Well, day 1 is over at NorwesCon 40. To be clear, it’s technically day 2 of the Con, but for reasons that involve us taking a detour to Cafe Mox in Bellevue … I think we have ample reason that today is technically the start of our Con tour.
Admist the great artwork and talks of artwork, I’m reminded how much of a lazy-ass I’ve been recently with my own artwork. I took part in an art walk with Lee Moyer where Lee critiqued various artwork, which if you know or know of a Lee, is quite an experience in itself. But after seeing all the various artwork in various stages of growth, I’m rather upset with myself that I completely forgot to submit my own artwork this year. I seriously forgot, even though I promised myself that I would submit my work this year at last year’s con. Loser! And to add insult to injury, I only belatedly learned that there’s an artist workshop every year at the Con, where you can register to have your artwork critiqued by professionals. What?! Me missing out in this opportunity still stings a bit … well, a lot of bits, if I’m being honest.
Beyond missed opportunities, there is a lot of inspiring artists and artwork to be found. No more so than the collective work of Cory and Catska Ench who are the artist guests of honor at the Con. Both artists are generally self-taught, but it’s evident from their work they have a deep understanding of classical form and color. On top of their amazing skill and craft, I find it equally amazing that this couple of 17 years works collaboratively on their artwork. The amount of utter and complete trust and lack of ego this kind of collaboration requires is astounding. Granted, as they note, it comes to them naturally as musicians who met each other while playing in a band. Still, I think it’s humbling to find two artists that can work with each other so deeply on pieces together. Inspiring, indeed!
And if there a special highlight to today, then it’s that I got a chance to have a lovely, genteel conversation with Mark Ferrari over coffee, albeit no pinkies were harmed in the process. He’s not only an amazing artist, he’s an amazing human being. He’s also a human of many talents, including some godlike skills with colored pencils. Of some note, he was involved in the 1980s gaming scene, and is the progenitor of some mind-boggling color techniques for 8- and 16-bit games. And to boot, he recently was involved in Thimbleweed Park, a throwback to the LucasArts heyday of click-action adventure games. Amazing fellow, indeed!
Finally, as people who know me, I like to doodle and sketch while taking notes. And I took a lot of notes today. Included is a bit of something that I started in Paper.app and then moved to Procreate.app to finish. It’s a general composition I have been toying with for quite some time, albeit I avoided certain elements this time.
