Directed by Tim Martin, Music by Ben Hirsch

Come to the opening party at Flying Dog on Saturday, June 2 from 7-10 pm to see all of the finished artwork with live music by Old Indian. Maybe your words made the cut!

Flying Dog Brewery is hosting an exhibition of brand new Rare Words illustrations in June 2012 at their HQ in Frederick, Maryland (directions).

How to Submit

Because this is a Rare Words project, I need your help! Go to rarewords.org and fill out the form to submit your words with your name. (One submission per person, please.) I’m going to be drawing my little heart out from now until June to do as many of them as possible.

Opening Party

Come to the opening party at Flying Dog on Saturday, June 2 from 7-10 pm to see all of the finished artwork with live music by Old Indian. Maybe your words made the cut!

Art Sales

All artwork from the show will be on sale starting June 2 at 7 pm. There won’t be any previews or pre-sales and unlike most galleries, if you buy a piece that night, you can take it with you. If you don’t want someone to buy your word, show up at 7!

About Rare Words

Rare Words is a collaborative drawing blog (rarewords.org) and book. It began as a project to inspire collaboration with between the artist and the viewer. Readers are an integral part of the creative process by providing the spark for each work. Each illustration is an interpretation of the submitted words. Read More

The follow is a list of art supplies that I have come to love. I hope this helps others in their searching.

Staedtler Lumograph Drawing and Sketching Pencils 2H 
I pencil comics and illustrations with the 2H. It’s only slightly less dark than the HB, erases easily, and doesn’t smudge when you brush your hand over it on bristol board. Overall, I have to say that I’m not too particular when it comes to pencils. For the longest time, I penciled my comics with standard school-grade #2′s (the 2B equivalent) and never had complaints. The 2H just leaves behind less evidence of graphite when I know I’m going to ink a drawing.

Uni-Ball Vision Pen Fine Tip Black
I carry this with me wherever I go. I buy them in multi-packs because 1) I inevitably loose them, and 2) I love drawing with them. It’s a pretty popular brand and you can find them at any office supply store. The ink is waterproof, jet black, and flows easily. I see no reason for owning an expensive Rapidograph-style pen when these are available. They can leak if you take them on a plane so bring more than one on a trip.

Sakura Pigma Micron Pens .03, .05, .08
These are pretty popular as well. I’ve always used them for lettering, word balloons, and inking panel boarders. They are pretty easy to find in most art stores. I use the .08 for lettering and sketching, the .05 to sketch, and .03 whenever I need to write tiny. The tips will dry out if you don’t put the cap back on.

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen
This is a convenient way to have a portable brush. The ink is not waterproof so I don’t use it for any finished artwork, but I sketch with it all of the time. I recently switched to this over using the more expensive Kuretake Brush Pen because the ink flows more freely with the Pentel. You can buy replacement ink cartridges, but the tip is connected with the pen so once that frays, you need to buy a new pen. I keep a frayed one for dry brush and large areas of black and a fresh one for line work.

Windsor Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable Brush #1, #2
This is the brush I ink all of my work with. If you take care of it and clean it well after every use, it will last you a long time. I ink primarily with the #1 and use the #2 to fill in large areas of black or do dry brush. A brush is one of those things that if you buy the cheaper model, you will notice a difference in quality. Just take care of it and your investment will last.

Speedball Super Black Waterproof India Ink
In a bottle of ink, all you need it to be is: jet black, waterproof, and won’t become watery over time. In some cheaper inks, the pigment begins to separate and settle to the bottom like sand. Others will get a molasses consistency to them which leaves blobs of ink on your art and makes your brush harder to clean. I’ve used a number of decent brands over the years, but Speedball is what I’ve been using of late.

Windsor & Newton Cotman Watercolor Pan Set
I love these portable watercolor sets. The pans are easily replaceable so the tray will last you a very long time. I use this tiny, pocket-size model and have a larger one with 24 colors in my studio. The quality of the watercolor is nice. Don’t skimp on cheap watercolor pans. Remember those terrible dried out cakes of color from school? You need ones that actually produce paint when you add water!

Strathmore 400 Series Bristol Board Smooth Pads
I use the 14 x 17 size for comic pages. This is just great, bright white paper that takes ink well, handles erasing nicely, and has just never failed me. I’ve used the same brand for 10 years.

Hand•Book Trav•e•logue Sketchbooks
These 5.5 x 8.5 sketchbooks are hardcover with a linen cover and come with a bookmark and elastic band. The paper is an ivory color (brighter than Moleskine paper) and has a slight tooth to it. It takes the Uni-Ball, Micron, and watercolors really well. I personally think these are WAY better than Moleskines. Plus, the don’t come with a phony back story! Larger sizes of the books are in production and should be available this year.

Like everything, your art tools are all based on personal preference and what type of work you like doing. These happen to work for me. Post what supplies you’ve found success using.

Here’s Part Two (Sorry, no subtitles.)

In the video, Sfar is shown sketching with pencil, ink, and watercolor. I’m immediately impressed with the paper quality of his sketchbook to accept those mediums so freely. Any artist who uses sketchbooks (and are slightly particular about them) will tell you that finding a book that has great paper is a rare thing.

Let’s rewind many years ago when I was first starting to draw and the search for the perfect sketchbook began.

I fell like I’ve tried every brand on the market. I settled on a few over the years (mostly the 5.5″ x 8.5″ Watson-Guptill books recommended to me by Jeffrey Brown), but they still had room for improvement. Moleskine has a (fake) story which makes them a glamourous choice, but paper is the most important part of a sketchbook.

I watched the video again to get details about this book.

• It’s a hardcover that seems to be wrapped in a gray linen cloth.
• The corners are squared and it’s on the thinner side so it probably has about 60 sheets.
• There’s no bookmark or elastic band around the book.
• It comes in a large portrait format and a landscape size.
• It’s probably made in France because Sfar lives in Paris.

Drumroll… Let the internet search begin!

Over the next few days, I Google all of the U.S. online art stores only to come up empty handed. Then I get more sneaky and start searching in French and Italian. That returns different results, but still no matches.

I email Sfar through his website, but as of this writing haven’t heard back. The guy probably gets lots of mail. I discovered art supply review video blogs where they put pens and paper to the test on film and contacted them to see if they have come across these books, but still no luck. After 2 weeks of daily searches—I’m like a dog on a bone with this stuff—I’m forced to concede ask for help. I reached out to my friends and colleagues who I know would be familiar with Sfar and/or European art supplies.

Matt Madden let me know that cartoonist Sarah Glidden was in Angouleme, France in a residency as we speak and I should reach out to her. I had only met Sarah once, briefly, in 2008 when I introduced the “Promising New Talent” category at the Ignatz Awards at SPX. That night she won for her then mini comic “How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less” which later turned into a book.

Here’s Sarah winning big:

I email Sarah. She’s 6 hours away in another country, but I get a quick reply—she’s willing to help! Serendipitously, she’s even heading to Paris the very next day and was planning on visiting an art store there anyway.

I’m hopeful, because for the first time in 3 weeks, I have my first lead.

To my surprise, the next day I get an email:

“So I think I found your sketchbook! A friend in Angouleme had recommended this super old and amazing art supply store so I went there to look around for inks and things and there in the sketchbook section were what I think are the sketchbooks Sfar uses.”

The book is made by the Sennelier art store in Paris. I ordered one to give it a try. (Insert foot tapping and anxious waiting until the package arrived.) I promptly tore it open to find, what I’m 99% sure is, the exact book I was looking for.

The sewn binding and cloth cover are really nice. The book has that wonderful broken in feel so the pages lay flat right away.

I don’t know how it escalated to this ridiculous thrill-of-the-hunt, globe-trekking level, but it did! Ironically, during this process I found a new U.S.-made sketchbook made by Global Art Materials called the Hand•Book Trav•e•logue. It’s a quality book whose pages have a slight tooth, but takes pen (Uni-ball and Micron), brush, and watercolors well so I would recommend trying it. After seeing the Sennelier book, the paper used in the Hand•Book is very close to it in color, tooth, and weight. I’m just waiting for them to make it in a larger size.

So what lessons were learned in all of this?

Surely, I have to be a more enriched human being as a result of this wild goose chase.

• Artists need to write and share more about their experiences with the tools they use.
• Sketchbook manufacturers are cheapening their materials using thinner papers and weaker construction.
• Online shopping in Europe is difficult.
• When in doubt, ask your friends for help.
• If I’m ever in a similar situation (á la Sarah’s place in this story), I want to be able to return the favor for someone else.

Excerpt:

Mark Burrier is an illustrator, cartoonist, and skateboard painter whose illustration work appears in theWashington Post’s editorial pages. His cartoon works are mostly minicomics, which he often self-publishes, and at least one’s been nominated for an award at the Small Press Expo. He also does advertising work using comics. Burrier had a table at the Baltimore Comic Con this year and answered the usual questions.

Read the full article.

First, Jared emailed his script which included who the characters were, what was to appear in each panel, and full dialogue.

The concept of the strip is that a guy notices an attractive girl in a comic book store. He imagines them together in different comic book motifs and in the end is embarrassed when she is reading a book that he has never heard of. This meant I got to draw in different styles. Panel 2 is Archie. Panel 3 is Batman-like. Panel 4 is Sgt. Rock. Panel 5 is crime noir.

Thumbnails

I began with thumbnailing the story in pencil on cheap, 8.5 x 11 copy paper. I always use this method. It’s completely disposable and I don’t have to worry about “ruining” a sketchbook or having to balance an open sketchbook on my drawing table when it comes time to do final pencils. I did a second set of thumbnails (shown above) before scanning and sending off to Jared for approval.

Approved! I can start penciling on bristol board. I use a 2H pencil because it erases easy and my pencils are usually pretty loose so I don’t need a dark lead. I rule out lines with a T-square and my Ames Lettering Guide to put the lettering on first and then draw the characters in the remaining space. Once the page is penciled, onto the inks.

Inking

For this strip, I did the panel borders, lettering, and certain aspects of the artwork with 0.7, 0.5, and 0.3 technical pens. I typically used a Windsor-Newton Series 7 brush and india ink to ink my comics, but on my recent work at Rare Words, I’ve been using a brush pen and have enjoyed the quickness it brings to the process. Once inks are done and dried, I erase the pencils.

Notice that changed my mind in panel 3 of how I wanted the composition. In the thumbnails, the superheroes were set back so I brought them closer and positioned them side-by-side to mimic replicate the Archie and Sgt. Rock panels.

Coloring

Now, we leave my studio and go downstairs to the scanner. Once the page is scanned, I work in Photoshop to add colors. Full disclosure: I hate coloring! I don’t know why, but I do. If I ever do a story that calls for full color and is more than 6 pages, I’m hiring someone!

A few hours later, the page is finished. The last panel is left blank for Big Planet to include an ad there.

Big thanks to Jared for the opportunity. I’m happy to be able to give back to a store that I believe in and has always supported my work through the years. If you find yourself in the Washington, DC area, be sure to look up the closest Big Planet Comics location.

Editorial illustration
Client: The Washington Post
Art Director: Kristin Lenz

The above image is the just posted Rare Word, “kanooblian.” The word sounded very much like the name of beloved Washington Capitals right wing, Mike Knuble. I have hockey on the brain. The season has (finally!) started and tomorrow night is the Caps’ first game of the new season. This illustration is in honor of number 22 who crashes the net, risking bodily harm, for each and every goal.

The original ink drawing is up for auction right now on eBay! Update: Mike Knuble enthusiasts, Knuble’s Knights, are the winner of the original art auction. Congratulations! I know they will give it a good home.

Ink drawing on bristol board

[Update:] Amazing Washington Capitals hockey blog, Russian Machine Never Breaks, just ran a story about the art and auction.

[4/6/2012 Update:] Original art winners, Knubles Knights, sent me a tweet:

Get ready to freak out, @markburrier. Mission accomplished.ow.ly/i/yfRn

— Knuble’s Knights (@knublesknights) April 6, 2012

Mike Knuble holding "kanooblian"

They framed the art and gave it to Mike Knuble at practice!

On the first day of the season, I posted this artwork and the day before the last game of the season, it finds its way to the player himself. Full circle. Thanks to Knubles Knights, Russian Machine Never Breaks, and to Mike for being a good sport about it.

My silkscreen print, Hummingbird Balloon II, appeared in the background of last night’s episode of NBC’s Parenthood TV show twice! It’s part of the decór for the character Haddie Braverman’s bedroom.

The limited run silkscreen print is available in the shop and on Etsy.

Update: It appeared again on the 1/17/2012 episode “It Is What It Is.” Below, Adam Braverman (played by Peter Krause).

You can now read Show Off online. The book is still available in the shop.