Renowned drawing teacher George Bridgman used to yell at students who tried to conceal weak drawing by applying color. "Don't think color's going to do you any good," he barked, "You can't paint a house until it's built!"
For many years, Mike Mignola has been building strong houses-- bold, well constructed compositions in black and white. His powerful designs, built from the same materials as Stonehenge, have been a welcome respite from comic art trends of overworked drawings with fussy little lines.
Last week at the Mignola exhibition at the Philippe Labaune gallery in New York, I saw up close how (in the parlance of Bridgman) Mignola applies paint to his houses .
Instead of Mignola's trademark high contrast, flat shapes, these pictures were rich with softer watercolor effects which added greater range, sensitivity and subtlety to his high contrast foundations.
For example, Mignola has long been fond of using the shapes created by sharp silhouettes of fingers...
But in these paintings we repeatedly see those once stark silhouettes fade into muted colors:
I remain a fan of Mignola's black and white work. In black and white there's no hiding whether the structure of a house is well built or not. We can tell when an artist is using heavy shadows as a cheap and easy path to melodrama, or as a crutch to avoid difficult drawing choices. Mignola's use of black and white consistently showed he was the real McCoy.
But I view his use of color in the current exhibition as a worthwhile advancement in the sophistication of his art. It's the kind of subtlety that benefits from being seen in the original.
8 comments:
Didn't even know this exhibit was going on! Thanks for the info. These pieces look gorgeous. I'm no stranger to seeing Mignola's work in person, but a lot of these are new to me.
Mignola keeps getting better.
I once had a drawing teacher who wouldn’t let me use shadows; he claimed they only served to cover up mistakes... As for Mignola’s work, it’s admirable that he continues to evolve rather than getting stuck in his comfort zone. And yes, even today, it remains very difficult to reproduce certain colors and nuances on paper—which is why being able to see the originals in person is an indescribable pleasure. I’m so envious that I can’t visit this exhibition...
I love his storytelling, particularly the way he uses silence and silent panels to convey mood and enhance suspense. He developed one of the great styles in the history of comic books; which I see as a clever graphic synthesis of Toth, Kirby, and Frazetta.
I recall him saying in an interview a few years ago that he was going to take time off to learn to paint. I believe I read him later lamenting how hard it was to paint. I wonder if these watercolors were what he was talking about.
Looking at his and Tom Grindberg's early work it's amazing where they ended up. Al McLuckie
Thanks for sharing his work, David! I keep coming back to Mike's work for his design and structure.
To me, Mike Mignola is a perfect example of what "appeal" means in illustration and cartooning. I once heard a beautiful, succinct job description for a comic-book artist: "Being able to draw virtually anything, and draw it well." I don't know how well-versed Mignola is in more traditional comic-book fare (I have read but a tiny fraction of his output), but his visual tendencies and trademarks never strike me as shortcuts. And even if they were (in the sense that he sticks to what he knows he can draw confidently), that would not diminish the sheer appeal of his work. That said, I really like how he has applied colour here, and how he has challenged himself with this painting technique.
Well done! I tend to focus on his literal houses, though. Few people have had his eye for architectural style since Chas Addams.
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