Interview on The Other Stories podcast

The podcast interview between myself and Ilana Masad went live today at The Other Stories website:
http://www.theotherstories.org/episodes/episode-16-claire-by-mark-granlund/

The Other Stories is a project where Ilana interviews new and emerging writers and then they read one of their short stories. It was a fun interview with Iana, discussing my writing process, The Book of Bartholomew and elements of the story Claire, which I read during the interview. Check out my interview, and the other interesting interviews at The Other Stories.

The Book of Bartholomew and The Other Stories

I had the great pleasure the other morning of being interviewed by Ilana from The Other Stories. The Other Stories is a great website that shares an unpublished short story from a writer each week. Ilana interviews the writer and then the writer reads his story. At this point in time there are ten stories at the site.  Its great to hear the writer speaking about their inspirations, writing habits, and their particular story.  One of my short stories from The Book of Bartholomew will be podcasted on The Other Stories later in June or early in July. My short story is Claire.  It takes place in a chicken coop in Claire's parent's backyard. Claire is commiserating with Henrietta, a chicken - except Henrietta's concerns are a bit more drastic than Claire's.

I will post the date it will be podcasted and, who knows, I might throw a podcast party. Stay tuned.

Video: Interview with Artist Matt Wells

I sat down with Matt Wells at the Black Forest Inn to talk about his illustrations for the story Gerald Teaches a Life Lesson in The Book of Bartholomew.  Here it is:

Illustration: Gerald's Grandpa

I have been spending a lot of time lately finishing up some secondary illustrations for The Book of Bartholomew.  These illustrations will be available throughout the stories of The Book of Bartholomew by clicking on words or areas of the stories.  One of the one's I completed this weekend was of Gerald's grandfather.  His grandfather does not have a name and is mentioned in the 2nd story, Gerald Teaches A Life Lesson. 

What did I want grandpa to look like?  I didn't know.  I wanted him to be bald and have glasses.  Other than that, I just started sketching.  Once I completed the pencil sketch, I inked it in.  Here is the completed inked drawing:

My thoughts were to create someone who was looking older.  Unfortunately, in the story, grandpa is already dead.  Characteristics of an older person, as represented in this drawing, include:
- large nose (I thought of Karl Maulden when I drew this - who is Karl Maulden, you ask.  Oh grow up, will you!)
- wrinkled lips
- jowls
- large ears
- bags under the eyes
- sunken cheeks
- bald (not necessarily old, babies are bald)
- glasses (younger people have had lasik)

Using a transfer of the image, I painted the coloring on watercolor paper.  Here is the painting that goes under the drawing:

What did I do here to emphasize the elderly gentleman?
- deep shadows under the nose and glasses
- redder color around the eye rims and nose bridge (nose bone is close to the skin here, causing reddish coloring)

I then put them both together and this is what I ended up with for Gerald's grandpa:

 In the final, I toned down the black of the lines so the overall image would be softer.  I like the image because there is a softness to him.  How could Gerald's grandfather look like such a nice old man when Gerald is such a jackass?  That's part of Bartholomew's world, people have a lot of stuff inside them. Even the bad people have a little good in them, and the good people have a little bad in them.  I happen to think that Gerald's grandfather was nice to people around him but somewhat cruel to his family.  Gerald got the short end of the stick and has been bitter ever since.

Illustration: Toxic Puffs Cereal

One of the fun things about the project The Book of Bartholomew is that I get to create some funny stuff.  In one of the stories, Ned is eating Toxic-Puffs cereal.  So I got to create this illustration of a box of Toxic-Puffs cereal.  I was quite happy when it was completed, so I am sharing it with you here.  Enjoy!

Illustration: Book Cover - Bartholomew Makes a Decision

Here are images showing the progression for creating the cover for the first tale of The Book of  Bartholomew.  The first two sketches are my first ideas of what I wanted to paint: a plate of corn, green beans and kale.  The first is very rough and was only about 1.25" square.  The second image represents another plate of food with the words "KNOCK, KNOCK" on the cover.  This is because Bartholomew is interrupted during his meal by a knock at the door. All Bartholomew wants to do is find some decent food and once he sits down to eat he is interrupted by the phone and the door.

Then it was time to do some research. This meant enjoying a few meals of corn, geen beans and kale.  I cooked the kale once and the other time my girlfriend cooked it.  Hers was much better.  We cooked the food and then I went to work rearranging it on the plate to somehow match what I wanted to do.  I did not find my final composition, but it was fun and informative for the final painting.  The food was good.  I wish the green beans were from my garden.  Today I could pick them and use them, but when I painted this picture beans were not in season.

I used these images to layout the composition of the painting and made the first layer of paint on canvas. From there I built up the surfaces and colors to create a finished painting of a plate of kale, corn and green beans.  The cooked kale was the hardest to paint.  It was hard to get a focused picture of it as its edges are rather soft and difficult to pick out.

After completing the painting, I took the image to Photoshop and added the words KNOCK KNOCK and the title. This was a fun stage - turning a painting into a book cover

The next step was to create a background for the inside text pages of the story. Continuing with a food theme, I created drawings of forks and spoons. These images line the text pages and are faded behind the text. This was a very fun story to illustrate.  I like the idea of not showing Bartholomew or Gerald, but letting the reader develop their own physical image of the characters.

Claire: book final

Here are the final pages to the mini-book Claire, from The Book of Bartholomew I am producing. I had to partner the pages in an odd order so when I print them out they will line up in the right order. Claire is the sixth book in the first volume of The Book of Bartholomew. I will be working with a few other local artists who will illustrate the stories with me. This process will begin just after the new year and I hope to have the final book complete by October of 2010. We will see how this goes. It looks like a busy 2010.

Illustration: Claire's Chickens

Here are some images of an initial sketch for a chicken illustration I am making for my story about Claire.

The story of Claire is from a series of stories I am writing and illustrating from The Book of Bartholomew. I hope to have the first stage of this book completed by October 2010 when I have a solo exhibit at Homewood Studios.

I will share more as it develops.