Egon Schiele was regarded by many of his contemporaries as the predestined successor to Gustav Klimt, but died before he could fulfil his promise. His fascinating but not wholly admirable character is accounted for, at least in part, by his family background and upbringing. His father Adolf worked for the Austrian State Railways, and was in charge of the important station at Tulln where his son was born in June 1890. Since there was no suitable school at Tulln, Schiele was sent away in 1901, first to Krems, then to Klosterneuburg on the northern outskirts of Vienna. In 1904 the whole family followed him there because of his father’s deteriorating health. Adolf Schiele’s condition soon degenerated into madness, and in the following year he died, aged fifty-four. Schiele afterwards felt that he had had a special relationship with his father. In 1913 he wrote to his brother-in-law:

“I don’t know whether there is anyone else at all who remembers my noble father with such sadness. I don’t know who is able to understand why I visit those places where my father used to be and where I can feel the pain… . I believe in the immortality of all creatures … why do I paint graves and many similar things? because this continues to live in me.”

He took a dislike to his mother because he felt she did not mourn for his father enough, or give her son the attention he craved:

“My mother is a very strange woman … She doesn’t understand me in the least and doesn’t love me much either. If she had either love or understanding she would be prepared to make sacrifices.”

During his late adolescence Schiele’s emotions were directed into an intense relationship with his younger sister, Gerti, which was not without its incestuous implications. When he was sixteen and she was twelve, he took her by train all the way to Trieste, where they spent the night in a double-room at a hotel. On another occasion, his father broke down the door of a locked room to see what the two children were doing in there together. In 1906 Schiele overcame the opposition of his guardian, his mother’s brother, and applied for a place at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna, where Klimt had once studied. Perhaps those in charge scented a troublesome pupil – in any case they sent him on to the more traditional Academy of Fine Arts. Schiele duly passed the entrance examination, and was admitted at the age of sixteen. The next year he sought out his idol, Klimt, to show him some of his drawings. Did they show talent? ‘Yes,’ Klimt replied. ‘Much too much!’ Klimt liked to encourage younger artists, and he continued to take an interest in this gifted young man, buying his drawings, or offering to exchange them for some of his own, arranging models for him and introducing him to potential patrons. He also introduced Schiele to the Wiener Werkstütte, the arts and crafts workshop connected with the Sezession. Schiele did odd jobs for them from 1908 onwards – he made designs for men’s clothes, for women’s shoes, and drawings for postcards. In 1908 he had his first exhibition, in Klosterneuberg.

In 1909 he left the Academy, after completing his third year. He found a flat and a studio and set up on his own. At this time he showed a strong interest in pubescent children, especially young girls, who were often the subjects of his drawings. Paris von Guetersloh, a young artist who was Schiele’s contemporary, remembered that the establishment was overrun with them:

“They slept, recovered from beatings administered by parents, lazily lounged about – something they were not allowed to do at home – combed their hair, pulled their dresses up or down, did up or undid their shoes … like animals in a cage which suits them, they were left to their own devices, or at any rate believed themselves to be.”

Already a superb draughtsman, Schiele made many drawings from these willing models, some of which were extremely erotic. He seems to have made part of his income by supplying collectors of pornography, who abounded in Vienna at that time. Schiele was also fascinated by his own appearance, and made self-portraits in large numbers. He impressed not only himself, but others with whom he came into contact. The writer Arthur Roessler, one of his staunchest defenders and promoters, described him thus:

“Even in the presence of well known men of imposing appearance, Schiele’s unusual looks stood out … He had a tall, slim, supple figure with narrow shoulders, long arms and long-fingered bony hands. His face was sunburned, beardless, and surrounded by long, dark, unruly hair. His broad, angular forehead was furrowed by horizontal lines. The features of his face were usually fixed in an earnest, almost sad expression, as though caused by pains which made him weep inwardly. … His laconic, aphoristic way of speaking created, in keeping with the way he looked, the impression of an inner nobility that seemed the more convincing because it was obviously natural and in no way feigned.”

During this period, and indeed afterwards, Schiele liked to give an impression of extreme poverty. But his claims that at this time he was virtually in rags are at odds not only with what his contemporaries have to say, but with the photographs taken of him. His letters make it plain that he suffered from a degree of persecution mania – for example, he wrote in a letter of 1910: ‘How hideous it is here! Everyone envies me and conspires against me. Former colleagues regard me with malevolent eyes.’ In 1911 Schiele met the seventeen-year-old Wally Neuzil, who was to live with him for a while and serve as the model for some of his best paintings. Little is known of her, save that she had previously modelled for Klimt, and had perhaps been one of the older painter’s mistresses. Schiele and Wally wanted to get out of the claustrophobic Viennese milieu, and went to the small town of Krumau, with which Schiele had family connections, but were drive out by the disapproval of the inhabitants. They then moved to the equally small town of Neulengbach, half an hour from Vienna by train. just as it had been in Vienna, Schiele’s studio became a gathering place for all the delinquent children of the neighbourhood. His way of life inevitably aroused animosity, and in April 1912 he was arrested. The police seized more than a hundred drawings which they considered pornographic, and Schiele was imprisoned, to await trial for seducing a young girl below the age of consent. When the case came before a judge the charges of abduction and seduction were dropped, but the artist was found guilty of exhibiting an erotic drawing in a place accessible to children. The twenty-one days he had already spent in custody were taken into account, and he was sentenced to only three days’ imprisonment. Though the magistrate made a point of personally burning one of Schiele’s drawings before the assembled crowd, he was very lucky to escape so lightly. While he was in prison, he produced a series of self-portrait drawings, inscribed with self-pitying phrases: ‘I do not feel punished; rather purified’; ‘To restrict the artist is a crime. It is to murder germinating life.’ The Neulengbach affair had no effect on his career, and apparently little on his character, apart from supplying him with tangible proof that he was indeed a victim. In 1912 he was invited to show at the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne, and he was also taken on by the important dealer Hans Goltz of Munich. Their relationship was a constant struggle over money, Schiele always wanting the highest possible prices for his work. Meanwhile he was writing boastfully to his mother, in March 1913:

“All beautiful and noble qualities have been united in me … I shall be the fruit which will leave eternal vitality behind even after its decay. How great must be your joy, therefore, to have given birth to me.”

Schiele’s narcissism, exhibitionism and persecution-mania can all be found united in the poster he produced for his first one-man exhibition in Vienna, held at the Galerie Arnot at the very beginning Of 1915, in which he portrayed himself as St Sebastian. The year 1915 marked a turning-point in Schiele’s life. Some time in the previous year he had met two middleclass girls who lived opposite his studio. Edith and Adéle harms were the daughters of a master locksmith. Schiele was attracted to both of them, but eventually fixed his sights on Edith; by April 1915 he was engaged to her, and Wally Neuzil was rather cold-bloodedly dismissed. Schiele’s last meeting with Wally took place at their ‘local’, the Café Eichberger, where he played billiards nearly every day. He handed her a letter in which he proposed that, despite their parting, they take a holiday together every summer – without Edith. Not surprisingly, Wally refused. She joined the Red Cross as a nurse and died of scarlet fever in a military hospital near Split in Dalmatia just before Christmas 1917. Schiele and Edith were married, despite her family’s opposition, in June 1915. Schiele’s mother was not present.

Four days after his marriage Schiele was called up. Compared with the majority of his contemporaries, he had an easy war. He was transferred to a detachment transporting Russian prisoners-of-war to and from Vienna, and later became a clerk in a prison camp for Russian officers in Lower Austria. Finally, in January 1917, he was moved to Vienna itself to work for the ‘Imperial and Royal Commission for the Army in the Field’ – a depot which supplied food, drink, tobacco and other comforts to the Austrian army. In a country where food was increasingly short, it was a privileged place to be.

Schiele’s army service did not halt the growth of his reputation – he was now thought of as the leading Austrian artist of the younger generation, and was asked to take part in a government-sponsored exhibition in Stockholm and Copenhagen intended to improve Austria’s image with the neutral Scandinavian powers. In 1918 he was invited to be a major participant in the Sezession’s 49th exhibition. For this he produced a poster design strongly reminiscent of the Last Supper, with his own portrait in the place of Christ. Despite the war, the show was a triumph. Prices for Schiele’s drawing trebled, and he was offered many portrait commissions. He and Edith moved to a new and grander house and studio. Their pleasure in it was brief. On 19 October 1918 Edith, who was pregnant, fell ill with Spanish influenza, then sweeping Europe. On 28 October she died. Schiele, who seems never to have written her a real love-letter, and who in the midst of her illness wrote his mother a very cool letter to say that she would probably not survive, was devastated by the loss. Almost immediately he came down with the same sickness, and died on 31 October, three days after his wife.”

- From Edward Lucie-Smith, “Lives of the Great 20th-Century Artists”

Tools used: brush and ink, wash, orange and black tech pens, bristol paper, Photoshop, rusty brain

Choose from one of two upcoming performances in the Theatre Arts department and create an illustrated poster to promote the event.

So, pretty straight forward right? The performance that I chose is “Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter” play… I wasn’t very inspired by it, and well… the subject was difficult, at least for me. Though, I decided to go with this challenge rather than create another gory poster for the gangster play. Hope you like it.

Political satire is one of the many popular media themes that is, unfortunately, vanishing and slowly fading away in today’s fast-paced viral world. From the great works of the past that used to inform and entertain us, and further inspired new artists of the genre, we can count many notable and accredited names. Even though the current times have been less than kind to such great and witty minds, we still retain to have modern illustrators carrying on the tradition… though maybe in a different light. One such professional is C.F. Payne.

C.F. Payne is a highly acclaimed and successful illustrator whose talent has been displayed on the covers of Time Magazine, Readers Digest, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times Book Review and Sunday Magazine, MAD Magazine, der Spiegel, U.S. News and World Report, The Atlantic Monthly, Texas Monthly, Boys Life and more. Payne has taken on jobs ranging from painting countless politicians, authors, entertainers, and even personal commission work. Among such requests was a series of postage stamps of notable singers for the United States Postal Service. On top of the seemingly ordinary commission work, he has illustrated ten children’s picture books, including The Remarkable Farkle McBride and Micawber, written by John Lithgow.

Following the tremendous personal career achievements, C.F. Payne’s artwork has been exhibited at The Cincinnati Art Museum, The National Portrait Gallery, The Norman Rockwell Museum, The Society of Illustrators Museum of American Illustration, The Selby Gallery at Ringling College of Art and Design and countless college and university galleries.

While I can continue to pore over his seemingly never ending success, lets finally take a look at his work. Payne has been noted to illustrate in both mediums, paint and marker. What is astonishing is the fact that he can achieve a painterly style with the use of previously mentioned markers. His work rarely if not altogether at all contains outlines. The colors interact with each other to create contrast, forming an implied line, much like in realistic works. The colors themselves seem to be subdued, a little dull, thus giving you the sense of a dated style, perhaps even “retro” at times. The realistic technique combined with the “dated” look are all a major part in Payne’s caricature and cartoon works. Perhaps this is the main concept for his exaggerated political satire work, the main reason for his success as a strikingly different style.
It is in this sense that I remarked earlier on satire and cartoon illustrations, that current illustrators have to shine the genre in a different light to continue to promote the hopelessly dying breed. Payne does just that. He goes beyond simple caricature. He gives his subjects a realistic aura complete with distortion of features. They appear alive just as we are, and yet their personality shines through without any words. It is in this sense that I find him a trendsetter in satire. The illustrations are not simple silly drawings but rather engaging and profound on human level; thus mastering communication between a metaphor, concept, idea and the engaged viewer.

While Payne’s work has trotted all over the printed media, his most significant contribution would have to be the illustrated children’s books. The fact that he has illustrated over 9 such books is impressive all by itself. Though, this particular work has been accepted and cherished by several publications that tend to praise Payne on his ability to bring the passages alive. One such testament is as follows:

Payne’s mixed-media paintings take on Norman Rockwell-like qualities as he portrays cheering teenagers gathered around radios and a glimmering Ebbets Field; it’s as if readers view the scenes through a soft-focus lens or the haze of distant but treasured memories. Just as effective are his portraits of the Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson sliding into first, and the Giants’ Bobby Thomson, who, with the crack of his bat, signals the end of the Dodgers’ season (Review of children’s picture book, The Shot Heard ‘Round The World).

This is simply one of many example of the careful interpretation and praise of Payne’s work for children’s books illustrations.

Payne did not simply focus on his hard earned skill, but he also expanded and became involved in the illustrator world by becoming one of the founders of The Illustrators’ Partnership of America. As well as helping to establish the illustrator’s partnership he currently presides as the Chair of Illustration at Columbus College of Art and Design. This notoriety and involvement is in no doubt contributing to upholding the traditional genre of political satire as well as the notion to forge a new era of the style.

C.F. Payne is not simply an exceptional illustrator, but an important trend setter who’s contributions as a creative do not outweigh his presence in the illustration society. It was a pleasure to do some much needed research on his experience and his work will continue to influence me in many ways. One such way will always be innovation and noted expansion of style.

SIX-20
The initial idea was to create technical drawing of the Kodak camera. Using the photo of the camera as a template, the entire line work was done in Illustrator. While looking at it I decided to make sort of a “manual” cover or a page that you might find inside the manual for the camera. After adding the type, a soft blue gradient was added in a couple areas to solidify the line drawing.

BROWNIE
After finishing the line work from the “technical” drawing, I went over the work and changed line thickness to bring out certain areas as more or less outlines while leaving other areas as detail. The work was then rasterized, live traced, and then prepared for live pain. Using live paint the entire work was colored. The original line work was then placed on top of the colored image and layer property changed to multiply (to darken the line work). A simple background with a half tone feel was added behind the camera, as well as a simple ground was added for the camera to “sit on.” The image was then transferred to Photoshop. After Duplicating the original compressed layer, a soft omni light was added at the top left corner. Then after duplicating the original layer again, a soft omni (with a light purple hue) was added at the bottom left corner. The top omni layer was then given a layer mask to hid the bottom, thus revealing the bottom omni light. After merging the edited lighting layers, the layer property was changed to soft light and reduced the opacity to soften the lighting.

THIEF
I found an image of a business man running to likeness of my sketch. A very quick outline work was done in Illustrator, then the head was replaced by a simplified vector image of the camera. Colored, added highlights and shadows (very simple), a simple shadow for the ground, added a light ray (simple, like a cartoon flashlight light) and colored the background in Illustrator. In Photoshop I brought in a “grungy” paper bag texture, which was brown. Instead of desaturating it I placed and sized it on top of the illustration and added layer properties. Then I merged the layers, copied, added a soft omni to the center to further darken the edges and changed the layer properties of the “lighting” layer.

ONE OF A KIND
Taking the original photo template of the camera, I quickly fleshed out simple shapes to make a very fast and simplified image of the camera. Then, I duplicated the combined shape, tilted the work, and began making a side-by-side pattern on the top part of the canvas and then a reflecting pattern on the bottom of the canvas (bleeding off of the art table). Colored all of the images in Illustrator and moved the entire work to Photoshop. Using the magic wand tool I would select each shape within each image and apply a sing high flow spatter brush and then a series of low flow spatter brush to texture and highlight each camera. Then, I flattened the layers, duplicated the flattened layer and changed the layer property to make the colors pop.

ORANGE
After zooming in and isolating the top part of the camera (the flash), I changed the line thickness of the work and added a brush stroke to all of the outlines. The brush in the light is different from the rest. The idea was to have the line work seem fast and careless. The edited line work was then taken to Photoshop to be colored. Using the magic wand tool I selected areas to be colored. While still selected I contracted the selections 5 to 15 pixels so that the colored areas would have the “casual color” feel, but did not lose the initial shape. A lined music paper texture was brought in and while having the entire foreground image of the camera selected I placed the texture on top and changed the layer properties as well as reduced the opacity.

Used: sketchbook, blue led pencil, illustrator CS3, Photoshop CS3, brain.

Used: pencil, pen, sketchbook, illustrator CS3, Photoshop CS3 (polishing, print prep).

WARNING: picture load heavy, you’re welcome!

This was my first series, compilations of photographs on a specific subject. Thus, it was incredibly difficult. I chose to show this particular image as the cover for two reasons. For one, it feels creepy, lifeless, yet so lifelike. The mere idea of industrial objects made to, by specific means and goals, represent life… excites me. It excites me in the intrinsic value of it being so synthetic, yet in a proper setting so lifelike (as intended by the creator). Does it feel? Does it feel forgotten, replaced, abandoned? A hard plastic mimic of a human body, with facial expressions, looks at you, feels you, and by the surrounding begs you to feel empathy. Is the empathy simply a chemical reaction and cognitive association that you feel? These and many more questions flood your mind when you take a simple glance on the sight just by being there, or am I reaching too far? Once again, another question. It is replaced, by a better representation of life, but at one point it was the best representation of a human with a pulse wearing the outfit that was pushed on the clients as the current fashion… the high fashion that you should be wearing. Now, it does not fit in the times, and it’s design does not fit in current pop culture, thus it is left; forgotten, miss treated, broken, desolate, it lies in it’s own parts seemingly strange to be around itself and silently screaming for recognition.

This is my take on the the first shot of the series, I have plenty more; but I will regress and post the rest of the shots in a single entry later, because this one needed a special recognition and personal attention on my part. I hope you enjoyed.

The last two shots are very similar, I know. I kept both because I had a slight predicament on which one to keep. The problem lies in her expression. It’s a very small detail, but it just so happens to change the entire emotion of the shot. Let this be a lesson to the reader. The smallest attributes of a shot will determine and have the possibility to change the entire mood of the composition. Aren’t you so lucky to have found this little gem of tiny information? You should be, freeloader. The girl in the photos above is an old, great friend of mine. We don’t exactly communicate any longer, and this saddens me. She was there when I hit rock bottom and like wise, I was there for her when she was going through a difficult time in her life. I tried to keep her clear and sound in her reasoning when it came to make decisions that she saw fit. It’s funny how you can look back to that one particular memory or string of related memories and compare them to today. Wether it is fate, abnormal reasoning (to the usual individual process), or simply mere coincidence of unrelated yet very antagonizing events — the lessons and hardships that are the vessels for them are priceless.


This is another one of those annoying and more than likely loathsome car shots that I take of my precious Christine. She doesn’t realize her beauty, at least in my opinion. Wether it be a planned shot, a candid shot, a surprise shot or merely a moment… she is and will always remain as beautiful as the day that I met her.


This is just a random shot directed towards my work, though the store front is covered up at the left of the photo.

I hope you enjoyed these grainy endeavors of mine. I will post more of my previous film photography later on. Stay tuned!