" I don't get it..." Abstract vs Representational Art.

Glad everyone is digging the mixed media stuff, there's tons more out there, and I'll throw up more in the future, but there's an insightful post by Chris in the comments i wanted to get to first:

I don't wanna open the can of worms on Abstract/Post-Modern vs. Traditional Art debate, which I find really tedious at best. But Chris, I agree and totally get what your saying about abstract art. 

Another way to look at it is with music, I used to listen to  Zappa,  Stockhausen, Laurie Anderson, Bjork, John Cage, Captain Beefheart, Mr. Bungle, Eric Dolphy, the 'Raleigh Soliloquy' from Sublime, these and tons of other artists mix up melodic music.. with just plain weird-ass crap. Often in the same song. The fans who liked this may like the weird parts just because it sounds cool, others feel it's pretentious or indulgent to have 'weird for weirdo's' dissonant music s.. and i can see that too. Both are valid. Captian Beefheart,

I discovered what called 'abstract-modern-surreal' art books in my local library as a teens.  No one told me to like it or what it meant. Same time I was checking out the musicians above, their sounds and visual totally blew my mind. Yeah, sometimes bored me too, or seemed indulgent… or just.. went no where, or seemed "didactic", meaning message or idea  focused.. or as you say Chris, seems to lack feeling or emotional context. 

I'm glad your digging my stuff, and no one should sweat or worry if something i do, (either in comics or abstract art)… leaves them cold, or scratching their head asking "huh?" That's valid and does happen when one experiments in 'weird' areas. It's expected... and welcomed - - some of it hits for some folks, and some just misses. 

It's also why I wanna work abstract pairings into Dana stories, have Dana comment on it, because then the art is placed has some sorta context, it doesn't  risk of an abstract coming off as just a cold remote work.. like the example above with no text at all..

I got my share of puzzled looks for tons of abstract Maxx panels and Wolvie Marvel Comics covers too. But Like Frank said, I too no longer dismiss, but kinda *enjoy* my old detailed stuff like… Epicures, Wolverine, 'detail for detail's sake'... 

...if i didn't dig that 'classic' noodley stuff, (heck… I wouldn't have done it in the *first* place.) 

So, yeah.. I'm flattered if anything I do strikes an emotional (or cerebral) chord. 

Just like now-a-days I am pleased to do stuff i couldn't dream of doing back then... like this portrait: 

In fact, this is one of the FIRST portrait I took a stab at.

I wasn't going for realism, (not that i'm skilled enough to pull that off anyhoo), but I wanted to capture a certain mood/feeling of her face, rather than technical accuracy?

I started off making my usual self-critial doodles...

I'm always trying to escape chasing down some spark of life in simple little gesture pencil, marker rough i do. I really prefer the little face on the lower left, it seems less labored than the bigger one on the upper right.

The sketches above are same 'bowl cheeks' and ' pouty lips' I always do... somehow these cliche's followed their way right from the sketch into the finished painting. plus the ever drifting eyes...

Looking back, I sorta wish I'd kept the finished painting loser... like these sketches are..

I always have mixed feelings about my women's faces. I wanna capture the imperfections, but there's just a limit to how much illustrative skill i posses, plus, even as a teenager i was struck by abstract, post-modern and conceptual art I'd read about.

One of my favs, Paul Klee, also Willem de Kooning, and Joan Miro, were all artists I developed a love for totally... outside of any art school education. Not slamming that. Just found them from books I'd dig up at libraries.  Most of these dudes were trying to break free of constraints of a previous school of art. 

Drawing 'weird'... was something I personally didn't have the chance to explore in my art until the Maxx, when I had a chance to cut free and fumble towards the trail blazed by Sienkiewicz. Electra and Stray Toaster were the first direct bridge to these other artists above. 

It does my heart good to know, before most modern artists who were canonized and swallowed up by academia and collectors...  In their life own times, most they were like us. Dumb schmuck living in a studio and minds.. trying to paint themselves out of their problems... forging some sorta new paths. 

Even Schiele was both inspired by, (and emerged from the shadow of) Klimt's glamorized portraits of women's portraits. Sienkiewicz was inspired-emerged from Neil Adams and Barron Storey.

Then, I inspired/emerged... from my Dad. See, my Dad was an artists too.  I grew up watching him paint realistic portraits. But he also tried his hand at abstract paintings.

So for me, it's kinda a personal linage.

I lucked out, discovered the sub-culture of comics allowed me to dabble in slightly abstract styles, and later do art books.

Here's getting back to simple vs. detailed... here's that drifting eye on the upper left side in the finished piece, come on... doesn't the first tiny little marker sketch one just seem to ' breath '? It's apples and oranges, i know. But i STILL say the one one the left has it's merits.

I'm telling you... 'simple drawings' really call to me. 

But then why do I waste my time doing this big-ass elaborate paintings then?

I dunno. 

I just like to swim through a variety of styles and periods, good bad, intricate, crude. I hear some artists bitch "..it's all been done so what's the point?" True. But since it's all been done, the pressure's off your shoulders isn't it? Like Sondheim says in Sunday in the park with George, "..let it come from you, then it will be new."  May sounds trite, but it rings true for me.

Maybe it's like my dad. Both sides are inside of me... normal and abstract... even when they don't always see eye to eye with each other. 

So there you are.

Soap, Abstracts & a Sergio card.

Here's a layout and the finished Sergio Aragones Groo trading card i did during the Image days. So much gets lost in art for trading cards, so i figured you wouldn't mind seeing a higher-rez version. I bailed on the layout because it didn't look enough like Groo. 

Sergio is yet another a very cool guy who encouraged me during our brief exchanges over the years at conventions. 


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The abstracts continue to roll out.

It's desperately needed therapy between work for hire gigs. Only so much abstraction a comic may allow. It just for me... and any fans out there that digs non-representational abstractions from my warped little brain. 

 'Texture junkie', is what my pal Terry Fitzgerald says draws him to this stuff. I guess i am too, or i wouldn't be doing it. But there is some thought behind it too. 

I'll speak a little more about this stuff in an interview about my sketchbooks art coming out soon. Let alone tons more bigger art books which will come over in the next few years. 


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Here's a curiousity: My Mother dug up a piece of my art burnished onto a bar of soap she had made when i was a kid. 

Something I'd forgotten all about. Kinda cool. Obviously my crude pen line work makes it difficult to make the figure out.  Of course we can't use it, or it would wash away. Anyway... i thought it might be worth a peak.

More next week. 

"MAY" post, hey -- better late than never!

Hi.

it's MOCK MAY . . .

Gad-zooks—it doesn't feel like May! Only one more month left before I am all caught up in posts, huh?

Much small stuff this time:

these are very SKINNY thumbs . . .

...from an unused gallery from my non-existent web page (which i'll probably never get too). You may recognize some of this art from the first Sketchbook. Others haven't been published yet.

BTW, I've another 48-page sketchbook out from IDW, and now we’re moving on to the BIG sucker. Yeah, the long-overdue art book everybody always asks about—the one that WASN'T canceled, but I can see why you'd think it was! I only had a small fit about this sketchbook:

The cover isn't as crisp as I'd like, but i didn't toss in in the garbage this time. When you go non-gloss which i like, that's the trade off, so I’m somewhat to blame for this one seems less crips in the blacks. Bitch bitch bitch… here's the raw hand drawn cover for comparrison.

Notice the moss is made with modeling paste with sand? The 3D texture doesn't show as well in print. i love the texture of moss, however it's made. Stippling, sand, or even real moss pasted on canvas. There's something almost organic and sensual about moss for me. As i said, a lot of moss contrast gets lost when you don't use a gloss cover. - ENOUGH, it's what it is...

Now, what's next?

Here's the THREE-PHASE PLAN for all my art books, that will eventually be published down the road. Before you bring up my tendency to procrastinate, take heart: were already DONE with phase one, see? The two 48 pagers should give you some faith i will get off my ass and do the later ones! I describe the three of them in detail the intro to the second Sketchbook, so i won't repeat all that here.

Phase Three is these BIG THREE VOLs. which all add up to 600 pages of sketchbook material. These will be super-rare, limited print run, dipped in plates and art, signed/numbered, the whole bit, blah blah. Why so rare on these? Mostly because frankly, who the heck WANTS much sam crap right? Not everyone. So why not make it collectable, and special for the sam addicts who just HAVE to have it? Right?

I'm probably more proud of these goofy sketchbooks than anything else I've drawn for the last two years for the big two. And I have all of YOU fans to thank for checking these first two sketchbooks out. No offense to DC, but we all know they’ll move plenty of Batman and Arkham books without my plugging it. But these little sketchbooks are PURE labors of love.

From the subtle and evocative to the silly and grotesque, these pretty much shows the full range of perversity i can't always get to in sequential mainstream stories.

At the risk of seeming full of myself, these art books are really my way of saying THANKS to my fans who put up with me over years, and STILL check out my weird wonky stuff. YOU guys n' gals are what keeps me alive and kicking, creatively.

Until next month, (which is five minutes from right now..)

sam