colors art: DG

Showing posts with label DG. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

John Howe - Drawings

- by Donato Giancola

The concept artist and illustrator John Howe recently opened an exhibition of his latest, personal works in Paris at the Arludik Gallery, May 11 - July 8, 2017

www.arludik.com/

These new show includes dozens of pencil drawings and a handful of watercolors executed in Howe's luminous technique. His drawings seem carved from mists and ethereal wisps, so delicate is his touch and control of value to describe form and mood. Pasted below are a few selections from the show, while the rest may been seen on the Arludik website.

For some of you who may not be familiar with Howe's work, check out his extensive website portfolio and intense writings in his blog/news on the nature of art and creativity. You will not be disappointed!

http://www.john-howe.com/blog/

Enjoy!

Llora�s Quest III John Howe 65x40cm


*The Isle* John Howe 65x40cm

John Howe

Wanderer John Howe 65x40cm

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Post-College Career

-By Donato

Raunok Fishing Donato Giancola 1992 Oil on Panel book cover sample

I had a long, lengthy essay for all you college grads coming out of school this May, but then it was erased by an errant autosave. I take this as a sign, and I am thankful I am not a digital artist!

Basically, productivity was the key to my early success 25 years ago when I graduated from Syracuse University. Within a week after graduation my entire portfolio was nearly worthless as a marketing tool. The entire portfolio. Seriously. I had to rebuild it all.

(Here is a MuddyColors post which has many samples from that college portfolio :

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2013/05/college-portfolio-1992.html )

A meeting in mid-May with an artist representative, Sal Barracca, opened the door for my first professional venture as an artist. But in order to begin this new venture, I had to create samples for the opportunity to work as a book cover artist. I needed to display specific problem solving abilities as well as produce a very tight grouping of quality and style for Sal in order to secure commissions. I began rebuilding in late May.

Month after month found me at Sal's office, turning in a new painting, and sharing sketches for the next concept.

Alien World preliminary drawing Donato Giancola 1992 graphite on paper, book cover sample

June, July, August, October, November, December. You could set the calendar by by my timely arrivals into Sal's office.

(September was missed for I had a paint ball shot into my right eye, permanently destroying the macular region that allows you to see detail, and I was moving to New York City as well! But that is another story.)

By the time late December rolled around, I had six new samples to show. That was enough for Sal to land my first commissions. My professional career had begun.

Words of advice for all you new graduates. Do not rest. Do not 'take some time off' to recharge. Your career begins now, today, and every day. Think about the artist you would like to be, and begin making and implementing decisions that will get you closer to that dream. Feed the tired passion of your desires, for if you cannot find a way to rejuvenate the fire now, you will likely not be able to keep it going five years from now when you are deep into commissions which are not exactly what you wanted, but are a part of building a career as a professional.

Those who will have a successful career in the arts are those artists who create art, drink art, and dream about art. Art is difficult and trying, but also heartfelt and deeply gratifying. Begin your journey today.

Below are a few of the drawings and cover samples created over the summer months and into that Fall 25 years ago when I needed to fuel the fire...

Alien World Donato Giancola 1992 Oil on Panel book cover sample

Cityscape Donato Giancola 1992 Oil on Panel book cover sample

Gwindor at Angband preliminary drawing Donato Giancola 1992 graphite on paper, book cover sample

Gwindor at Angband Donato Giancola 1992 Oil on Panel book cover sample

Omega Corps preliminary drawing Donato Giancola 1992 graphite on paper, book cover sample

Omega Corps Donato Giancola 1992 Oil on Panel book cover sample

Pen and the Sword Donato Giancola 1992 Oil on Panel book cover sample

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Red Haired Warriors

by Donato

Over a decade ago, on a flight to the San Diego Comic-Con, I created a drawing to pass away the hours of the cross country trip. Little did I realize then that this off-handed sketch would open up a path to a series of imagery which I continue to explore and expand upon today.

I think what I like most about this series is that lack of strict
continuity needed between each of the paintings. Each figure is
obviously heavily inspired by a prototype, but a prototype that is open
to modifications and rebuilding as each painting dictates its own needs.

As I pack for another convention coming up this weekend in Kansas City - Spectrum Live - I wonder what new roads will await me on this adventurous career in art. I am grateful for the chances to explore and to have the freedom to pursue these tangents as they come my way.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Whiteout

-By Donato

Claude Monet, Ice Floes, 1893

A recent visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art put me face to face with a wonderful work by Monet, Ice Floes. This is a stunning work, capturing a high degree of control in value and color. What I find fascinating about works like this is the level of objective awareness that the artist needed to have regarding so many of their decisions to pull off a harmonious, well balance painting - composition, mark making, edge control, as well as control of the afore mentioned color and value.

One does not just look at a winter landscape and see this scene. It is a contrived experience, based upon direct observation, - inspired by nature but not beholden to it. It is through these deliberate choices that Monet is able to better clarify his experience of the moment and pass that intent onto us, the viewer. Far too often I see artists beholden to their references, thinking that photography and/or nature offers the truth of seeing. Art is a process which the artist's mind and hand interpret the world and projects the reshuffled results as a new, distilled experience.

Step away from the mind set that art needs to record and let us understand what it is that you 'see'.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Possessed, Prolific, Talented - In That Order

-By Donato

Dungeons & Dragons Map Donato Giancola ~ 1984 24" x 18" hand drawn 1/4" graph paper

Reviewing recent work for entry to Spectrum and reflecting upon the entirety of my studio creations within this past year, my thoughts drifted back to years long ago and the body of work I would create around specific themes and motivations. With a little post-modern analysis and 20/20 hindsight, I can now see the work ethic and approaches I practiced back as a teenager structured my career to this day.

Star Wars-The Empire Strikes Back Donato Giancola 1980 24" x 18"

A recent raiding trip to my parent's cellar allowed the recovery of a couple portfolios of drawings from periods of my artistic pastimes. As a teenager, I never considered myself an artist, nor did my friends identify me as one with a capital 'A'. Rather, my talents for creative thinking and drawing were always harnessed to clarify stories or create vehicles through which story could be conveyed - drawing maps, castles, and dungeon descriptions for role-playing with Dungeons & Dragons, creating a rule system and accompanying charts for a science fiction game we called 'Omega Corps', and reinterpreting visuals from other works like the Star Wars universe.

Omega Corps Rules Donato Giancola and Vincent Schelzo ~ 1983

Art was always a ritual around the transferal of narrative, never designed to make a 'statement' or celebrate a mere play of 'shape and form', art as an end unto itself. Looking back now, it is easy to see why formal modern art has no power to hold me and why I seek to build greater complexity into the images and narratives emerging from my gesture drawings.

Speaking to the title of this post - Possessed, Prolific, Talent -I wanted to share with you a small sample of the volume of material produced and passion I had with these forms of expression. It was not just a developed or innate ability I had as a 'gifted' child which allowed me to succeed as an artist. Rather, I believe, it was the unstoppable desire to create, express and tell stories which propelled me to produce such a quantity of material that I am shocked, even now, at everything I produced.

Dungeons & Dragons Map Donato Giancola ~ 1984 24" x 18"

I was never bored as a child. My hands were never idle. Never. From drawing stories and coloring with markers, to painting plastic model kits of dinosaurs and WWII aircraft, to attempting stop motion animation with my parents 8mm film camera, to painting lead figurines for D&D and creating dioramas out of them, to creating science fiction starship cockpits with electric lights and dials, I cannot recall a single day of leisure. For me, to play was thrilling, challenging, and full of pleasure and passion. I had no inhibitions. When I tackled projects for my games, I became Possessed.

It is for this reason I seek to channel those interests and ethics to this day, in service of my professional career as an artist.

Star Wars-The Empire Strikes Back Donato Giancola 1980 24" x 18"

Certainly my ability to draw like nearly no others around me helped fuel my hobbies, but talent alone cannot explain the sheer quantity of art pasted through out this blog. And this is but a small, small part of my output as a teenager. The prolific outpouring of visual imagery for so many of my interests nearly insured that my skills would be honed and matured, even if as an outside/self taught hobbyist artist.

My interest in expression was not satiated with initial success within an art form, I would constantly revisit themes - exploring, adding, manipulating in an obsessive way. I could not stop at making one dungeon map, I was constantly creating new adventures for my friends to play within so that in the end scores of handmade encounters and visuals were produced. This obsessive nature carried over into nearly all creative endeavors I engaged in as a teenager. I would guess that art saved my life, for what would this enormous energetic outpouring typically fuel? Violence? Dissidence? Frustration?

Thankfully art was a massive pressure release value for teenage anxieties.

Dungeons & Dragons Map Donato Giancola ~ 1983 24" x 18" hand drawn 1/4" graph paper

Assessing my output as a professional artist, I can see that formative years as an illustrator in the mid 1990's continued the productive level of creation I began in my teenage years and nurtured through my time at college. I was not exceptionally talented compared to the scores of artists working in the book cover and game industry, but rather believe much of my success has come from the tenacity to keep pushing through project after project, building new challenges into my portfolio, and attempting to be uninhibited in the types of content I seek to embrace.

I certainly stumbled many times with my rendering, style, and execution, but the large volume of output guaranteed a fair number of successes and nurtured confidence in my career.

When asked what is the best advice for artists, the answer is a simple one - be prolific.

I cannot teach talent, only help a bit in its development.

I cannot inspire an artist to fall passionately in love with their content, that can only come from the heart.

But what I have learned as a teacher working these past decades is that I can train and educate an artist how to be as prolific as possible - how to build upon their strengths, pry out their weaknesses, and bring challenges into their creative process so that they can mature their work ethic, and develop a high degree of confidence in their performance.

I have learned that building a stronger link between talent and passion through work ethic is the path to success as an artist.