole raison d'etre.

Narrative
Is there a story here? A big idea? A paradigm, a parody, a pastiche? Has the sword been nicked in battle, has the dog been fed, has the sweater been patched? Norman Rockwell began his pictures thinking of a soldier under a light post and ran scenarios in his mind (often switching "lead" characters) until he found a painting.

Juxtaposition
Comparisons and contrasts of size, scope, meaning, characters... in our world of Zoroastrian black and white contrasts, this is often too-easy. Use discretion and variety.

Hunt for Adventure art by Glenn Orbik

Stylization
Sometimes it's fetishism for a type of brush-stroke or color scheme, sometimes caricature or anatomy. For example, the best pin-ups (by Gil Elvgren, Aly Fell, Glen Orbik, et alia) have similarly stylized elements, some of which might surprise you.
If you're working on a pin-up, just crack their code and you're off to the races.

Character
Have the characters lived real lives? Are they real beings with hopes and fears? Body language, gesture and costume are crucial here.

Tension
Gesture is important, but so is the feeling of tension. Sometimes it's the most important part of a piece. Drama, high stakes, suspense. If you can enlist the viewer's sympathy support or curiosity, you win.

Line
It's quite obvious in the works of Franklin Booth, Aubrey Beardsley, and Mike Mignola - but don't underestimate its importance for Drew Struzan, Arthur Rackham or John Jude Palencar.

Research/Reference
I know precious few people who draw brilliantly out of their heads, but those heads have absorbed the lessons their eyes have shown them for many years. Most of us have been nowhere near as observant, and while we may remember and be able to imagine many things, there are usually areas where we fall down. Bolster yourself and your work with reference. Don't stick slavishly to it, but make it do your bidding.

Vignette
The play of shape (whether silhouette or fully rendered form) against a white, colour, or fully realized background is so important for keeping a viewer interested.

Perspective
Each point in perspective applies to a single dimension (in 2 point perspective the points are nearly always width and depth). Get perspective right and you'll be halfway home. Also, the more you keep you POV away from a normal grid as seen from 6', the more dynamic your piece will be.

FUN!
A certain joie de vivre is key. It doesn't matter if you paint supplely or with technical perfection - If you don't bring some fun and adventure to your work, viewers can tell. They won't always know what's wrong, but they'll get that something is...

To which list the delightful Kurt Huggins suggested:

Process: This is your way of managing and editing all of these different elements. Each step of your process should be about solidifying one more element of the image, building up to a final piece. There are many processes, and many ways to finish, but I think most processes start with idea or composition.

• More of Lee's work at www.leemoyer.com

• Read our interview with Lee Moyer

This article © 2008 Lee Moyer. Used here with permission

Sci-Fi Art Now Creator Interview: Ron Miller

Mars from Deimos by Ron Miller

Ron Miller is an illustrator and author specializing in science, astronomy, science fiction and fantasy. In addition to providing artwork for many magazine and book publishers, he's the author, co-author or editor of some 50-odd books (some, he says, odder than others), including several novels. He's also designed postage stamps and worked on motion pictures (most notably Dune, for which he was the production illustrator), as a production designer and special effects artist.

Sci-Fi Art Now: What tools do you mainly use to create your art?


Ron Miller: Photoshop almost exclusively.

Sci-Fi Art Now: Why?

Ron: About ten years ago, I had to meet a really rough series of deadlines: writing and illustrating two books every three months for nearly a year. Each book would have up to 20 illustrations.

After doing the first few traditionally, I realized there was no way I could meet the deadlines and maintain anything at all resembling quality work. A few years earlier a book had turned out badly because I had taken on too many illustrations in too short a period of time -- resulting in many of the paintings being much too hurriedly done.

So I swallowed hard and took the advice of several colleagues who had been urging me to try painting digitally. And it worked! I could create a painting that looked as though it took me a week to render... but do it in only a day or two.

Sci-Fi Art Now: What inspired you to become an artist?


Ron: I was born that way.

Sci-Fi Art Now: What was the most useful piece of advice you were given when you began learning your craft?


Ron: Neither give nor accept unsolicited critiques.

Sci-Fi Art Now: Which artists most inspire you?


Ron: A zillion! But if I limit myself to my specialty, astronomical art, there are only three: Chesley Bonestell, Ludek Pesek and Lucien Rudaux.

Sci-Fi Art Now: What is the appeal to you of science fiction as an inspiration for some of your work?


Ron: One never knows from assignment to assignment what'll turn up. It's always a surprise!

Titan by Ron MIller

Sci-Fi Art Now: Do you have a favourite piece of work or project you have worked on?


Ron: It's usually the most recent thing I did... until the next one comes along. But I did an illustration a couple of years ago for Scientific American I'm still very proud of. It's a scene on Titan just after a methane rainfall.

Sci-Fi Art Now: In your career, have you had any bizarre experiences while creating your art?


Ron: Well, it might not be particularly bizarre, but I think I do have the (probably) unique experience of having one of my works slightly more than halfway to Pluto.

Back in 1991, I did a series of postage stamps, one for each planet and the moon. There was a spacecraft associated with each world... except Pluto. It was labeled "Not Yet Explored". This apparently rankled so many space scientists that a movement was started to launch a Pluto exploration mission. This eventually culminated in the New Horizons probe. As a kind of thank-you for the inspiration, Alan Stern -- the mission's principal investigator -- attached one of the stamps to the spacecraft (and invited my wife and me to the launch). That was very cool!

My only fear is that the stamp wasn't canceled... if not, the spacecraft is going to wind up right back here in 15 years.

Sci-Fi Art Now: What most frustrates you about being an artist?


Ron: Never doing anything really good enough to suit me.

Sci-Fi Art Now: What keeps you going despite the hopefully occasional frustrations?


Ron: Hope springs eternal.

Sci-Fi Art Now: What advice would you offer to anyone starting out as an artist?


Ron: For God's sake don't get into my specialty, I have enough competition as it is!

• Check out more of Ron's work at www.black-cat-studios.com. To contact Ron email him via spaceartATembarqmail.com


Some of Ron's recent works include Digital Art: Painting with Pixels (Lerner Publishing, 2007.  For a full bibliography, check out www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Author:Ron_Miller