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2010/01/12

2009 Recap

Filed under: Admin, Mark P Hensel AKA William Cardini, Press, Publications — Tags: 2009, Austin, Austin Books, Chicago, Concertina Gallery, domy books, East Austin Studio Tour, Froghead Hangover, Glade Whitworth, Glademade, hahaclever.com, Mark P Hensel AKA William Cardini, Monster Show, Smoke Signal, STAPLE!, Taffy Hips, The Gold County Paper Mill, Tranz — Mark P Hensel @ 07:08

2009 was a great year here at the Hypercastle! Here’s some of the highlights:

I self-published two minicomics:

TRANZ, a collection of one-page shorts based around action verbs like “melt,” “grow,” “muliply,” and so on; copies available from me or at Domy Books in Austin
Froghead Hangover, a short autobiographical story about when I was living by myself in an apartment and had a run-in with a shaman; copies available from me, at Domy Books in Austin, or at Austin Books

I had my comics in issues of Smoke Signal, Taffy Hips, and the online zine hahaclever.com
I was in a few art shows, including Monster Show #4 at Domy and No More Worlds at Concertina Gallery in Chicago, which was picked as one of the top art shows of 2009 by Time Out Chicago (congrats to all the other artists and the curators!)
I participated in STAPLE! 2009 alongside the rest of the Gold County Paper Mill and in E.A.S.T. 2009 with my lady Glade Whitworth
I finally finished making websites for the G.C.P.M. and Glade (linked above)

2010 is already shaping up to be a great year, here’s hoping that it’ll blow 2009 out of the water! I’ve got several projects in work with some awesome and skilled creative people that I’ll be talking about as they manifest, a half-table for the G.C.P.M. and Glademade at STAPLE! 2010, and ideas for plenty of more comics that I’ll be submitting or self-publishing. I hope that everyone out there is having a great start to the new year, thanks for reading!

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2009/11/24

East Austin Studio Tour Recap/Witchcraft

Filed under: Admin, Folk Sci Fi, Mark P Hensel AKA William Cardini, Video — Tags: Doom Metal, East Austin Studio Tour, Folk Sci Fi, Her Sisters They Were Weak, Witchcraft — Mark P Hensel @ 16:28

First of, thanks to everyone who came out to our studio for E.A.S.T.! I had a lot of fun. It was also a hectic and exhausting weekend, and I’m looking forward to relaxing over Thanksgiving and then getting back to it in December. While I was cleaning up my studio and then sitting around I had a lot of mental space to plan out how to arrange my studio for maximum productivity and efficiency. As we all know, making comics/art/whatever is a time-consuming process so I try to streamline it as much as possible. I’m also trying to figure out the best model and publishing strategy for my comics and other drawz going forward – traditional, screenprinting, POD, web, some sort of mix. I’ll post more on this once I have something concrete, but don’t count on anything semi-coherent emerging from the haze.

To keep pumped about all this through the post-event malaise I’ve been listening to doom metal, recommended to me by my buddy Ryan Lauderdale. Here’s one of my new favorite tracks, Her Sisters They Were Weak from retro-doom-psych-folk band Witchcraft’s 2004 self-titled album:

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2009/08/26

Gouache Experiments for No More Worlds at Concertina Gallery

Filed under: Admin, Drawz, Events, Mark P Hensel AKA William Cardini — Tags: Chicago, Concertina Gallery, Corinna Kirsch, Drawings, Gouache, India Ink, Katherine Pill, Mark P Hensel — Mark P Hensel @ 08:22

I took most of the content from my old blogs and imported them to this site last nite, so please, feel free to browse the archives and experience some nostalgia. I’ve been blogging sporadically since May 2007 and started to blog at least twice a week since December 2008. I’ll be going through those old posts over the next several weeks and updating their formatting and the size and source of the images.

Last nite I also went to my Okaymountain studio to work on my drawings for the upcoming show No More Worlds at Concertina Gallery in Chicago, which is curated by Corinna Kirsch and Katherine Pill. I’m doing medium-sized (18″x24″) drawings that I’m coloring with gouache. I tried out a bunch of different materials because it’s been a while since I’ve colored something off of the computer. Here’s one of my gouache experiments:

In the end, I decided to do flat color with gouache and then add outlines and details with india ink. I’m going to do six drawings like that for the show which will replicate one of my MELT pages from TRANZ.

Here’s the promotional image for the show, Jolly Ranch by Alex McLeod:

Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

Following an investigative curatorial model, Concertina Gallery’s first exhibition inquires into the simple yet seldom insignificant gesture: the greeting. Although an invitation can take shape in a myriad of forms, the works in No More Worlds invite viewers to enter – through tactile engagement or with the aid of imagination – captivating yet unsettling environments. Featuring artists who use a variety of mediums, No More Worlds showcases works that deftly combine the fantastical and mysterious with elements of the everyday, reminding us that even our wildest ideas of new worlds are anchored in and mediated by our own experiences of reality. Reveling in the unknown surprises of the grotesque or the extraordinary sensuous qualities of the idyll, the impossible tableaux constructed by these artists hover between real and imagined worlds. These liminal environments give way to partially obscured narratives, both enchanting and monstrous.

I’m excited to be in this show alongside amazing artists and I wish I could be there for the opening. If any of y’all are gonna be in Chicago September 12th, be sure to check it out!

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