THE BRUSHWORK OF LEONARD STARR: AN APPRECIATION

### I was pleased that my last post about working with ink triggered a discussion in the comment section about the great Leonard Starr.

Regular readers know that I am a big admirer of Starr's brilliant draftsmanship in the comic strip On Stage. At regular intervals, I revisit On Stage just to renew my education. In view of the comments from readers, I thought it would be timely to share some inspiring examples of Starr's work with brush and ink.


Starr's no. 3 Winsor & Newton brush gave him more descriptive power than he could have obtained from a pen.

In the following panel, note Starr's elegant brushwork on the crouching figure, especially the brisk contoured shading of his left arm.



The next panel is a good example of the range of delicate applications for a brush in the hands of a talented artist: contrast the freedom of the curls in her hair with the lines of the folds in her nightgown sleeve, and contrast both with how effectively Starr sculpted those hands holding the phone:



Starr knew how to apply heavy inks for dramatic effect:






If anyone knows the whereabouts of the original of this daily strip, I'd love to hear from them.

But the heavy ink never gets out of control. The consummate craftsman, Starr maintains complete balance. In the following daily strip, only one face ever comes out of the shadows but the moonlight on that single dubious face works perfectly, both visually and as stagecraft.





Also, note the woman's upturned head as she offers her lips for a kiss (quite sexy, I thought). Starr gets the tilt just right, and delicately captures the effect of gravity on the back of her hair. You can tell when an artist is using silhouettes to avoid work, and when he really knows what he is doing.

For me, a bonus in Starr's artwork is that he is a master of facial expressions. Look at how he captures the emotion in the face of the loyal old soldier in the last panel...



Or the disappointed bemusement of the woman in the last panel here... not the simplest emotions to depict.



Starr seamlessly combined the strengths of the pen and the brush to create unified pictures of integrity and class.



For me, it defies the laws of physics that Starr was able to write and draw three such panels every day, six days a week, and three times that amount on Sundays. Today, the medium of the comic strip has evolved and no longer has room for this type of craftsmanship.

The entire wonderful series of On Stage is being reprinted by Classic Comics Press and I highly recommend it to you. The reprints have now reached the years where Starr really hit his stride. It is truly a pleasure to read.

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INK AND COMMITMENT

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Sophie Herbert

You should turn to ink only when you are no longer afraid of commitment.

If you're looking for a more casual relationship, choose a pencil because I guarantee you, ink will still be there in the morning when you wake up, and she ain't leaving after breakfast.

Newer art tools, from the etch-a-sketch to its successor, the WACOM tablet, sometimes give us the impression we can make all our mistakes disappear. 


The Etchasketchist

Photoshop enables us to retrace our steps and magically wipe our fingerprints off a murder weapon or retrieve the phone number we imprudently handed out in that bar last night. But the benefits of this freedom come with a cost.

Ink is the medium for artists who are prepared to stand by their actions. Ink reserves her special favors-- as well as her frustrations-- for those artists who understand the significance of commitment.

Ink is applied wet but leaves a fossil record of every decision or mistake the artist made. That record can be difficult to live with, but its finality transforms the psychology of the experience; artists who enjoy playing with the wetness of ink recognize they can't escape the consequences of their actions when that ink dries.


Saul Steinberg had just one chance to get this bold flourish right. This Hineni moment was important to the character of the art.


Andre Francois

Ink can be experienced by means of a rigid pen or a yielding brush (offering the artist yin or yang alternatives). Some people prefer the metal backbone and sharp point of a pen nib because it offers precision and control. For this I cannot blame them. But personally, I find the nonvertebrate brush provides the strength to make the more powerful statement. The point on a brush bends to the resistance of the paper but the more it bends, the stronger and bolder its mark becomes.


Note the virilty of that lapel stroke by the great Leonard Starr

Which leads me to the point of this post: When Francis Bacon laid out the scientific method for understanding the physical universe, his great insight was that the only way to master nature is to obey her. Only by observing nature's properties and following her laws can you then command her to do your bidding. On the strength of this perception, humans launched the scientific revolution, patiently collecting the information to harness the physical world.

This rule applies equally to the hydrology of ink. Once you have learned to understand and respect her properties, ink can perform magnificent feats for you.


She is likely to serve you better through the fluid freedom of the brush than through the pen which constrains her nature. (This law also applies to other physical sciences, such as love.)

Some fools believe they can have it both ways, getting the benefits of the medium without having to deal with all of her messy capriciousness, simply by caging her in a rapidograph and regulating her through a 000 nib. But this is not mastering ink. Such people are emotional misers. They don't understand ink, and never will. ###