Artist of the Month (November)

I have been following Heiderbou Hasegawa's work for sometime on Facebook. She has a definitive style that reminded me of 19th Century storybook illustrations. She was gracious enough to allow me to interview her for November's entry.


Your work has a storybook quality to it, much like 19th Century illustrators like John Tenniel who illustrated Alice in Wonderland. Who were your early inspirations when you were growing up? What illustrators inspire you today?

Unlike a lot of artists, I never really thought about art when I was growing up. Oh I did the occasional art/crafts projects at school, but art did not play a significant role in my life so I didn't have artists that I admired..

It wasn't until I was in my late 20's-30's that I actually saw books by Frazetta and Vallejo and those 2 played a huge role in what I drew. I used to be heavily into the fantasy/dragon/warrior type of art...but even that ran it's course after several years as drawing just wasn't that important to me. I was more fascinated by creating things with my hands, either jewelry or miniature sculptures.

I attended an art college but during that time, I guess I wasn't "ready" to "learn" or accept what was being taught. I was more interested in art history rather than the actual hands on drawing or creativity portion. Although I did get my BFA in drawing, it didn't hold my interest very long, lol.

 Today, I admire artists like Franklin Booth and all the  others who have a great understanding of ink line work. (I certainly can't list their names because I don't know them, lol.) When I see artwork that is intriguing or inspirational, 90% of the time I don't even know who the artist is. I am just in awe of how they've managed to capture the essence of what they are depicting, in awe of their technical expertise and how the art "feels". I've seen "beginners" who have the "IT" factor, technically they are still growing but their work already has that special, personal quality about it. Those are the artists who inspire me, the ones who go beyond the technical aspects and make the piece personal.

The rabbit is a reocurring theme in a lot of your drawings, there is a story there isn't there? 

Hahaha...I guess there might be. The bunny arose from a meeting with someone who listed their dietary habits (apples, carrots, pears, etc.) and I said to that person "Good lord, you eat like a rabbit!"

Two or three of the original drawings were the results of a psychological break from my then current life. (Hmmm, maybe that's too much insight, lol.) Currently, The Bunny is just a good character and he does whatever he wants, or whatever I want him to do. Perhaps he represents things that I want to do?? LOL. I think what's interesting is how some people have began to think of him as "real".

You work in ballpoint pen, called Biro art, I have done ballpoints and love the medium because there is a certain amount of control that ballpoints give. 
What are your favorite ballpoints that you work with and do you take lightfast (lightfast is the ability for ink not to fade in direct sunlight) into consideration? 

I found the pens that work best for me are the cheap ones that you find in Dollar stores. Also the multi-color ones where you get eight colors in one pen and those can usually be found in office supply stores. I also have BIC and Papermate colored ink pens but typically you can't get fine point in those, except for the Cristal BICS. Whenever I am in a store, I ALWAYS check out the pens and right now I have a huge backup inventory so I don't have to buy any for quite a while.

 I never used to consider longevity in any of my drawings, be it ballpoint or ink, until someone really got on my case about taking better care of my artwork, lol. So needless to say, when drawing with ballpoint pens, it wasn't a factor UNTIL I hung one of my drawings and over a couple of months the ink color changed and the drawing started to fade. THAT was disturbing as it was a drawing I did like but luckily I had scanned it prior to displaying so I have it on file. To answer your question, I do take fastness into consideration now but that doesn't stop me from using the cheap pens that I like (and typically aren't fade resistant). I don't display my original work at home, I have prints that are 98% accurate in color and that's what I hang, lol.

 I have attempted color ballpoint before and I know how hard it is to work with them, yet you seem to have a good control of the medium. What are some of the best colored ballpoints to use? 

 In my opinion, the best are the ones I listed above. I think people have to understand that when you do ballpoint work, it's all in the layers, especially when you're dealing with color. I rarely have "pure" colors, that is the ink right out of the pen. Most of my colors are from layering 3 or more colors to get what I want.

You also have experimented in sculpture and created some really interesting mechanical boxes even creating your own gears out of material like cardboard. They are really clever, are you going to create more? 

I really enjoy doing 3 dimensional work and researching how to get things to work. Assemblage art enables me to get "off the paper" and think differently and I love the tactile aspect of doing it. Also to have it look good "in the round" is a different type of challenge. I'm quite sure that I'll do more cabinet boxes (I hesitate to use the word "shrine" because that leads people to think "religious" and my pieces are anything but, lol) but I don't now when that will happen. That's the great part of being an artist, you can do ANYTHING that you want! I don't think I could ever do just one thing , I get "bored" just drawing...or if I hit a wall and can't think of what to draw...so I'm thankful for the other things available to me. Life is short, don't limit yourself, you never know what you can or can't do if you don't try, right? 

Do you think you will create a written book about the adventures of the Rabbit? Your work has a definite graphic narrative. Also have you considered doing children's books? 

I did a book of the Bunny but it was made up of drawings from an Inktober and didn't "read" very well. Also, I hated the flimsy paper it was printed on. Others have mentioned me doing  children's books but I haven't a good story line yet so maybe one day I will try it again.  And this time I'll do it in color! 

 What music do you listen to while you create? 

I'm not a big music fan when I'm drawing . Music deeply affects my mood and what I "see" inside my head and if I'm drawing, I don't want something detracting from the path I'm on. Crazy as this sounds, I can have a movie or some cooking show or other nonsense on  and it doesn't affect me! In fact, I purposely turn the TV on for the visual and background noise. However if I'm doing jewelry or assemblage work, my choices range from opera to metal....anything and everything EXCEPT Jazz! 

What authors inspire your imagination?

Currently, I'm a historical novel reader but I like to read just about anything that catches my eye, lol.( I used to read all the major fantasy authors and had a massive collection of books ) I've read a lot of  Conn Iggulden and Sharon  Kay Penman novels and hope to read Iggulden's Genghis Khan  series next. When I read the non-fiction  "The Vatican Prophecies" I ended up doing 2 drawings from it so inspiration can come from anything and everywhere.  I really do love to read but have to limit myself or I'll be stuck on the sofa reading all day, hahaha.

Artist for the Month of October

I have known Forrest McKinley for over fifteen years. Ironically he was my boss at a former place of employment in the technical field. I have to admit, for a time, this was my favorite place for employment due to the fact that I have met some of the finest minds and truest souls and it was actually a pleasure to come to work.

Forrest and I both held a sinister passion for art and also shared multiple interests in movies, books, spirituality and even cats. Not only did he rival me in oddness, though I believe I may have outmatched him in the field of eccentricities (though that is debatable).

He and his wife Richelle live quietly with a herd of cats. He was my first choice for doing an Artist of the Month.

His style is distinct and his imagination rampant. The interview follows below:






When did you first began to draw?

I cannot remember when I first started drawing, but I remember drawing a lot through elementary school and high school. More than anything I remember drawing a lot with my brother and one of our friends back in my early teens. Back then we were really trying to find our style. Whereas most of them drew images out of comic books, I was leaning more towards images out of Mad Magazine and Garfield.

What motivated you to continue drawing?

There are quite a few things that kept me drawing in the early years. I had twin brother who was drawing and I had friends that were drawing quite a bit. Later on, once I had started to really find my own style, I really discovered the joy of cartooning. Interestingly enough, I was 30 years old, when I started to really like what I was putting out, but I think that all artist, cartoonist included, are always so critical of their work.


I find that inspirations change over time, who were your earliest inspirations?

Paul Smith

In the earliest days I mimicked Charles Schultz (Peanuts) and Jim Davis (Garfield), but I was a massive comic book fan in my younger years and was inspired by some of the top artists of the time – George Perez (drawing Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths), Paul Smith (drawing X-Men at the time and would later on draw Doctor Strange), and of course John Byrne who was just simply amazing (drawing, writing, lettering, inking, and coloring Alpha Flight and Fantastic Four month
after month).

John Byrne

Can you describe the process you go through when you are creating a piece? Such as, when and where does the inspiration begin and then what process does it take for you to bring it to life?

Nowadays I get my inspiration from a wide range of sources, which can trigger my process. Many times it can be due to conversation or just a spin-off of another image just get me thinking. I don’t immediately go to laying out the picture, but rather usually keep a few ideas churning in my mind, especially if I am needing to look at reference or inspirational pieces.

Most often, when I am going about routine work around the house or my drive to work, I get a rough image in my head. Without really thinking about it, I layout out a crude rough draft and let the draft settle and work itself out in my head. After that it is a matter of just roughing it out on Bristol board, coming back in to really tighten up the lines, and then once the line work has been worked out, porting the image into ProCreate, and digitally inking and coloring the piece.

Your inking style is minimalistic, you have mastered the use of thick and thin lines to accentuate detail and shape. It works extremely well, is this a style that you cultivated over time and when did you notice how effective it was in portraying what you were trying to convey graphically?

I started this technique when I was 30, when I started using a micron pen set. Besides the various line weights there was also the brush pen in the set. When I started using those pens, it really just gave me a new perspective on my own work.

Sadly, traditional inking has always been tough for me, so about 2 years ago when I started doing work on my iPad in ProCreate with the iPencil, I was able to take the traditional technique and put it into a more forgiving digital media. Finally having a way to ink and color on a level that I felt comfortable helped me to push my work to a new level. So it really goes without saying almost, that no matter where we are in our process, we just need to keep experimenting and learning until our we find the way that resonates with us.

This is an excellent example of how Forrest uses thick and thin lines to accentuate detail. Sometimes less is more.

Who are your current inspirations and what direction do you want your style to develop?

With the Internet at our fingertips, I take inspiration from a host of nameless artist that are posted on Pinterest and scads of other sites. Besides that, I am currently inspired by comic book artists like Skottie Young and Humberto Ramos, who has taken cartooning to a new level, and by this new age of cinema which has really showcased HD filming and state of the art special effects.

Paul Young

Humberto Ramos

What books and authors inspire you creatively?

Neil Gaiman is hands down one of the most inspirational authors that I have come across. Whether it is the fairy tale feel of Stardust or his dark version of Alice in Wonderland when he did Neverwhere, his work just pulls from so many myths, legends, and tales that he always creates such a vivid sense of the world that his stories are set it.


Another artist that stands out is Wayne Barlowe’s Inferno, where he did his translations of what Hell looks like. Years later, after doing Inferno and the Brushfire Illuminations, he was inspired to write the book God’s Demon. I was so struck by an artist so passionate with his work that he crossed over into another medium.

Wayne Barlowe

When you are creating, what music do you listen to or what do you have in the background while you draw?

For years I struggled with trying to create the perfect space when drawing. I used to sit at my drawing table with 3 or 4 albums queued up, but I just stared at the paper with some sort of drawing block. It was a few years back that I found myself just playing a movie in the background, that I was able to relax and just sketch, draw, ink, and color with more flow.

So now I always have some movie that I have seen a dozen times playing in the background. Every once in a while I will look up to catch a particularly visual scene, but for the most part I generally only watch about 5 to 10 minutes of the movie as I get wrapped up in the work that I am doing, which is good as I am fairly slow when I am doing a piece.

What current project or projects are you working on and where do you want to go with your art?

I currently have three projects that are going on. The first is the short term project of doing standalone pieces that will be sold as prints and tees and my second is doing a gallery show in Oct. 2020 in the Paseo.

My third is my long term project of The Sins of Youth, which is a twisted children’s book that is not met for children. I am also, after all these years, going to be establishing my own imprint – Broken Dreams Studio, which will be launched in early 2020, and will be the studio brand that I will be releasing all of my cartoon work through. So far 2019 has been a great year for me to really tighten up a lot of my work and channel it in the right direction, and now I am really wanting to make 2020 the year I start showcasing my work locally and on the internet.

Below are samples of Forrest's work:
Note: All images are copyright protected by the artist and should be treated as such.

Commissioned Piece

Every Christmas Forrest designs a Christmas Card, this is one of them.

On the coming of Fall, Inkotober and the search for a Lost Cat

It's still early September but soon Fall will be creeping in as stealthy as a cat.

Speaking of cats, there is a Podcast that few know of but has become of one of my favorites. It's called the Lost Cat. To describe the Podcast would be rather difficult because of the mash of genre in entails. It's a bizarre mix of SciFi, horror, macabre happenings and a tongue in cheek, dry wit. It is written and narrated by A.P. Clark, whose hypnotic narrative is also interlaced with a song of his own composition. The melodies are haunting, soulful and actually add to the atmosphere of the continuing tale of a man in search of his Lost Cat. I have mentioned this Podcast in my blog before, but since Halloween is creeping upon us, it seemed fitting to re-post it again. Click on the image below to access the archive. There is no subscription fee.

Of course my favorite thing about Fall is Halloween and my favorite month of the year is October. It's a time when arcane secrets hide behind the closed doors of dark rooms, monsters dwell in closets and no clown is friendly. Autumn leaves fall like pages from ancient tombs with esoteric messages written obscurely on their dried and withered husks. Shapeless shadows flit from shrubbery to disappear behind abandoned houses and children's laughter takes on a somewhat maniacal tone. 

It also bring Inktober. That time of year when artists pull out their sketch pad, Bristol board, notebook paper or even a scrap of typewriter paper and commit to it either their brush and ink, ballpoint, felt tip, crow quill or technical pen and inscribe daily their artistic vision in black and white...to me there is still something spiritual about that. Whether it is the tactile feel of pen laying down a solid line on a blank, white sheet of paper or the exorcism of pent up artistic expression. I can't really say.   

But it is that time when pen and ink artists really reveal themselves. They come out of their obscurity wielding their pens and showing us, what I call, their Mad Craft. Pen and ink still remains my favorite medium. I can't really explain why, maybe because the craft has made me mad and seeking an explanation from the mad...good luck.

Below I included some links. I have posted about this ancient tomb before, it is the Necronomicon for any aspiring Pen and Ink artist, it entitled "Rendering In Pen and Ink". I remember when I first got the volume and the techniques and the illustrations from pen and ink artists revealed to me the beauty of the medium. The only other volume to do so was Bernie Wrightson's Illustration Frankenstein whose elaborate illustrations he fully admitted were inspired by Franklin Booth.  A 19th Century illustrator that was a magician when it came to rendering in pen and ink. I linked below to Rendering in Pen and Ink, Bernie Wrightson's Illustrated Frankenstein and a collection of Franklin Booth's Work. 

One final closing note: If you have a black cat, don't let it become a Lost Cat. Keep them inside this fall...

On building your own Golden Pond and Harvesting Digital Gardens

It’s late, the night seemed still but has been broken by the sound of fireworks. It seems my hometown is throwing some sort of celebration.  Maybe there is another significance for the celebration, I turned in my resignation at my place of work.  Being 63 and a cancer survivor I decided I didn’t come this far only to die on the altar of stress at a workplace that seemed to cultivate a toxic environment.  Instead I am opting for Social Security and devoting my time in creating and trying to sell those creations online.

This isn’t new for me. I have been trying to sell online for over a decade with minimum results, but since I was employed and had that income to sustain me, the small amount of sales never bothered me. To do the transition of having the sales be a substantial supplement, well that takes effort. I find self-promotion and marketing requires a lot of attention, cultivation and time. Time I personally would rather spend creating.  But it is a necessary evil, one that I need to learn the tactics and trade.

After spending time watching countless videos and articles by others that market their online products I have come to a conclusion, some just want your money to show you how, some don’t know what they are talking about and some don’t really even care about the product, they just want to make money. The later I understand, but I never was into the get rich quick schemes of things and frankly I care about my product, which is my artwork.

I decided for me personally, it is all persistence. I have this blog, Instagram, Facebook and sell on three sites now.  I have products on Amazon Merch, Zazzle and now I am setting up an Etsy Store, which is in progress.  I personally love what Zazzle offers, but they are expensive and the markup to make a profit really adds to the expense, but I do have to say, for the most part, Zazzle does quality work.  But no one really goes to Zazzle compared to sites like Etsy or Amazon for that matter.

Maintaining the stores, putting your artwork on products, marketing those products is a full-time job within itself. For me, a reclusive hermit that would rather draw, I now understand why some artists have agents.

But fortunately,  I now for the present,  have time to devote to the marketing and time to create. The past few days has been a mad rush to get things in order so I can create. After the foundation is complete then it is simply a matter of maintaining.

It's like a garden, a digital one. You have to maintain it, cultivate it and hopefully a harvest will come.

So, we will see how it goes.

The Etsy store is still under construction and you will see more posters and prints available soon.