Here's to the Atom Bomb

"2012 Skidoo" (c) 2011 Chrissy Spallone

It's good to be back! Those of you who "follow" me on the face may have noticed my complaints about Strathmore's new school of Bristol board. I ran out of my old batch a year or so ago, and when I restocked I noticed that inking on Strathmore board had a similar effect as inking on a roll of toilet paper. The Bristol board quite literally sucked!! -- My ink feathered and was absorbed until my once-dense black India ink faded to a dull light gray tone. To make it darker, I had to trace over some of my lines which as you might expect didn't look too pretty.

It still wasn't black, though. I was able to correct this problem somewhat by scanning my comics in, then tweaking the contrast and curves in Photoshop. Still, I was less than thrilled with the finished product, annoyed, and thought I was going crazy. I've since learned that Strathmore Bristol board now comes in "series." The 300-series board sold as the only option in many art supply stores is of horrible quality, but the two-ply 400-series I recently discovered works MUCH better for my needs as you can see.

My old PC, which had Photoshop on it, crashed, leaving me Photoshop-less. I scanned the above comic into my new MacBook with whatever scanning program comes with the computer, and what you see is an untweaked original! It's pretty good even without my usual adjustments, I think. Compared to my other stuff, I mean.

Hold up, let me get a little more excited about this, because this is truly a milestone...

I SCANNED A BLACK AND WHITE COMIC AND IT DIDN'T TURN OUT LOOKING LIKE CRAP!!! WAHOO!!!

I mean, if anyone would like to hook me up with Photoshop, though, I'd surely appreciate it. I like playing with it from time to time.

House of Fun

I built a house today!

I've been channeling Oscar the Grouch lately. Not because I have Seasonal Affective Disorder...quite the opposite! I'm really content with my job and living quarters with an awesome view and eucalyptus scent. Sadly, my happiness seems to be impeding my usual escapist fantasies and nightmares, which inspire many of my story and image ideas. And THAT makes me UNhappy, because I really enjoy writing and drawing comics, and NOW I have WRITER'S BLOCK and I feel COMPLETELY WORTHLESS!

This got me thinking -- I didn't always write for fun, and only when I felt like it. In elementary, middle and high school, I had creative writing assignments and two options: write a poem or story in time to meet the deadline, or receive an F. I usually did alright, even though I was forced.

When I was a kid, we had this neat advent calendar that folded into a 3D house. Doors and windows, each with a different message inside, were opened every day from the 1st through the 24th of December. Today, I made my own little house.

Check it out UNDER THE CUT!


Other than pop-ups, I never made 3D models before. Because of this, I decided to create a prototype on graph paper before making a larger model on watercolor paper.


I just winged it at first, but when I went to fold up my house, I noticed that the roof measurements were inaccurate (not that I had done any measuring). It was too short! This was completely due to my own laziness.


As you can see in the above diagram, I redrew the main part of the house, this time using the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate the hypotenuse, a.k.a. the length of the roof. It worked! Not too surprising, since math is an exact science.

That's right, kids. Next time you're in geometry class passing notes to your friends that say, "Why do I have to learn this?! I'll never have to use this in my life!" Remember, maybe some day you'll have your own art/creative writing/comics/librarianship blog, and you'll have to make a 3D paper house, and if you don't know the Pythagorean Theorem you won't be able to measure a roof correctly.

After verifying that my measurements would work, I did the real thing on watercolor. I used this scale: 1 unit of graph paper = 1 centimeter.

And then I painted my house/garage/chimney and used an Xacto knife to cut 3 out of 4 sides on my windows and doors, so I can later fold them out to reveal little drawings.

And then I used tabs to glue the house together. Now I have a little advent calendar!

So, I thought making an advent calendar would be a good way to force myself to write and draw something CREATIVE every day. Yes; providing I'm alive, well and with Internet access, I'll be writing and drawing a little something EVERY DAY from December 1st through 24th and posting it to this blog. I'm dependable, if nothing else. You can count on me!

And who knows -- perhaps this will be my most accessible endeavor yet! Frequent, short messages seem to be on trend these days, while weekly, 5 to 6 page pen and ink comics are old hat!

I'll try to keep it funny. See you Wednesday!

Art Lover

Some mistake me for a cold-hearted woman, but I very much love people -- especially specific ones. I greatly appreciate the few friends who take the time to get to know me, and I enjoy having them over to relax, drink tea, watch TV, read comics and do whatever they want (except drugs). I want people to feel comfortable in my home, it's a great place to chill out and escape to a different world. If someone hangs out with me long enough, I'll probably turn him or her into artwork.





It beats drawing travelers on subways. That's fun, too, but sometimes my "model" leaves at the next station.





Tune in next time for "Back to the Suture," a good old-fashioned horror story.

Just Three Colors

Here's a little video of me mixing colors and painting, with a soundtrack by Joe Raposo. I hope you enjoy this awesome music.



Some people like my color palette. I only use three colors, plus white, to mix all the colors I need. Just like in the Sesame Street song. The song makes it sound so easy, and it really is. Nobody needs to spend hundreds of dollars buying a long list of oil paints at the art supply store. Here's my M.O., in case the video was hard to follow (it's fast). I start out with blue, yellow and red and make orange, green and purple. Then I mix the color complements (yellow and purple, red and green and orange and blue) to make colorful grays, which I soften up with a lot of white.



It's easier to paint when everything is in the same color family. It's really easy to put a blue-ish orange against an orange-ish blue to build up shadows, and slap a pure orange or blue next to it to make a small detail pop out. I've done this with all my paintings lately...maybe it's the only way I know how to paint.

I think that's how Wayne Thiebaud does it, too.

I've explained my color mixing strategy before, but I'm not sure how many readers go back 50 entries to read my older stuff.



See you next time, hopefully with portraits.

Bang-Shang-A-Lang

"Ram-Bam-A-Lam" (c) 2010, Chrissy Spallone

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