For my kind $7 Patrons, I recently posted a ton of samples of my artistic process for my brand new, upcoming graphic novel that has consumed all my creative time lately, and which is called UNLiKE.
Here I’m posting some artistic influences that got me to the artistic style I chose for my figures.
In this post, let’s look at Henri Matisse!
I only recently began to delight in the female portraits by Matisse. They’re so simple, elegant, and his use of color and pattern is just breath-taking.
When as an adult I first decided I wanted to commit and really make some comics, I read Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner and Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Something that always stuck with me in McCloud’s book is that he suggested 1. Simplify imagery so that the reader can fill in the details with her/his imagination. Make it cartoony. It works for comics, and it’s effective, according to McCloud. I never knew if I agreed with that idea, because some of my favorite comics artists are the least cartoony. But even that said, I recognize a “cartoony-ness” to some of my favorite artists: Kirby. Mignola. Allred. And so here I am finally deciding to give this advice a try with my new UNLiKE project, having that “make it cartoony” suggestion scratching at the back of my brain for all these years, finally giving it a try. 2. Use a lot of textures. I warmed to this idea quicker than the other, but don’t feel like I’ve fully tried to embrace it until this new project of mine. And it was in thinking about these Matisse images that I went, “Ah. This is what he’s talking about.”
I’m assuming my project, UNLiKE, will be in black-and-white at this point, but I endeavor to make it as lovely through uses of pattern as possible, thanks to the inspiration of Matisse here.