Primary SCare (Bad Logo Sighting, 100604)

I’m just sayin’, might want to revisit that.

The Flood of 2010

In case y’all haven’t heard, things have gotten pretty wet here in my hometown recently.

Bright Star, Redux

Upon further reflection, I have come to realize that my initial reaction was rather off the mark and that I’m now going to have to eat some of my earlier words regarding this film. Not that I’m now going to praise it as one of the greatest films ever made, but it does have a certain charm which really grew on me in the days following my initial viewing, and which was further reaffirmed upon a second. I think this is one of those movies that has to be evaluated on its own terms, something I failed to consider in my first review, forgetting that not every film aspires to the same level—or even the same kind—of greatness.

To reiterate some of the picture’s more obvious strengths: exquisite cinematography, delightful costumes, and several first-rate performances. (Paul Schneider is particularly effective and fun to watch as Keats’ friend and patron, Charles Armitage Brown.) My first time around, I thought the score was decent but too sparse; now I realize that this was an exercise in studied and wise restraint, one which increases the potency of the scenes where the music does make an appearance. (Bonus points too for the unique a cappella arrangement of the Mozart wind serenade, which is featured prominently. Come to think of it, that may have been the subliminal trigger that caused me to make the Amadeus comparison in the first place.)

Certain almost incidental elements, such as the interactions between Fanny and her siblings, are likewise subtly endearing. It’s also striking and refreshing, especially given the Romantic context in which the film is set, to be so boldly confronted by the presentation of two lovers who, though stirred by the most intense passions and forces of attraction, nevertheless resolve to act honorably (in sharp contrast to Brown’s character, it should be noted), remembering that their actions will have consequences far beyond the present moment. (HT to Jeffrey Overstreet for this observation, and to Joe Thacker,for pointing me there.)

And lastly, I was very much remiss in failing to mention the absolutely fabulous and right-on-the-money quotation about the nature of poetry, given by Ben Whishaw in his role as Keats.

A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore; it’s to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out. It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery.

So my reconsidered take on this film is to approach it much on these terms. This is not a fast food flick; it’s a leisurely four course meal kind of movie. Watch it being prepared for a somewhat slower-than-normal pace, and without expecting any huge surprises—no innovative plot twists, or grandiose commentaries on the human condition. This is not one of those films which, as Keats also says of certain men at one point in the dialogue, aim to "make you start without making you feel". Be prepared, rather, to luxuriate in the sensation which each progressive scene conjures up, and I think you will find the experience a most enjoyable one.

Bright Star

Though definitely worth watching, this biographical sketch of the great Romantic poet John Keats’ final years proves rather disappointing overall. The film follows the relationship of Keats and his fiancé Fanny Brawne, which ends in tragic and unconsummated separation due to Keats’ poverty, failing health and untimely death from tuberculosis in Rome at the age of twenty-five. Despite some excellent casting choices, admirable performances and beautiful camera work, the overall result still somehow manages to engender a tedium which seems to overflow the otherwise reasonable limitations of the hour-and-fifty-nine-minute time-frame. Quite unlike Keats’ poetry, there is simply little here to arouse the imagination or draw the audience in so that they may themselves experience and become participants of both the elation and the pathos of the work that is set before them. For this failure, I think the screenplay itself is mostly at fault.

More specifically, I think this is a case where a too conservative approach—one that resolves, on the whole, to stick safely to the known biographical facts—ultimately fails to satisfactorily meet the demands of the chosen medium. A narrative film needs to accept and embrace the fact that it is not a documentary. By contrast, an approach which is willing to introduce some creative and well-considered, but not cheap or gimmicky, dramatical devices in order to better serve the narrative is much more successful. In addition to the other necessary qualities, this is what makes Amadeus, for instance, not a great biography (it reduces Mozart to something of a caricature and substitutes wild conjecture for historical fact), but a truly great film, while Bright Star remains simply a mediocre one. Both biopics begin with the considerable challenge of presenting an artist who was the consummate practitioner of his craft, and whose premature demise is well known and anticipated by the audience beforehand. But through creative daring, Amadeus attains the cinematic status of a Mozart, while Bright Star remains just another Salieri.

NOTE: Be sure to read my follow-up to this review here.

Salvo

No, it’s not Credenda Agenda, but, after perusing my first edition of Salvo, I find that it goes a fair distance, at least, toward filling that gaping hole in my life (or at least my hands) that the former publication’s transition to an online-only format has left. Satire, refutation, thoughtful cultural analysis, film and book reviews, and more—all from a robust Christian perspective. Subscribe to the print edition and get it all, or digest what’s available for consumption online. Either way, you should check it out.

Enrique Granados

On this day ninety-four years ago (March 24, 1916), the composer Enrique Granados met an untimely, tragic and ironic end when the passenger ferry Sussex, on which he and his wife were traveling, was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the English Channel.

Granados was a virtuoso pianist and composed primarily for that instrument, though a number of his works have been transcribed for the guitar, for which they seem exceptionally well-suited. His Twelve Spanish Dances are particularly delightful, and I especially recommend the 2003 recordings by father and son Celadonio and Angel Romero. The most famous of the twelve is No. 5, Andaluza, though I am rather fond of No. 12, Danza Triste (aka Melancholia) and No. 4, Villanesca.

At forty-eight years old, his career was just beginning to blossom and his mind brimming over with unrealized musical ideas. In January of 1916, he reluctantly agreed to make a first-ever trans-Atlantic voyage (he was terrified of water) in support of his opera Goyescas, which premiered in New York. It was on the final leg of the return journey back to his beloved Spain that tragedy overtook him. Following the torpedo strike, Granados made his way to a lifeboat, and from there he caught sight of his wife struggling in the water. Despite his acute aquaphobia, he jumped in to try and rescue her. Both drowned, and his body was never recovered. They left behind six children. (To further underscore the irony, the ship had broken in two, and the portion which remained afloat, which included Granados’ own cabin, was later towed to port with the greater number of its passengers still safely aboard.)

Granados was apparently also a painter of some repute, after the fashion of his countryman Francisco Goya, whom he much admired. I have not, however, been able to find any examples of his work as a visual artist.

52 Reasons…

Here are some snippets from the current advertising and promotional campaign for LifeWayWorship.com which I’ve helped develop:


Promotional logo element



Print ad, 2-page spread



Online banner ad

A Day in the Life

So what does a day in the life of a graphic designer look like? This gives you a pretty good idea. I just have to say though, that the only way this book cover design was pulled off in just 6 hours was that it was #3 in a series—the basic look was already established, so no need for showing multiple comps and all that goes along with that. All you clients out there, just keep that in mind! :)

(HT to my friend and much-more-prolific-fellow-blogger Kristi for this.)

I Love Typography

I just stumbled across this delightful typographical blog (also now included in the links over at the left). Enjoy!

HOW Design Annual 2010

I just picked up a copy of HOW Magazine’s Design Annual a couple of days ago and am still salivating over so many of the inspiring examples of creativity displayed between its covers. Here is just one of them—a definite must-have item.

Icosahedron, Youcosahedron, Weallcosahedron

Check out my model of an icosahedron. I’ve been itching to construct one after reading about it in The Power of Limits. I finally found some time during the Christmas Holidays.



The icosahedron is one of the five regular solids discovered by Pythagoras and further explored by Plato, Kepler and many others. (Actually, there is ample evidence that they were well known to non-Greek cultures in times predating Pythagoras, but he is the first, as far as we know, to prove logically and mathematically that there are five and only five regular solids—no others are possible.) The icosahedron has twenty sides, each of which is an equilateral triangle. A glimpse from different angles reveals that it reverberates with both pentagonal and hexagonal harmonies. Most intriguingly, its internal core consists of three golden rectangles which intersect one another at right angles, and whose short sides touch upon opposing edges of the overall form.

For Plato and for the medieval alchemists and astrologists, each of the five regular solids was associated with one of the fundamental “elements” (earth, fire, air, water and ether or quintessence, the “fifth essence”) believed at that time to comprise the universe. The icosahedron was most often associated with water, though some of the lesser authorities assigned it as the representative of ether or quintessence (a role usually filled by the dodecahedron, or twelve-sided solid).

Christmas Card Illustration, 2009

Long about Thanksgiving, I decided it was time to start thinking about some sort of Christmas self promotion. Actually, I had been thinking about it for a while in fits and starts, but it was time (or rather, past time) to begin doing something if it was going to happen at all. So I managed to throw this together in a few days of fairly intense work and wound up using it on both personal and business-related Christmas cards. Anyway, I thought this might serve as a good example to use in explaining my technique, which in this case involves a combination of pen and ink and scratchboard.


The first steps always involve very basic decisions, such as the size and dimensions of the piece as it is to be printed, which in turn helps determine the size and dimensions of the illustration as executed. I had already decided that the final cards would be printed 5" x 7". I typically do the final illustration somewhat larger than the final reproduction size—sometimes up to 200% size, but usually around 130%-150% is more practical. In this case, I decided to execute on a piece of 8" x 10" board, but to keep the relative proportions in conformity with the final 5" x 7" size. When I’m illustrating a scene that has a definite historical context, I really enjoy using Google Earth as a tool to help me accurately visualize the setting, which in this case was the area around Bethlehem. In this case, I chose a vantage point looking SSE, from an area close to Rachel’s Tomb, on the road that leads from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. (The traditional location of the Shepherd’s Field is a bit further SE from this location, but after exploring that as well as some other alternative possibilities, I found this vantage point most to my liking.)


I begin sketching on tracing paper on top of the grid already established above. My initial sketch isn’t much to look at, but it serves the important purpose of fixing the location of all the major elements in the composition. The details of those elements will be worked out in subsequent sketches. Since I’m not the sort of illustrator who can usually render things very convincingly based on memory and imagination alone, I start rounding up some good visual reference for the trees, figures and animals.


Often, the most efficient solution for visual reference involves a quick photo shoot with some help from the family. (My neighbors have gotten acclimated to seeing some very odd scenes played out in our back yard on occasion. My wife always relishes this part of the process.)


Other resources include images found online, in books and magazines, and sometimes in magazines or other works of art. (For instance, I worked out the poses for some of the angels in the heavenly host based on an angelic figure from an illustration by my hero Franklin Booth.) Speaking of the heavenly host, one of my goals in this illustration was to convey the understanding that “host”, in its biblical context, actually denotes a military deployment—a heavenly army arrayed for battle, as opposed to the overly sentimentalized image of angels we are often confronted with. I certainly think that helps to explain the shepherds’ fear. At any rate, I had a couple of recipients comment on this aspect of my rendition, so I take that as a sign that I succeeded in that regard, at least.


Again using tracing paper to further develop the initial sketch, I created a second, more detailed sketch.


Ultimately, I determined that the drama of the composition could be improved by enlarging the figures of the standing shepherd and frightened girl and by moving them further into the foreground. This is a quick pencil sketch (based on some of the other photographs I had taken) which I created in the process of working this out.


Having worked out all the compositional factors to my own satisfaction, I do a third sketch which functions as a value study for the final illustration. This is an important step in the process, since the technique I am using requires some careful planning in regard to where the darkest and lightest areas of the composition will be located, which in turn determines how they will be executed—either “positively”, with pen on a white background, or “negatively”, using a scraper tool on a previously inked-in portion of the illustration. Even at this point, it’s not out of the question that I might change my mind, which is part of the reason for doing the value-study sketch. I had originally planned on inking in only the trees and perhaps the left-hand side of the conjoined foreground figures, but after doing this sketch, I decided that I would ink in most of the sky as well.


Again using tracing paper with an outline sketch of the main compositional elements, I begin transferring the sketch to the board for the final illustration. I use graphite transfer paper for the positive areas and, after inking in the negative areas and allowing them to dry thoroughly, I do the same for them using white transfer paper.


When the transfer is completed and before the actual work of drawing and scratching begins, here is what it looks like.

For the drawing, I used mostly a technical pen for this, but I also often use a dipped pen, usually with a crow quill or very fine nib. For a combo technique such as this, I prefer executing the final on Claybord, which is a very rigid, masonite-like board with an extremely smooth surface. (It’s also relatively expensive.) Esdee scratchboard is also pretty good. If I’m just doing pen and not reversing anything out I will often use bristol board. (I actually find that I get much better line quality, especially with a dipped pen, on bristol board.)


Here is the final in pristine black and white. After scanning this in, the color was added in Photoshop.