Hindsight

The fabulous Mariko and Jillian Tamaki gave a nice talk at Politics and Prose last Saturday to close out their book tour for This One Summer. It’s a gorgeous book, and I have huge respect for these two ladies as writer and illustrator.

I had left my sketchbook in the car (doh!) so I drew these one the back of some official P&P stationery. Click to enlarge.

Had a very nice weekend. Saturday we went to Brookside Gardens, a lovely spot just outside the beltway. They have a water garden that reminds me of Mt. Auburn, right down to the great blue heron who was hunting there.

Sunday we went to the Takoma Park House and Garden Tour, and then raced over to Politics & Prose for their nonfiction children’s books panel. I think I managed to capture at least a halfway decent likeness of all eight panelists. Top row: Duncan Tonatiuh, Jen Bryant, R. Gregory Christie. Bottom row: Brian Floca, Richard Jackson, Susan Roth, and Leonard Marcus.

My neighbor happens to be a very talented composer and violinist, and last night we went to see his group Quiet Life Motel play at a charming little French wine bar called Bistrot Lepic. It was a lovely evening of good food, good wine and good music, and I did a few sketches of the group playing. Check out their new album, it’s very cool and atmospheric.

On Sunday I went back for the second day of Shakespeare Theatre Co’s Henry IV rehearsals. Like Saturday, it was a lot of fun. I met more of the cast, I introduced myself to director Michael Kahn, and I had a seat right in the front with plenty of light to draw. I also found that they have Merchant in their store (along with my competitors Manga Shakespeare and No Fear Shakespeare — I’ll see if I can get them to carry Lear and R&J).

I concentrated on faces in a lot of these sketches because apparently nobody but Falstaff is in their real costume yet. Surprising how well a sword belt over a hoodie works, though.

First, I finished coloring Macbeth last week. This was cause for much rejoicing, and a brief vacation to the True/False Film Festival, which was awesome. I may write at more length about the films I saw, but the highlights were probably Tim’s Vermeer and Happy Valley.

So, what now? For a few weeks I’ll be drawing final speech balloons and making art edits, and then the book should be DONE before the end of the month. I’m excited to enjoy the spring weather without being chained to my drawing table 70 hours a week! Speaking of which, we had some beautiful spring weather today, and I went downtown to enjoy it for a bit, and to catch an open rehearsal of Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Henry IV part 1.

Have I mentioned DC is a great town for Shakespeare? Not one but two dedicated Shakespeare theaters, and usually other assorted  groups doing Shakespeare at any given time throughout the area. I’m especially thrilled that Shakespeare Theatre Company is doing free open rehearsals for their upcoming Henry IV parts 1 & 2 (starring Stacy Keach as Falstaff)! I love to see these things in progress, and it’s often a good way to meet some of the cast & crew.

They had the house lights down, and I didn’t get there early enough to sit right in front, so as usual I was trying to draw in the dark. With that caveat, here are a few sketches I managed to get.

The rehearsal was a lot of fun. It really looks like an excellent show. Henry IV isn’t the easiest story to make compelling, but they’re doing a great job with it. In an era of stripped-down productions, STC has WAY above average production values, so it’s quite a feast for the eyes too. I definitely want to see the full show, and I may go back for the second rehearsal tomorrow.

They had a little mingling time afterward, and I got to meet Mr. Keach. He was extremely gracious, and complimented my sketches. (I also sat right behind director Michael Kahn during the rehearsal, but after the show he was having important scheduling/tech discussions, and I didn’t think it was appropriate to interrupt him, so I didn’t get to show him my work. Maybe another time.)

By the way, apropo of meeting celebrities, I just found this in an old sketchbook. It’s from a music-store appearance, I believe from the “9 Objects of Desire” tour, so that would have been…1996?

I’m afraid I’ve been hiding under a rock for a while now, due to my Macbeth schedule being well and truly off the rails. I don’t like to brag/complain about how hard I’m working, because I know a lot of folks have to work two jobs, are on call all the time, have kids, etc, etc — but I will say that I have been working such long hours coloring Macbeth that (a) I got through the audiobook of Neal Stephenson’s 1000-page Anathem in less than a week, and (b) my Photoshop windows started to burn in to my monitor.

I did, however, escape the studio for half a day last Sunday to spend a few hours at the National Gallery, enjoy an unhealthy dinner at Shake Shack, and then watch the Folger Shakespeare Theater’s excellent production of Richard III, directed by Robert Richmond, which runs through March 9th.

The show features very good, consistent performances, with superb clarity and a nice “dynamic range” from disturbing to funny — plus nice use of trap doors, and the space has been totally transformed from the theater’s usual configuration. The cast, many of whom are depicted in these sketches: Drew Cortese, Alyssa Wilmoth Keegan, Howard Overshown, Michael Sharon, Julia Motyka, Richard Sheridan Willis, Sean Fri, Michael Gabriel Goodfriend, Nanna Ingvarsson, Naomi Jacobson, Daniel Flint, Andrew Criss, Remy Brettell, Holden Brettell, and Jenna Berk. Very cool costumes designed by Mariah Hale and sewn by Ananda Keator.

I enjoyed the Islesford Painting Workshop so much last year that I decided to go again. It was a rather different experience this time, partly due to completely different weather, but still excellent.

The first day we had heavy rain and fog —  all day 🙁  We painted from inside the Dock Restaurant / Gallery, and attempted to capture the solidity of the fog. Day two was still foggy but at least we could change locations a bit. Day 3 was glorious, for which Henry apologized several times (the man has a New England sense of humor and a deadpan delivery).

Here’s a gallery of all the pieces I did in two and a half days. Many of these I am thinking of as sketches for later paintings (which I’ll probably never get around to), or as somewhat unfinished works. The thing about goauche, though, is you can’t really work back into it very easily; so more than likely they will just stay as they are, sacrificing “doneness” in favor of (hopefully) a bit of that nice plein-air freshness.

I’ve been crunching hard on Macbeth (I delivered the line work last week), so I’ve got a backlog of things to post. But here’s one I wanted to get up right away. The Folger Shakespeare Library was kind enough to invite me to their very powerful new production of Romeo & Juliet. I drew a bunch, but the house was very dark, so I was drawing completely blind — hence the rather dada-esque nature of most of these sketches.

The show is directed by Aaron Posner, and stars Michael Goldsmith as Romeo and Erin Weaver as Juliet, plus Aaron Bliden, Rex Daugherty, Brian Dykstra, Sherri Edelen, Eric Hissom, Brad Koed, Shannon Koob, Joe Mallon, Allen McCullough, Matthew McGee, and Michele Osherow.

Later in the season they are doing Richard III and Two Gentlemen of Verona.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m enjoying a lovely, serendipitous cross-promotion with Actors’ Shakespeare Project and their new production of Romeo & Juliet, which opens this week. The timing didn’t work out for me to see the whole show, but I caught a couple of hours of their tech rehearsal on Sunday night. I only got to see the last few scenes, but it looks really good! Here are a few sketches I did. They ran through each bit a couple of times, so in some cases I got multiple drawings of the same thing.

A big thank-you to Adele and Allyn for arranging logistics, and Maurice for giving me a ride back to Cambridge. The show is directed by Allyn Burrows and Bobbie Steinbach, and stars Jason Bowen and Julie Ann Earls as R&J. Also shown are Ben Rosenblatt (Paris), Ken Baltin (Capulet), Miranda Craigwell (Lady Capulet), and Maurice Emmanuel Parent (Mercutio/Apothecary).

(That sounds like a good mashup, doesn’t it? Someone should write that.)

Last Thursday I had the treat of being in Cambridge and seeing this unusual performance of The Pirates of Penzance at the ART. I highly recommend it, though unfortunately it’s only running a few more days.

I got a “promenade” ticket, which involves essentially being on the stage — except it’s not really a stage, it’s a carpeted area with benches, coolers, kiddie pools, and a slightly raised platform, all of which are fair game on which to sit, but which are also used by the performers, so you periodically get shooed off of your seat and have to move around a fair bit. That was pretty cool, and an unexpected bonus to being on the stage was that the lights never really went down, so I was able to sketch much more effectively than at most other plays I’ve seen.

Partway through the show, I noticed that in the audience were none other than Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer! I immediately did a couple of quick sketches of Mr. Gaiman. I’m afraid neither came out very well, perhaps because I was slightly star-struck. After the show, I went up to him and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Gaiman? May I show you this mediocre sketch I did of you?” He graciously smiled and asked if I would like him to “scribble on it,” at which point he took out a fountain pen and (after asking my name) inscribed it as you see below. I then gave him my business card, mentioning that I draw graphic novels and would be posting these sketches here on my blog. That was about as much as I was comfortable intruding on his evening, so I floated off without mentioning any more about my books, our mutual interest in Beowulf, how much I enjoyed his writing and reading of The Graveyard Book, etc, etc…

In short, Neil Gaiman is a class act, Pirates rocks, and it was a great evening. And without further delay, here are the aforementioned sketches.