Free File

More Images From Timberline

Painting continues on Above the Timberline. The novel tells the story through page reveals, double page spread images that also contain prose. Speech balloons are quite distracting to an image, and even though they are necessary for graphic novel work, I wanted the type to lay unencumbered on each page, knowing the reader won’t need to be handheld along the way.

I’m trying to hold to a consistent schedule. At the moment, I’m sketching or painting by 10 am, continuing through the afternoon with lunch in the studio from time to time; a break around 5:30 or 6 pm for an hour or so at a coffeeshop to write, research, etc; dinner; back to work until about 11 pm; break to gather my wits and watch something or read; sleep, shooting for eight hours but only getting seven on average.

This will likely continue through the Summer. The target for each day is to start one spread, and hopefully by the evening finish one. Most of the time, evenings are spent adjusting previously started paintings. 

The image above is a close-up of my main character, Wesly Singleton. He’s driving pell mell across the frozen Waste, in search of his father, Galen Singleton. Galen was supposed to be the fellow in the original painting of Above the Timberline, but of course, much of that has changed now. More about that another time.

This is a messenger gyrfalcon that they use to communicate in the Waste.


A cropped shot of one of the spreads with an ice rhino.

Here’s a full figure shot of Wes launching a messenger gyrfalcon.

The advantage of having such a long deadline for multiple images is that I can study them on the wall as I complete others and add touches here and there. Quite a different feeling from having to finish one painting for a client and not having much time to sit with it.

Problems to keep in check: technical consistency from piece to piece, control color sequences, vary lighting conditions, and maintain speed.
So far, so good. Even with starting six months behind, I’m making headway through what seems like countless images.

To date: 38 down, 82 to go…by August.

Available link for download

More Progress on Timberline

I’ve slowed down a bit over the past month and I take that to mean that my brain is forcing mandatory rest. I’m almost to the half-way point with just over 60 pieces to go. That’s 20 paintings a month until end of August. I’m not sure that can be done, or ever has been done.
What was I thinking when I decided that 120 paintings sounded cool? For a time, I had planned on multiple panels per spread, like a graphic novel, but that probably would’ve added years to the novel instead of months. So I’m making each original painting 37” across to fit the cinematic format of 9x11” for the actual book.
On top of that, I’ve started conceptualizing the cover. In discussions with my editor and designer, they reflected on the original painting I had done in 2009 and thought I should use it for a general idea. I had tried my best to write that painting into the manuscript, and finally after many months, managed to work it in. But the character in the painting ended up being too old for my protagonist, Wesley Singleton, who’s seventeen.
So, a new, more conducive image will need to fold into the other work soon and will be shared here first on Muddy.

More images to come!

Available link for download