Going on tour with Amber Rubarth

So a few people have asked me "So how do you know Amber Rubarth?" since I started posting some pictures on facebook of an illustration that I've been working on for her European tour. So here's the long story. Amber Rubarth is one of my favorite singer/songwriters. I first heard her play at Otherlands in Dec 2009. It was a very sad time for me. My wife had left me two month prior and I had finally begun to accept that she wasn't coming back. Because many of Amber Rubarth's songs paint a picture of heartbreak, hope, and healing,  it really spoke and connected with me. It seemed as if the songs had been written just for me... to help give me the words I needed for the grief and pain, to help me find hope, and to help me find love again. Her songs became the sound track for my life for much of 2010.

Take "Novacaine" for example. I can relate so much to this song. I dont think you could write a more perfect song about how we deal with heartbreak. I even had an experience like the one mentioned in the song: "I ran into the doc last weekend at the grocery superstore. He asked me how's it feeling and I said it's barely sore." I did many paintings and drawings playing with the meaning and imagery of that song.

“Dormant” © Richard Fudge 2010 Inspired by Amber Rubarth’s “When Will the Spring Come Again”

 

I ended up doing many drawings and paintings inspired by the lyrics of her songs. It is not unusual for me to gravitate to certain songs or to attach songs to the inspiration or meaning of a painting. I often list "recommended listening" with photos of new work on this blog. But I don't believe that a single artist has directly influenced more work than Amber Rubarth.

When she came back to Memphis in Oct 2010, I was excited to see her play again. So before her set, I gave her a print of one of my doodles (Dormant shown above) and I requested that she play the song that had inspired the drawing. It's a good thing I had requested it because it wasn't on her set list. In fact, it had been so long since she'd played "When Will the Spring Come Again" that while on stage she asked "Richard, is this the right strumming?"

It was amazing how much things had changed in my life since the last time I had heard her play at Otherlands. I had lost my love, stopped believing in love, and learned to love again. The first time I saw her play I was alone and heartbroken, this time I was holding hands with a beautiful girl who loved me and whom I loved.

 

Fast forward to March 2011, Amber Rubarth emailed me to see if I was interested in doing an illustration for her to use on her upcoming tour. Um... YEAH!!  I was extremely excited to work with an artist who's music I so admire and had influenced my art. It's been one of my top 5 art goals to be commissioned to illustrate a favorite band's cover art or poster.

So below is the finished project. Well, the painting is finished. I just put the text in there as an example of how it might look with some copy. I'm just doing the illustration work on the poster. Someone else is doing the rest of the poster. I'll post an update when I get a sample of the finished poster, but for now you can enjoy the below painting and the song that inspired it. Hopefully, I'll get to work with Amber again and you can see more of the work here.

 

Book Update: Still at work

I'm either nearing the halfway point or I'm just past it. Although there have been a lack of updates, I have been keeping to my schedule. Sometimes you just have to give yourself a deadline, show up, and hope your creativity shows up too.  So I've got 3 main pages to complete. Seven pages are finished. But then I have the smaller inset illustrations. Below are a look at some of the finished pages. In other news, Chester may soon go on tour with one of my favorite singer/songwriters. More on that later.

Book Update #3: Getting Chester Dressed

I've been keeping to my work schedule on these. I've nearly completed coloring all of the Chester figures. There are a couple who lack pants and shoes (really wishing i could make some "no shirt, no shoes, no service" joke out of this but i can't think of one). Soon it will be time to color in his props and then ink everything. Progress is beginning to slow down as the work becomes more and more detail oriented.

Although i dont really have the space for one, all this work has really made me wish for a drafting table like the one i use to have. Normally I just solve this issue by commandeering dinning room table. Ironically, i sold that recently to a friend because, "well, it's not like I'm using it anymore. I dont host big dinners like you guys." Oops guess i did have some uses for that table. So now I'm down to small tables like the one above and i'm working from my coffee table. Oh well, it's no biggie. I'm making due and making good progress anyhow.

Cool video by Donald Miller about his book

Are you living a great story with your life? from Donald Miller on Vimeo.

Are you living a great story with your life? That's just one of the tough and insightful questions that this book asks. I really enjoyed this book. You should definitely check it out. 

Book update #2: super productive

Work continues at a brisk pace. I've got a system for this. I'll share it with you since you're going to see it play out anyways. It goes something like this: 1) background wash, 2) pencil in Chester, 3) prep for color, 4) color and shading, 5) ink. I know it looks like an assembly line, but i find that you have to keep them on the same pace. You dont want to finish the last one and see that gradually your technique changed and the first one looks totally different from the last.

So I've got five pages prepped for color. Five more are penciled. Seven more pages to get started.

Also, last night I planted a rose bush, cooked dinner, and swept leaves off my roof. Yeah, that productive. I really dislike sweeping the leaves off the roof. I'm always concerned that I'll lose my balance and fall. Last evening was no different. There was constant concern that at any point i'd tumble off the roof with the leaves or step through the roof. But after it was all done, i was very tempted to climb back up with drink and sit on the peak of the roof. It was an unusual perspective on the familiar scene of my backyard. It felt peaceful. Accomplished. Maybe I'll do it some other time.

Chester, It's Time to Book It

Would you be interested in a children's book illustrated by me featuring Chester? If you are, then you're in luck. I'm (finally) getting productive on this project. I've been putting this off for months and months... it's embarrassing. So March will be all about getting some work done. No more excuses. I've got 16 pages to illustrate (which is mind-blowing to me) and I'm giving myself a month to complete it. Not a lot of time, but I had loads of time before now and got practically nowhere. So here's day one's progress: 12 washes, 5 penciled in pages.

 

It's a start. I plan to make regular time on Monday and Wednesday evenings (I have a day job).  Also, I'm going to give it a couple hours every Saturday or Sunday. Three times a week should be good. After this first week I should know if that's enough time or if i need to schedule more. Be looking here for updates on my progress.