Dropbox is terrific for keeping and sharing a recipe folder.
EM
My name is Erik Mallinson. I draw pictures, make music, and some other stuff. I like playing the ‘ukulele, riding my scooter around Boston, and playing board games.
Follow me on Twitter (@erima) if you’re into that sort of thing.
You might also check out my illustration and music studio (@gravel).
Got a question? Ask.
May24
May23
May22
Is it me or do these choices all do the same thing?
Of course, everyone has a plan that’s 1-3 turns too long, but this is quickly abandoned at the altar of practicality.
Surprising things for Agricola players … Sounds like life! (via Instapaper)
May21
Comics are Illustrated Directions
The first art class I ever took was when I was 10 (1987), in summer camp. It was called something like How To Draw Cartoons and was taught by a cartoonist who worked for the RPI newspaper, The Rensselaer Polytechnic. I created a bunch of comics that summer… my parents favorite was about Chomper, this scary dog who bit people.
I’ve had “comic writers block” since then. I spent the rest of Elementary School, Junior High School, High School and these past 15 years drawing in a comic book style, but without the ability to create sequences of images that told a story. Crazy, right?
So yesterday I was doing my periodic checkup on submissions to the Under This Tree photo group and weeding out the images from those who didn’t get the concept. There are a bunch of photographers who do excellent work but didn’t really follow the concept. At first I blamed them for not paying attention (as many Flickr users seem to post to 1 bajillion groups to see what sticks) but then I realized that, hey, I never really explained it. So, as I am in drawing mode lately, I decided to draw a picture of the concept. I whipped up a few instruction boxes going over the steps to making a picture.
I didn’t set out to make comic and it took me by such surprise that I blurted out, “HOLY SHIT! I made a comic!”.
So how did that happen?
I realized that what made it a piece of sequential art and not just an instruction illustration was a seemingly insignificant bit: the sidewalk. The sidewalk is what ties the first panel into the third panel. In the first panel the character is walking down the sidewalk and in the second panel the character has moved from the sidewalk to the grass but the sidewalk is still visible. If the second panel were not there or did not show the sidewalk the first and third panels would not connect enough to make a story, it would be two unrelated events.*
It then occurred to me that comics are basically instructions you want to explain to the reader. Try to visualize these as comic panels:
- Walk into the kitchen from the back yard.
- Take the orange juice out of the refrigerator.
- Pour Orange Juice into glass.
- Look up at Sally who just walked in and insulted you.
- Pour glass of orange juice on Sally’s head.
- Calmly walk into living room.
- Sally has #@!*# above her head.
Bam! Instant comic. It’s easy to imagine the scene, right? There’s obviously more to making sequential art than that but the idea that I am illustrating a set of directions eluded me for twenty three years. I feel like a new person right now… like though I knew english all these years someone just told me about letters that I had never heard of.
- I’m indebted to Scott McCloud’s excellent Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art because without having read it I would surely not have made the connection. Read it if you haven’t yet.
OK, that’s pretty awesome.
PS – It’s amazing how watered down games have become in the past thirty years.
In honor of the 30th anniversary of the release of Pac-Man, today’s Google logo is a completely playable game of Pac-Man.
Totally got distracted from my work for a few minutes just to play this. :D
Since 2007 I‘ve been taking photos like this. This is how to make a photo for Under This Tree. Sometimes I pick photos for the blog at Under This Tree.
How to make an Under This Tree photo (by Erik Mallinson)
2010-05-21 UPDATE: Drawing this was quite cathartic. I wrote about it here.
May20
May19
I started curating a Tumblr about ‘Ukuleles called uku♥♥. It’s not going to be informative, I think just pictures/video of people and their ‘ukulele. Check it out!
Heather is making an ABC book for her nephew. Her illustrations are fantastic. I took a Children’s Book Illustration class and, in my experience, these are more difficult than they look.
The ‘XYZ’ problem — finding something to illustrate for these letters — is typically difficult. People also tend to bite off complicated scenarios in which to put their letters… while this can make the ‘XYZ’ letters easier to illustrate it tends to weaken the book overall because it gets away from the target audience. There’s definitely a balance between the two.
I’ve been reading a biography on Richard Scarry — The Busy, Busy World of Richard Scarry, his solution is remarkable. Scarry removes the pressure of illustrating difficult letters by disassociating the subject and their first letter. He doesn’t show pigs, peaches, and propellors, he instead shows how words relate to their contexts, eg- a farm may have a pig, tractor, and corn.
Richard Scarry is my favorite illustrator and yet this idea totally eluded me until I read about it… it hadn’t occurred to me that I was reading an ABC book. His was also a wild financial success. By taking the word away from the letter it starts with and placing it in context it allows the book to be translated into any language — even ones where an object starts with a different letter… eg- sneakers are zapatos in Spanish.
I think Heather is doing a terrific implementation of a straight–forward ABC book. She seems really comfortable working within the balance between simplicity and subject. Her flickr set has the rest of the pages if you are interested.
