Letters to Angela

Picture-making is an ongoing learning experience.

This one started with a really cool photo of Christy adjusting her hair clip. Nothing out of the ordinary about that, right? True enough, but this particular photographic moment-in-time has some especially interesting things happening.

Compositionally, her arms and hands are positioned beautifully while not obstructing the face or creating visual confusion in any way. The shadow on her left arm connecting to the cast shadow on the wall connecting to the contour of her body at the bottom of the picture, leading the eye back upward, is quite an interesting and lovely shape, and a lucky catch by my 'lil Nikon.

I thought it a very "iconic" pose just ripe for a fine art creation.

Christy is one of my terrific models. Among the many emotive poses she struck, this is one of my favorites. It's a slightly unusual capture with the pose and shadow combination. It's also filled with excellent mood, contrast, form, and beauty.

For me, an illustration, speaking in terms of picture-making rather than concept, is usually about the image or the mark on the board. For a straightforward image, like a person seated in a chair, I like to pump up the mark-making to add visual interest and give the viewer a reason to investigate the picture. Conversely, for a very intricate and unusual image (like Manhattan, seen in an earlier post), I tend to tone down the wild marks and let the image take center stage. A fierce competition between marks and image can blow a perfectly good picture.

With this image, I set out to make the marks a predominant player. I had also intended something different for the background than what you see, here. As the piece progressed, though, I found myself tightening up the strokes to accommodate the originally intended intricate background which would become lost among painterly strokes.

Things were looking too tame with my original background. So, I worked up this graffiti and stone wall backdrop. It seemed to give the image a little more edge and is more complementary to the expressive strokes I wanted to keep.

I also like the resulting mood and mysterious story that doesn't reveal itself too soon.

My thanks to Christy for making this illustration possible.

Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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Witness

Have you ever felt like this?

One of the beautiful things about making art is its capacity for self-expression. Sometimes you win a few, sometimes you lose a few, when the work is done. But, if one is lucky, he has a chance to be expressive during the process, and leave a little of himself on the paper or board or canvas.

When I need to unleash a few demons, I like to do a charcoal drawing. In this case, I pulled from my cache of photo reference and found a moody shot of Tasha who happens to be eliciting just the mood in the photograph that I'm feeling.

It's a tension-filled, closed pose, with arms and legs crossing her body. She's looking away from you and not revealing her eyes through the shadow, so you are left with a bit of mystery.

There is an air of vulnerability. Why do all things lead to the mirror and why is it facing you, the viewer?

Tasha is one of my phenomenal models who turns every pose into a work of art.

Even after engaging my instincts and emotions to lay down the artistic marks, I still needed to tap the left side of my brain to go through my checklist of items that lead to good picture-making.

When I'm done, I'm hopefully left with a cool, deep, and emotional creation that no one can take away from me. And, after one of those days when I feel like the world has taken an extra large chunk from my person, to create something of my own and for myself is very satisfying.

Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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Black Light

Sometimes, the coolest photos make for the most challenging illustrations, for me, anyway.

My talented model, Jana, and I conducted a photo shoot one fine Saturday. Of the 1,100+ shots she allowed me, is a series in which she is sitting on a gray/green couch, against a muted purple wall, on top of ochre hardwood flooring. Sunlight is streaming through my west windows, bathing the scene with wonderful shapes and patterns of light.

There's lots of color in my house.

My philosophy when shooting is to play the law of averages. If I shoot 1,100 shots, odds are I'll come away with at least 1 nice shot, right? Of course, with an emotive and confident model, the odds increase. And, it's my experience, even with a seemingly timid model, there are lots of amazing shots to be had. Beautiful light, unusual points of view, and even the slightest sense of mood can make for some tremendous photographs.

But, Jana is confident and emotive, so her shots exude the same.

This particular photo of her, twisted away from the viewer and looking at something with a sense of immediacy, brought just the right amount of mystery to a scene. The beautiful lines, shapes, and forms created by her pose were just perfect for illustrating.

My challenges:

1. Harmonizing value

In the photo, the shadows and light help create a successful composition. The value structure should remain in the illustration. But, there should be room for color and interest within the shadows, since they are so dominant. The viewer needs a reason to explore them within an illustration.

2. Harmonizing color

I wanted there to be a purpose to the color and resist making the whole illustration a typical glowing sunlight scene filled with pretty colors.

3. Telling a story

I wanted there to be some narrative to the scene and go beyond just a pretty picture.

My solutions:

1. Harmonizing the value

Value is more important than color, so this challenge was solved early on. Value dictates a composition. All 2-D design needs to work in b/w before it can work in color.

I kept the shadows dark, yet light enough to show brush texture and color. With the strong, delineated areas of light and dark, this illustration quickly became a compositional study, first, and a scene, second.

2. Harmonizing color

I tried brilliant, hot color, everywhere.

No good -- too much of all the same intensity.

I tried mostly blues and purples surrounding the figure with the hair, blouse, and arm in brilliant warmth.

No good -- too obviously pretty and uninteresting.

I tried less-saturated local color with brilliant warmth in the hair, blouse, and arm.

Good.

There is a hierarchy of color intensity directing the eye and less-intense areas providing places for the eye to rest. Plus, there is enough subtle, complex color in the shadows and non-figure areas to encourage exploration. And, the color usage helps bring a mood and tell a story.

My palettes are usually quite simple -- predominantly warm with just enough cool to balance, or vice versa. This one is somewhat up for debate, but I'm saying it's predominantly cool (muted, almost gray colors surrounding the figure), with warms in the torso to balance the palette.

3. Telling a story

She should be looking at something over her right shoulder, rather than the blank wall in my photo.

A picture!

That picture frame on the wall gives her a reason to look and adds just enough to pull off a story. And, that blade of light cutting it adds a bit of interest and leads the eye.

What is she looking at and why is she twisting so much to see it? You'll have to email me for the answer.

Still, the scene is very photo-centric and could verge toward becoming too staid at any moment. There needed to be some immediacy and tension.

Cropping!

To accentuate her anxious posture and support an anxious scene, I shifted her leftward, clipping her off the edge of the page.

The incomplete figure brings a bit of tension and some mystery as to what is so important off the left side of the page that we're being forced to shift our focus that direction.

The small dark corner of the couch in the lower right corner is just enough stoppage to keep one's eye from leaving the page.

So, there's my journal entry for today.

My thanks to Jana for her help in creating this illustration.

Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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Black Flowers and the Anatomy of an Internship

What I find so remarkable about the photograph that serves as this illustration's reference is its combination of strength, beauty, mood, and symbolism.

The lighting strikes the surfaces, just so, illuminating strength in the arm, a blood-coursing fragility-of-life vein in the hand, and symbolism in the soft, cradling-a-baby pose, while also shrouding the scene with darkness -- both literally and in terms of emotion.

The pose and photo were unplanned. In fact, this was probably just a transition from one pose to another that happened to be captured with my Nikon. These types of unplanned moments-in-time are what I live for with my photo shoots, and tend to be best facilitated by a tremendously emotive model (which I was lucky to have).

The Challenges

For this kind of especially rough and expressive charcoal technique to take shape, there needs to be a chip on my shoulder and/or an aggressive concept to the art. Unfortunately (or fortunately), neither were the case on this particular Saturday. I wasn't carrying a beef against anything, nor was the pose conducive to unrest. In fact, it's a very gentle pose.

But, this kind of contradiction can make for an especially interesting illustration, if handled successfully.

I set forth with Becca, my summer intern, at my side, intently watching my every throw-down with the charcoal.

After snapping my extra-soft vine to pieces, due to overzealous mark-making, I wrapped-up the "underdrawing" part of the illustration to what I was hoping would be the psychologically beef-inducing, angst-ridden, Lollapalooza-lite sounds of "Lithium" (channel 54 on your XM radio dial).

No dice on the beef-inducement.

Into Photoshop we go.

Here, I pull the local and global values together, making the piece work together a little better and more clearly defining my areas of focus. The wallpaper also makes its way onto the background -- symbolic as it reflects the flower, bringing to mind family and the loss of a child...my underlying concept.

Honestly, at this point, I'm starting to sweat a little. I'm not feeling it. The strokes are competing with the wallpaper pattern, and the delicate, yet dramatic lighting isn't coming across to my liking. Plus, all the marks are getting in the way of the composition. I can't tell what I'm supposed to be looking at.

With hesitation, I ask Becca, "Do you have any thoughts on what's happening?"

Much to my relief, she sees the challenges, but also really likes what's happening. Looking beyond my insecurities about the less-than-visible composition, she's keen on the imperfections and the drawn-from-life impact shining through.

Not only does this bode well for the salvation of the piece, it also means I may avoid ending our internship on a stinker.

However, I still need to address my concerns. After trial and error, I realize the lighter shapes need to be better defined, and the darker shapes need the same treatment. The whole piece needs to become more graphic, in my eyes. The reason for this is, the marks, while expressive, shouldn't override the composition and story. They should help tell the story and not create visual confusion. Without this further definition, I am confused. If I'm confused, others are going to be confused.

Confusion = bad illustration.

Several hours later, a little adjustment, a little hint of color, and I'm feeling it.

Feeling it = blog-worthy illustration

Now, a hopefully-not-too-self indulgent word about my extraordinary summer.

As mentioned above, and throughout this blog, I've been fortunate enough to be working with Becca Johnson, an illustration student from the Savannah College of Art and Design, in Savannah, Georgia, as my first ever intern.

This means I've finally given myself permission to admit I have enough of a workload to keep 2 people busy, nearly full-time.

Going into our internship, I knew she should serve the role of my business partner, not just a "lowly" grunt-work-doing intern. This is the only way our internship can work, in my eyes. There is no point in limiting her role, especially since any intern of mine, not from the Forsyth, Missouri area, will need to commit to an extended duration in the middle of nowhere -- picturesque to be sure, but culture-shock nowhere, nonetheless. This kind of investment on Becca's part deserves everything I can possibly share in return. Plus, this should foster the best environment for learning.

So, we set forth with a daunting to-do list, and she became my business partner for 2 short, intense months.

64 days later, our list of accomplishments for Allan Burch Illustration is quite impressive, by anyone's standards, and will continue to resonate for months to come. A partial list includes: conceptualizing and executing a very creative (and very cool) direct mail promotional campaign, creating a thoughtfully crafted on-line limited edition print shop, and confirming two substantial one-person gallery shows.

I consider myself exceedingly fortunate to have crossed Becca's path, and extend to her my sincere thanks for both her outstanding work and for sharing her remarkable talents and resources, at every turn, toward the betterment of Allan Burch Illustration. Thanks, too, for helping me become a better artist, business person, and pseudo-teacher.

See her illustrative work, here.

Hear her vocal work, here.

Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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Fistful of Steel

This was a personal piece, completed for my own entertainment.

I wanted to do something moody, compositionally interesting, and slightly dark, on a number of levels.

I was able to get my hands on a photograph of a young woman, whose pose created some great angles and movement, not to mention some nice play of light and shadows.

Sometimes, I like to accentuate these lines through exaggeration. Here, the exaggerated lines allowed a strong angular composition, complimented with an unusual, vertical shadow on her face.

I liked it.

When working on personal pieces, like Fistful of Steel, I allow myself more freedom to fail. What this means is, I make the mark and I own it -- almost daring it not to work. I place total trust in what abilities I have, let the chips fall where they may, and lay down the stroke -- knowing there is no other place on the page it belongs.

I did indeed lay down some expressive strokes of charcoal to render the gal, and among what resulted was a very textured dappling of marks defining her arm -- bringing to mind a tattoo. So, why not add a tattoo and complete the effect?

This was a fun exercise and a much-needed way to release some creative energy.

Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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Pumps

Great illustration is great storytelling.

There is a story here, but I'm going to let you tell it. Why is the chair red, like the picture hanging above her head? What's her name? Is it 3:29 a.m.? Why is she dressed like this and why is she holding her glass like that? Does everything point to the wine and what could the wine represent? Bitter, sweet, red, blood, thirst, heart, mind, dependence? Is it important that the wine level is perfectly horizontal, yet not quite spilling? And, why isn't the picture frame level? What does the hanging picture symbolize...a memory? What is off the right side of the page? Does it matter? Does it have something to do with the way she is piercing your eyes with hers or that her right foot extends off the right side of the frame? Do the boots symbolize something? Power? Sexuality? Red wine, red hair. Love, anger....what do you see on an emotional level? Does it connect with you? Does it make you nauseous, anxious, uneasy, overjoyed? Does it remind you of anything. Does it feel like the dream you had last night?

It could all just be a coincidence.

There are many ways to tell a story. Everything means something. Illustration is so great because the artist has so many tools at his or her disposal with which to tell their story. Everyone has a story and everyone loves a story.