My father sketches almost daily. He loves it, claims the routine keeps the skills sharp and the hand steady for bringing out his character’s appearance. Most of his characters take the shape of what can be best described as a cartoonish in style. They wear exaggerated features, sport disproportionate bodies and walk upright when they should be on all fours. The inanimate also becomes animated; an early series of crazy spark plug characters is still one of my favorite. His stylistic influences are a blend of Rat Fink and the Sunday paper regulars with the playfulness of something like Far Side – though even this description is a stretch. His style really is something that he’s made all his own day after day.
Growing up, he would encourage me to keep at it with the pencil and paper, showing me how to draw a nose or eyes ten different ways. My focus fell off when I started getting serious about photography. Every now and again I’ll doodle or try to work up a rendition of my dog, but true to the expression, “If you don’t use it, you loose it,” I’ve gone and lost most of anything I could do with a pencil.
In the past few months I’ve worked with two local bands to develop some fairly complicated ideas for shoots. We’d talk about some of the initial ideas over the phone or email and pass along other photos as stylistic examples of what we were trying to articulate. This would fall short as it came time for the specifics of what we’d need to prepare for – enter the sketch.
This roughed-out idea was for a shoot with Justin Robinson and the Mary Anettes, a side project for Robinson, of The Carolina Chocolate Drops (take a listen). I really like working with Justin, his ideas are wild and there’s a mutual appreciation for risk in creation. Several ideas were tossed around, but this one seemed to stick to the wall the best.
True to the sketched out idea, Ms. Kira is suspended in the air above Justin and Sally. The rope that holds her there has been removed in post-production. During the day, Kira installs solar panels and suggested the idea during a practice session. There’s a large harness hidden under her larger dress and she seemed quite confident in the safety of the rig. Still I wondered about the need to become fully insured and bonded as a business during the shoot. Originally I sketched in Sally also being suspended in the air but then found out that she’s pregnant, so she stayed firmly planted on the ground and Justin found something slightly better than a sequence bow-tie to wear.
Working this way has been a welcomed challenge for me. It’s certainly far from documentary, but I find the pre-visualization and collaboration with artists satisfying in a special way as I continue to explore this craft. You gotta keep at it to stay sharp, right pops? In the next post I’ll share another sketch and the results of a shoot with Lost In The Trees.
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