Hindsight

Okay, so I’ve been traveling too much, which is why I haven’t updated much. The past few days I was home in VT, where I did an author event at my hometown library.

While I was up there I rescued some forgotten childhood artwork from my Mom’s basement. Most of it is going in the recycling or a box in the attic marked “do not open until the artist’s death,” but there are a few pieces I want to scan because they represent distinctive personal stages of my work. Here, for instance, is a sample of what I’ll call the “big fights” series, in which numerous human and supernatural combatants fight simultaneously on a full sheet of paper.

Last night I was playing around with Photoshop brushes and did this little piece. I think I might like the unframed version better, but I give you both versions…

I recently mentioned the two interview segments which ran in the Harrisburg newspaper about Merchant and my author visit. The interviewer, Chris Mautner, has now uploaded the entire interview to his blog, including questions not included in either previous segment. And this was linked to yesterday by The Comics Journal, on their Journalista! blog.

So yeah, as mentioned in the last post, I did an author visit at Penn State Harrisburg for their summer writing program. Actually two writing programs, one for kids and one for adults. I was a pretty big hit, or so it seems from the feedback.

This blog tool is too clunky for uploading a large number of photos, so I’m going to start a new Flickr account for this sort of thing with the username garethhinds. (You know what I hate about Flickr, though? Photos appear in reverse order unless you go to the set.)

Of course I also did some sketching, and here are a few samples. Arguably one of the best features of Harrisburg is the lovely path along the river:

Some more from the river, and some plants at Ashcombe’s nursery:

The nursery also has bunnies (with too-cute names)!

These are from the Railroad Museum of PA in Lancaster:

And you know what else is in Lancaster — lots of Amish! Seriously, I mostly didn’t draw the Amish themselves, as they have this thing about graven images (guess I won’t be joining that religion, bucolic as it may be!). But drawing their horses, barns, and buggies I have no problem with.

More will be said soon about the second of these.

Powell’s books has a pretty great website and e-newsletter, and they did a Q&A about Merchant in their most recent issue.

I did an author visit at Penn State Harrisburg last week, and the local paper was kind enough to run an interview with me. They first ran an online-only teaser, then the main body of the interview ran in the events section of the paper.

The Merchant of Venice launch party went very well. A few of the cast failed to make it, but the overall turnout was quite good, and I gave a little presentation on the “making-of”, which was well-received. Now, back to work on The Odyssey!

(note Gayle/Portia and Edwin/Salanio in the front. Gayle has cut her hair even shorter than I drew it in the court scene.)

Sorry to say, between preparations for the launch party and trying to clean up the King Lear files for Candlewick to reissue it in 2009, I’ve done precious little life drawing or work on The Odyssey

I was recently cleaning out some old paperwork from when I worked at Helixe, and I came across these. My office had a narrow window that looked out on a small patch of lawn behind the building, and occasionally we would get flocks of geese or wild turkeys hanging out back there.  They were a lot of fun to draw, and with a thick window between us, my presence only a few feet away didn’t alarm them.

I didn’t get a table or have a signing or anything, but I did get down to New York last weekend for the MoCCA comics show.

I didn’t bring my camera, but luckily we ran into our friend Cecil, who took a photo and blogged about the show.

I picked up a few good books… Supermarket by Brian Wood and La Primavera by Alexis Frederick-Frost, one of the minicomic collections by Tom Gauld, plus a cool cheese t-shirt by Lucy Knisley.

What a gorgeous day!

I’m loving the light and shadow.