My friend Oswaldo Rosales, Venezuelan illustrator of brilliant trajectory, invited me to participate in the exhibition of illustrators, organized in the mark of the 3er Encuentro Internacional con la Literatura Infantil y Juvenil en Venezuela (Third International Encounter with the Infantile and Juvenile Literature in Venezuela), in homage to the Venezuelan writer Velia Bosch, for what I accepted the invitation. The exhibition was open of the 5 at November 20, in Sala Alternativa del Centro Cultural Eladio Alemán Sucre, here in Valencia, Venezuela.
Velia Bosch was born in Caracas May of 1936, 23 but from two until the age of fifteen, she lived in Ciudad Bolívar. She write since she was twelve. She has published twelve books for children, among them: "Arrunango", "Jaula de Bambú", " Mariposas y Arrendajos" (box of games with poetry, with which obtained the prize "Octogonales" of France) and “Bestia de Casa”. She got a degree in Letters in UCV (Universidad Central de Venezuela), she has a doctorate in letters, is an investigator, a writer and a teacher of Literature. She worked for many years in Centro de Estudios Rómulo Gallegos (CELARG). She was a founder member of the magazine “La Ventana Mágica”, correspondent of the Literary Magazine “Alba de América”, of Instituto HispánicoWestminster, California. She created Cátedra de Literatura Infantil Latinoamericana y del Caribe José Martí, unique in our America. Also created and directed the project of games Gran Circo de Papel. She was married with painter Gabriel Bracho, until the painter's death happened in 1995, with whom had three children: Gabriel Eduardo, Álvaro, Amalia y Rodrigo.
Oswaldo Rosales had the gracefulness of housing in his site web, the page of the exhibition that it is possible to visit in the following link:
Of that web site we extract the following:On Wednesday November 5th was inaugurated Sala Alternativa del Centro Cultural Eladio Alemán Sucre the Third International Encounter with the Infantile and Juvenile Literature in Venezuela with an exhibition of 21 illustrators that they made their images about the Venezuelan writer's poems Velia Bosch. In this sample, with the museography of Argenis Agudo and the coordination and the assembly in charge of Oswaldo Rosales and Coralia López, they participate (in alphabetical order) Vanesa Boulton, Eddymir Briceño, Marco Chamorro (Ecuador), Delia Contreras, Menena Cottin, Oswaldo Dumont, Gerald Espinoza, Adriana Genel, Luz Marina Gutiérrez, Yonel Hernández, Elisa Hevia, Laura Liberatore, Coralia López, Gustavo Lozada, Cristina Müller, Douglas Muñoz, Oswaldo Rosales, Carmen Salvador, José Santander and Ramón Siverio.
The poems to illustrate were the following ones:
El elefante quiere viajar
la hormiga lo ha invitado
para esta navidad.
El elefante sueña con volverse alfiler
en el muelle lo espera un barco de papel.
Mil gaviotas lo llaman
y un pirata lo ve:
en su mundo al revés
Love of elephants
The elephant wants to travel
the ant has invited him
for this Christmas.
The elephant dreams of becoming a pin
in the jetty he waits for a paper ship.
A thousand gulls call him
and a pirate sees him:
-"that poor elephant,
in his world upside down
he doesn't know that the ant
is a dream of him."
Arranca a la trompeta húmeda de la flor del lirio
su débil vida su dulce carne
¡Campanillas! ¡Trinitarias! ¡Coquetas!
pecho de zafiro
Están como vencidas por su espalda-rayo
Están como atrapadas por su cola hélice
que no sabe detenerse
Nos quedamos todos pendientes de él
mientras vuela por entre las rosas
sin tocar sus tallos espinosos
Los bambúes del patio están como felices
de ser la jaula.
Hummingbird
It arrives rapid to my patio the hummingbird
It takes off the humid trumpet of the iris flower
its weak life its sweet meat
Bellflowers! Trinitarians! Coquettes!
They seem conquered because of this warrior
sapphire chest
They seem conquered by its back-ray
They seem caught by its helix taile
that doesn't know how to stop
We stay all watching for him
while it flies for among the roses
without touching their thorny stalks
The bamboos of the patio seem happy of being the cage.
De los textos me incliné por “Amor de Elefantes” por la fuerte estructura pesimista que plantea: Un elefante está enamorado de una supuesta hormiga y para que ella lo acepte, desea con vehemencia ser tan pequeño como ella (El elefante sueña con volverse alfiler), hasta que un pirata (¿la realidad pura y desnuda?) descubre que su amada es ficticia.
Empecé a realizar bocetos de elefantes, luego de copiar y leer varias veces dicho poema. Me pareció que los textos del poema se podrían descomponer en cuatro bloques y, posiblemente, contar una historia. Pensé entonces en hacer un cómic de dos páginas por lo que un primer esquema compositivo se puede ver en la Hoja 1.
My comment:
Of the texts I leaned for "Love of Elephants" for the strong structure pessimist that explains: It’s an elephant in love with a supposed ant and in order that she to accept him, he wants with vehemence to be as small as her (The elephant dreams of becoming pin), until a pirate (the pure and naked reality?) discovers that his lover is fictitious.
I began to carry out sketches of elephants, after copying and reading several times that poem. I found that the texts of the poem could be broken down in four blocks and, possibly, count a history. I thought then of making a comic of two pages of a first composition sketch one can see in the Sheet 1.
You can also appreciate in this page two sketches of elephants dressed up Charles Chaplin' style, with a little mustache, derby hat, walking stick and big shoes. There is also in this sheet a pirate's frustrated intent looking thru spyglass.
In the Sheet 2 I made another sketch of the same elephant Chaplin style, this time with more security of that I wanted, looking at a post card of the city of Paris and thinking of the ant. The ant is a femme fatale that very well could work in Moulin Rouge like a singer and a dancer. Also in this sheet one can see a little paper ship that I made with a sheet of school notebook of a single line. The idea of using paper of a notebook of primary classes is due to my boy memories, when after raining abundantly in one afternoon, before leaving the school, we had some true rivers in the gutters of the streets of the quarter to make races of little paper ships. For that reason, for me, a little paper ship is associated with that school material and humid afternoons after classes.
Hoja 2 (Sheet 2)
Hoja 3 (Sheet 3)
Pensando en la hormiga, se me ocurrió que el mensaje de la hormiga en la tarjeta postal tenía que tener una carga sexual en la información, a la vez que debería guardar distancia. Se me ocurrió que la frase “Ven a mi casa esta Navidad. Con afecto. Tu hormiga” cumplía con las expectativas de atraer y rechazar a la vez.
El elefante se encuentra ubicado en dos ambientes: En la casa del elefante, donde se ve un arbolito de navidad (esto porque el texto del poema indica que “la hormiga lo ha invitado para esta navidad”), y un muelle de tablitas en una isla paradisíaca, en donde toma el barco de papel para su viaje a París.
El cómic refleja los dos primeros párrafos del poema. Aparté espacio en la composición de las tres viñetas para introducir los textos sin afectar su legibilidad. De cabecera me pareció indicado poner el título del poema: Amor de Elefantes.
Thinking of the ant, It ocurred to me that the message of the ant in the postcard had to have a sexual load in the information, at the same time it should keep distance. It ocurred to me that the sentence “Comes to my house this Christmas. With affection. Your ant” fulfilled the expectations to attract and to reject at the same time.
The elephant is located in two atmospheres: In the house of the elephant, Where one sees a small Christmas tree (this because the text of the poem indicates that “the ant has invited him for this Christmas”), and a jetty of little floorboards in a paradisiac island where he takes the paper ship for his trip to Paris.
The comic reflects the first two paragraphs of the poem. I saved space in the composition of the three vignettes to introduce the texts without affecting their legibility. Of heading I found suitable to put the title of the poem: Love of Elephants.
La carpintería
Ya parte de la carpintería está descrita arriba cuando hablo de los bocetos a lápiz. Luego de hacer la Hoja 3 a lápiz, tomé una hoja de papel y entinté todo el dibujo, poniendo la hoja nueva sobre la hoja con el dibujo a lápiz en mi mesa de luz. Luego digitalizé la hoja entintada a 300 dpi en modo blanco y negro y guardé el archivo en formato TIF para asegurarme de que tendría una reproducción aceptable con la que trabajar. El paso siguiente fue abrir la suite de mi programa de dibujo vectorial favorito: CorelDraw 12. Empecé con Photopaint 12, en el cual limpié la imagen guardada de suciedades y marcas indeseables que registra el scanner pero que a simple vista no se detectan. Ya con la imagen limpia, pasé a vectorizar dicha imagen con Corel Trace 12. Corel Trace 12 convierte imágenes de mapas de bits en dibujos vectoriales que pueden ser coloreados después en CorelDraw 12. Luego copié la imagen vectorizada, que está en blanco y negro, y la trasladé a CorelDRaw 12, que es donde paso a agregar color a toda la composición. Por último agregué mi correo electrónico. Listo, ya tenemos la página del cómic terminada, y se puede apreciar a continuación.
The carpentry
Part of the carpentry is already described when I speak of the sketches in pencil. After making the Sheet 3 in pencil, I took a sheet of paper and I inked the whole drawing, putting the new sheet on the sheet with the drawing in pencil on my light table. Then I scanned the inked sheet to 300 dpi in white and black mode and I saved the file in TIF format to make sure that I would have an acceptable reproduction to work with. The following step was to open the suite of my favorite program of vectorial drawing: CorelDraw 12. I began with Photopaint 12, in which I cleaned the saved image of dirts and undesirable marks that the scanner registers but that at first sight they are not detected. Already with the clean image, I passed to scan this image with Corel Trace 12. Corel Trace 12 transforms images of bits maps into vectorial drawings that can be colored later in CorelDraw 12. Then I copied the scanned image that is in white and black, and I transferred it to CorelDraw 12, that it is where I pass to add color to the whole composition. Lastly I added my electronic mail. Ready, we already have the page of the finished comic, and you can appreciate next.
After sending it to Oswaldo Rosales, hi himself participated me that he would only take the image of the elephant in the jetty that is the image that heads this article, for format questions. Let us remember that it is an illustration exhibition and not a comic. I, understanding what he was outlining, consented.
I enjoyed a lot with this project, for what I hope to be invited next year.
The second page of the cómic still waits to be carried out. We will see if I take some time to finish the story.
I hope you’re liked it.
