Another mountain background for a graphic novel—or not

On the Trail to Lake Helen

Watercolour and crayon

©2020 Charlene Brown

If I use this for a background in any of the illustrations in my next graphic novel, I’m definitely going to have to move the action out of town.  I can’t put anything resembling a town in this pass on the north side of the Icefields Parkway just opposite the Crowfoot Glacier.

I’m going to be working on abstract paintings for the next little while, so I might just rethink this whole graphic novel illustration  plan. I tried googling ‘abstract comics’ and discovered they do exist. 

 

Paintings from the early days of this blog

Under cover of darkness, Lake Issyk-kul, graphic novel back/front cover illustration
Computer-altered watercolour
©2010 Charlene Brown

Arrival at Lake Issyk-kul, background illustration for Chapter 5 of graphic novel
Original watercolour, unaltered
©2010 Charlene Brown 

These paintings are from a graphic novel I wrote about ten years ago. You’ll see next week why I’m posting them now.

 

  

Except for a herd of Bighorns, we had the pass to ourselves…

Near the top of Piper Pass
Watercolour and crayon
©2020 Charlene Brown

I think I might use this and other non-abstracted paintings I posted earlier this month as backgrounds for drawings in a graphic novel I’ve started writing.  I used the paintings of mountains in Kyrgystan that I posted last week in the first graphic novel I wrote.

But there’s a problem.  Although a (fictional) Canadian mountain pass is involved in this new graphic novel, most of the action takes place in town.  It just wouldn’t be right to fit a town in beside Boom Lake or in the Ptarmigan Cirque or up Piper Pass, so I guess I’ll have to move some of the action out of town.

 

 

Five Years Ago

Switchback 26
Watercolour and crayon sketch
©2015 Charlene Brown

Our return to Tokyo via Lake Chuzenji at the top of the spectacular Kegon waterfall (three metres short of Niagara, 20 switchbacks up and 28 switchbacks down) was quite fantastic. This sketch shows the incredible number of switchbacks visible through the interwoven evergreen and brilliant red foliage on our descent through the precipitous mountain forest.

I participated recently in a podcast by American artist Nicholas Wilton, ‘Why trying to be ‘good’ is killing your art,’ and will be writing about it next month.   A point he made about ‘tracing an intuitive path, winding, and out of bounds if it seems appropriate’ to get around ‘blockades’ in your painting process, reminded me of the above blog post almost exactly five years ago. 

How different from today’s restricted adventures, when we seldom venture more than a kilometre from home!

 

Here’s a place I’ll never be…

Lake Louise from Mount Fairview
Watercolour and oil pastel
©2020 Charlene Brown 

This painting is based on pictures taken from the same almost inaccessible (in my opinion) mountaintop as the photos I used for my September 9 and October 7 blog post paintings.

In this view, the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise can be seen on the right at the north end of the lake.  In the upper right, the Icefields Parkway snakes off to the northwest.