26 March 2007

Billy the Kid

6 comments:

Vince M said...

This one's a beauty, Max! Love the tones, the brushwork, the lettering and most importantly the concept.
Great, great, great!

max said...

Thanks Vince,
it came out like this naturally. It's actually a sketch made with the brush and that brought in that bit of quirkiness that really pleases me.

R.Dress said...

Haha This ones fantastic!

Vince M said...

Isn't the brush a wonderful tool? If you can; I'd love for you to break down the creative process that brought you to this finish. The tools, paper etc...
Can you share that? I'd love to know.

You really inspire me, Max. I hope to meet you some day and share a pint or two. Maybe six. I think we can handle it.

max said...

Hi Vince,
I can handle quite a lot of pints if the brew is right and I first eat sufficiently.
I hope we can really meet sometimes.
The paper that I used is Pastel paper Schoellershammer No 2.
I am not sure that it is still in production, I bought it at a sale some time ago. It's quite nice to use with a wet brush because it dries up quickly but doesn't smudge. I chose to work on that for another reason altogether though and that's because it is as translucent as a wooden board and that means that I have to draw directly onto it and can't pick up a sketch from the lightbox and that's a habit that I'd like to lose (in part). It also has such a wonderful rough finish that it's just great to stare at it.
I used 2 brushes (Winsor and Newton series 7 No 1 and 2) for the black ink and white gauche as well as 2 Pentel brush/markers that are a fantastic invention. One sepia and one Gray.
As for the subject all started with a program on the radio some days ago about the emerging market of goat meat and there was this farmer that said that one of his goats as a kid had a wonderful "Billy" attitude. I then made some order among my papers and found one notebook where I had taken notes at a meeting and got distracted and started sketching goats on the side. This in turn happened because around that time Matt Jones had posted a very nice painting of a goat.
I like goats, I had quite some exposure to them as a child during my summers in the countryside and they are funny animals indeed and their voracity is very human-like.
Then there is the theme of the conflictual relationship between fathers and sons and how often sons end up doing the same things that they found so unappealing in their fathers. That just fitted into all of the above.

Vince M said...

Thanks for breaking it down, Max. I'm always curious about the differences and similarities in our creative processes. I too try to avoid lightboxes as much as I can, you can lose a lot in translation. Love those W&N series 7 brushes! Now you've got me curious about the Pentel brushes, so I'll pick up a few.