The possessed Larry Hughes lets out the Beast as the punk club is consumed by flames.
Sometimes it happens. You’re working on a drawing you’re pretty happy with, but you start looking at it, and something bothers you. Something is not quite right. Maybe if you had done this or that differently, it would have been better.
The Beast of Times
In the old days, you may have had that original tacked to a wall or taped to your drawing table and looked at it every time you passed. Now these things are electronically “tacked” to various websites and unless the internet craps out or there is a blackout, you can’t escape the stuff posted online.
Such was the case with the drawing I call The Beast of Times. I kept looking at it and the more I looked at it, the more I saw things I would change. There was a lot I liked about the initial pencil drawing, but the inked version bothered me. That one eye was wonky and I had ideas for a different, bolder background.
I wanted to make changes, but what’s done is done. It’s an analog piece drawn and inked the real world way. If changes were to be made, I could have drowned areas of the drawing in white-out and worked over that or bite the bullet and start over. I bit the bullet.
There were still things I wanted to salvage from that original drawing so I dug out an old pad of tracing paper from my studio. The paper may have yellowed a bit over time, but it’s still perfectly usable.
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- I traced my drawing
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- I flipped the tracing
Yes, I know I could have done this digitally — scanning the image and flipping it in a matter of seconds, but I don’t want to do that. I’m not on a deadline, and there is a comfortable feel to the old tools of which I have plenty in my studio. It feels like putting on an old sweater or slipping into a pair of well-worn shoes. It feels comfortable.
Why flip it? I don’t know. Flipping a piece can show up problems with the drawing that can be fixed which I did. Besides, it would make it a new work. Maybe having the Beast face towards his left/our right would work a little better. I decided to give it a whirl.
So I got out some transfer paper which is still available although I think this roll was bought in the Twentieth Century, and I transferred my drawing to a Fabriano Mixed Media sketchbook. Essentially, you tear off a length of transfer paper and put it in between the tracing and the sketchbook. I drew back over the lines of the traced drawing bearing down enough so that the image is transferred to the fresh paper in a light blue. It’s not perfect, but close enough. I remove the tracing and the transfer paper and tighten up the transferred drawing with pencil.
Then I hammer away with ink which I find strangely relaxing. Finishing a work like this used to fill me with trepidation. I was always afraid of ruining a good drawing and having to start over. That doesn’t really bother me much any more.
Sailor Fude De Mannen Fountain Pen with 55º Nib
Is my new drawing perfect? No—far from it. But I flipped the page and gave the beast a second look with heavier ink, more contrast and a different background. I fixed those wonky eyes that needed to be redrawn. I’m still learning which involves a lot more drawing.
Where’s the story of The Teenage Beast going? I’m still working that out.
Stay tuned!
Thanks for the education of what goes into the art!
The old ways still work just fine. No operating system updates. No batteries that fail to hold a charge. No software subscriptions. Some of my tools are ancient and they work just fine.