Rising from the Analog Ashes
Exploring my journey back to paper and paint
Hello Sketchbuds,
Apologies for the delay in articles. April was stacked with commissions and May has been slammed with deadlines from all sides. Amidst all the scattered work chaos, I have been reconnecting with tools I haven’t picked up in a while: traditional media! To many Sketchbud readers this might come as a surprise as a lot of my posts have featured paintings, from pleinair work to gallery work, and this is true. It’s not like I do all my work on my iPad. But for the most part, most of my freelance career in the last 3 years has been majoritively done on procreate, from sketching to final colors, in order to meet fast deadlines. Because I’ve been taking a break from editorial work this year though, I’ve been freed to branch out to slower paced work.
Artist Proof Joy
The analog breakthrough began with my first Magic the Gathering Artist proofs. For those unfamiliar with how MTG artist proofs work, check out this awesome article by Donny Caltrider, the guy who handles my APs.
For the first time in a while I was being asked to make traditional work for a client, (aside from the gallery work I’ve done) and they trusted my artistic intention enough to not require 3 or more sketches. The editorial illustrator inside of me shook with fear. What if I mess the piece up? What if the client hates it? It was a little rocky at first, working on such a small canvas and warming up my acrylics after some months of inactivity, but the proofs slowly came together. I mixed colors, got messy, and made mistakes that I easily painted over later. It was like an adrenaline rush!
Pursuit of Fire Piece
As I was getting back into analog media, the Character in Context show hosted by the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art and curated by Elliot Lang was right around the corner and I needed to make a piece. As mentioned in recent posts, the show focuses on the joy of artmaking in an age of AI, so it was imperative to use traditional media. I also knew I wanted to make a piece inspired by my trip to China last year, so I got to work.
The main focus of the composition was going to be me chasing a phoenix, as a homage to me reconnecting with my birthplace (My Chinese name 新凤 Xin Feng means young/ new Phoenix so it felt apt) and a small homage to Ivan Bilibin’s The Firebird and the Gray Wolf illustrations. The phoenix in the piece was inspired by the firebird statue I had seen in front of the Yunnan Museum. The environment and the birds flying around the composition were inspired by the lush flora and fauna of the Kunming Cuihu Park, which lies at the center of the city. My hotel was only a few steps away and I tried to walk around as much as I could.
Once the sketch was honed, it was time for a color study. Usually I would have made the color sketch in procreate but I wanted to take my time and sort out the paints on paper before going to the full paper size. I also wanted to use some nice watercolor paper I had gotten from the Artist and Craftsman closing sale in Chestnut Hill (RIP), so I cut a small piece of the paper and experimented with acrylic, ink, colored pencil and watercolor. The paper was not as strong as I thought but I liked the final color results.
With the color study created, it was time to approach the final art. I originally wanted to use a piece of the aforementioned soft watercolor paper and was making headway with the pencils when I hit an obstacle: the basic watercolor wash made the paper shed like crazy! I tried to salvage the paper but it only got worse. I made one last ditch effort to ink the piece but realized it was lost cause. If this was a project from the last few months to last year, I would have tried to finagle the piece digitally but this was not the occasion. Procreate wasn’t going to save me and there was no undo button. It was time to redraw the whole piece on another, stronger watercolor paper.
With a thicker, cold press Arches paper, I went about drawing the piece from scratch. I fixed the size of the phoenix and adjusted the composition slightly. Once the pencils were applied, I hesitantly applied the wash. And phew! No paper shedding in sight! I applied the first few bases of color in watercolor. Then when the base colors were dry, I went in with acrylic ink, illuminating the glow of the bird, the darkness of the sky, and the lush colors of the foliage. The last details were done with colored pencil and a layer of ballpoint pen linework, as is the Benbassat way. By the end of 3 to 4 days, the piece was complete!
I took the pieces to The Great Frame Up store in Wayne, PA for a rush job. The guys were great and got the pieces snuggly fit into their frames in time to ship off to Colorado for the show! The show is currently up at the A.R. Mitchell Museum so if you’re in Colorado and want to see art all made by hand, please consider checking it out! The grand opening is June 5th! If you’re interested in buying the piece or one of the sketches, check out the work online here.
Upcoming News & Events
Chinese Adoptee Collective Night Market
I will be tabling at the CAC Night Market and Resource Fair this Saturday, May 23rd, from 7:30pm to 10pm at the Asian Arts Initiative (1219 Vine St.) as part of the Chinese Adoptee Collective Conference in Philly. (I wasn’t able to get a ticket to the conference itself lol so if you’re going, please let me know how the panels are. It’s wonderful to see us Chinese adoptees coming together) My friends Allison Carl (fellow MTG artist), Talia Conolly, and Madeleine Conover will also be selling their amazing wares so please come by if you’re in the area!
There will be stickers, zines, signed picture books, and MTG PLAYMATS ! Many of you have mentioned you wanted a Sapling Nursery or Moonshadow playmat and they are finally here! If you come in person, the playmats will be $40 instead of the $45-50 ordering online! Woohoo for fun merch! If you can’t make it there, then check out the playmats on my online store!
AI Data Center near King of Prussia
Unless you live under a rock, you have probably heard the news of AI data centers “popping out” all over the country, mostly coming to rural areas. Kevin O’Leary, of Shark Tank infamy, recently got approved to build a 40,000 acre AI datacenter (more than double the size of Manhattan) in Northwest Utah to the disapproval of most people living there. With AI datacenter proposals surging across the country, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some have come for the King of Prussia area, much to the dismay of everyone besides maybe the lone tech bro. Specifically, Main Line developer Brian O’Neill has submitted a proposal for a 2 million-square-foot AI data center outside Conshohocken to replace the old Cleveland Cliffs steel mill that closed last summer. O”Neill had submitted the proposal before but was blocked by legal issues and outcry from residents.
If you’re in the area, or even just in the Main Line, consider coming out to the Upper Merion Planning Committee Meeting Wednesday, May 27 at 7:00 pm ET, Freedom Hall, Upper Merion Township Building, 175 W. Valley Forge Rd, King of Prussia, PA 19406! Voice your opposition to this energy guzzling, sound pollution, monstrosity that would be right next to the Schuylkill river and residential homes.
Wow wow I love the story and process behind 'Pursuit of Fire'. Also your Chinese name is so beautiful 🥹
A situation like the paper falling apart after everything has been sketched is nightmare fuel, but I'm glad you were able to bounce back quickly. Always love hearing about your process Julie, thanks for sharing this with the masses!