Dowager

Roman Holiday

Kernlhutz Da'a Agrta'ar

The twelfth century is best remembered as a time of the Trollish incursions and eventual capture of the territories of the ununified peoples of the Western Lands. The Trolls swept down from their refuge in the Carapace Mountains to conquer the Lands Below (or the Low Countries). They quickly established "The Protectorate", or "Da'a Bkrudk'akdk'urhrdka". In many places, it is still known as "The Curse".
The Trollish Incursions were part of a holy war known as a Grahrnryanrgh. The Trolls raided and pillaged, turned many people into slaves, and imposed their own religion on the remaining populace.
Trollish artists were in high demand due to a re-education campaign put upon the new subjects.
The best known of these artists was Kernlhutz the Elder. Already advanced in age, Kernlhutz was an expert printmaker. His usual mode of expression was found through the use of stone engravings. He was also known as a devout follower of Imbrdism, the Trollish religion. Prolific throughout his life, his engravings glorified the life of Imbrd Druw (as well as explored the facets of his many heads).
His images were used in pamphlets that were widely distributed amongst the conquered peoples. These pamphlets were also the first to burn in massive bonfires after the fall of the Protectorate. Within fifty years of it having been established, civil wars broke out within the Trollish Empire.
By that time, old Kernlhutz had already died. He was blessed to have passed on before the downfall--and spared the indignity of seeing his creations destroyed by a hostile, ignorant and unsympathetic population of cretins.
Except...it was widely rumored that Kernlhutz was poisoned with red lead by one of his jealous, younger competitors: Cuspinian, the Master of Tzwaya'dk'kepkhrk.
Now, he is all but forgotten. The Trolls have vanished and with them the memory of a once talented artist.

Tchew The Other

A Harsh Mistress ...

No, not the old lady pictured in this post. Watercolors.
I have had the good fortune of working with or alongside some extremely talented artists. My friends Kennis (more on him soon) and Chew (my fellow Globsterpress partner in crime) are two of them. Not only do I get to work on comics with these guys, I'm also a fan of their work. Which brings me to ... Don Coker. Don Coker is an illustrator who has worked in the newspaper industry for a very long time. I used to study his watercolor illustrations in the pre-press area before they would be scanned in and edited for print (for anyone who doesn't know: I worked as graphic designer at our local newspaper for nine loooong hard years). He developed a style of painting that compensates for the unpredictability of newspaper printing. Instead of overlapping a lot of colors, he would bump complementary or contrasting colors against one another to create desired shades (I should note that when you print on newsprint, the last thing you want is to have a lot of different colors overlap. Newspaper ink bleeds into newsprint. The more ink you have to use, the nastier, uglier and muddier the printed image becomes). I'm naturally drawn to watercolor as medium, and I asked Don all the questions a novice would ask: "What kind of watercolors do you use? What kind of paper? Is that a sable brush? Yeah? What size? Who do you look up to? Wow ... how long did it take you to do that? How'd you get so great? What's your sign?" You get the point. And he answered them all. So I went out to the local art store and found all of the stuff he was talking about. And did I buy any of it? Nah, too expensive. Instead of buying a sheet of coldpress watercolor paper, I bought a really cheap sketchbook with paper that buckles when water hits it. And really cheap paints that are more acrylic than water, and brushes that won't hold any paint. And so, I try to make little watercolors with really bad materials. Sometimes they come out. Most often they do not. Don Coker's work continues to inspire me (he even traded me one his paintings for one of my drawings). And so I muddle on. Through muddy, murky colored waters, hoping that one day, I will be able to paint ... and be proud of the result. I've got a long way to go.

What does this have to do with these two attached paintings? This is me trying to understand watercolors. Two little experiments for a children's book I promised my wife I would write ... and paint. One day soon.

Check out Don Coker's blog: www.doncokerart.com/blog

- Jeff Tuffenstuff