No. 372: The Reporter

No. 372, "The Reporter" by Tom Wills, May 2017

No 372 is called "The Reporter." He is Vindicator reporter Peter H. Milliken, who will retire Friday after 36 years with the newspaper.

 

We gave him a little sendoff today, and our small staff signed the back of the picture. We seem to be doing these goodbye cakes more and more.

This drawing captures Pete in his zone of silence, transcribing his tapes and reviewing his notes before getting down to the business of writing. He has a protracted process and we over the years have learned to let him be.  The results have been worth it.

Those of you who know, or know of, Peter H. Milliken realize the loss of institutional knowledge given his departure from the newsroom.

No. 378: The Weeping Angel

"Weeping Angel" by Tom Wills, graphite, June 2017.

This one scares my grandson, and my wife hates it.  But in its gruesomeness, it’s beautiful.
It is a work of art based upon the art of others — both in sculpture and photograph.

I like to work on challenging pieces during any down time from customer orders, as they keep me in practice and provide a backlog of work that I can offer for show or sale. That’s what has led to this, “The Weeping Angel,” perhaps the most difficult image that I have ever drawn.

The real name is definitely as creepy as my illustration of Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland’s most famous piece of graveside sculpture. “The Angel of Death Victorious” stands atop the grave of Francis Haserot and his family. It was sculpted in 1924 by Herman Matzen for the family that made its name in the institutional-sized canned good business. (You can occasionally see the Northern Haserot trucks on Ohio highways.)

Matzen studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin before immigrating to the United States. After moving first to Detroit he ultimately settled in Cleveland.

The angel holds an upside down torch, symbolizing a life extinguished. Time and the elements have streaked the bronze skin and caused the black tears of discoloration.

People make pilgrimages to the cemetery to seek the statue, which has its own Facebook community. Not necessary a pilgrimage but surely an adventure, my photographer friend Rebecca Nieminen ventured through the 285 acres to photograph the Angel and other tombs.

Storyteller Photography: Images by Rebecca, Kinsman, Ohio.

Her web site is  http://storytellerphotographyimagesbyrebecca.com/   She captured the Angel from many angles, but the one she gave me permission to draw is the most striking.

It’s the second of her photos that I have drawn or painted; the first was also winged — a much less-frightening butterfly.

The face came first, as I wanted to be sure that I could capture the tears and the stony facial expression.  But it is the wings that took the greatest time. Drawing those feathers of stained stone required several grades of pencils and lots of transitioning from light to dark.  The best way to tackle the wings, in the end, was a migraine-inducing feather by feather process.

Once I had completed Victorious, I found that the angle of the image left far too much white space. I decided to add a vague background of trees, which had the effect of making the statue pop with greater clarity into the foreground.

The frame is perhaps the most bitchin' frame ever, extra heavy and dark, with rivets and scales and veins. Sick.

We recently spent some time and money painting the rooms in our home, and relocating the art works throughout. But I’m told that this won’t be hanging in our dining room.

Still I find the angel fascinating and beautiful, in its own way, and I am very satisfied with the end result. To inquire about purchasing “Weeping Angel,” email me at willstom01@gmail.com or find me on Facebook.

  

No. 377: The Bourbon Porch

"The Bourbon Porch" by Tom Wills, June 2017, acrylic on wood.

I'm open to collaboration -- and no one's idea is silly (even my own).
This little porch sign, "The Bourbon Porch," is on its way to a Florida beach community, where laid-back people relish their escapes from uptight types. It'll be hung on a porch where bourbon can and will be had. Simple as that.

What's on your barrel?

The sign started simply, but was not a simple project.  Good northern neighbors of two southern bourbon babes wanted to gift them with a sign for their porch. They drew up a little example of how it could look and sent it to me. Here it is:

Original demo version

Their requirements were that it had to display a whiskey barrel, two glasses and a bottle of Woodford Reserve.  We all got together at a greasy spoon eatery and I presented my sketch, which was:

My sketch, which basically became the sign.

Enthusiastically we unfurled the design in a parking lot and discussed the colors for the sign, and then off I went to buy wood and paints.  A few days later they wanted some red pavers added to the sign, and that was no problem.

Ice!

The sign is small,  16'' x 20'' and not a size of wood normally carried by the relatively unfriendly and definitely not helpful people at two local lumber stores that were devoid of customers. Go figure. Luckily Menard's carries a huge assortment of woods in all sizes, for cheap, and had exactly what I needed in less than five minutes.  I enlisted my brother to saw off a few spare inches, which took about 20 seconds, and then we spent the rest of a Saturday morning looking at garden boxes and motorcycles.

Hand-painted lettering.

The first step was to sand, prime and paint the wood with a dove gray, which took a few nights and a few coats. To make the sign appear rustic, I used the rougher side of the wood and rubbed it down with watered-down black acrylic paint -- and then rubbed it off.  Instantly antiqued!

Rub on, rub off.

I then re-drew the sign design onto the wood and prepared for painting. We bought a very good set of acrylic paints and I blended some together to create the specified colors for the barrel and the bottles. I used a hint of blue for the ice cubes.  The bricks were, at first, at an angle but looked terrible.  So I wiped off that paint and went with a more geometric brick design -- a square.

Drew it twice!

All of the lettering was designed and drawn by hand.  No technology was used in this fully analog design, which is both good and bad.  The bad is that you don't get computer-crisp results that can be reproduced over and over, blah blah blah.  

Working on the lettering.

The good is that you get something truly one-of-a-kind, only yours.  A little royal blue script, and some big birch wood-looking letters, and all of their imperfections.  Splendid!

Weathered look, though brand new.

I weathered the entire design again (using the same process as when I began), then coated the entire sign with some 20 coats of spar varnish, which is a special urethane that expands and contracts with the weather -- Florida heat and humidity -- and also protects from ultraviolet rays -- Florida sun.

Letters, before distressing them.

I'm happy with my folksy little sign, and the customers are too -- happy enough to order another one, with a palm tree, a little house, three dogs, a dolphin, birds and surf.  And yes, they provided another little sketch for me.  I've taped it above my art table, and we'll meet again in that greasy spoon parking lot sometime in July.

Birch bark letters, distressed.

Until then ... Cheers!