Everlasting

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Over the next several weeks, I gradually changed my schedule to match Ava’s. She never insisted on it; it just happened. Like Ava, I came to enjoy the stillness at two in the morning.

The penciling part of the job takes pretty intense concentration. That’s the phase in which you’re figuring out the page layout, the panel compositions, the figure placement, the lighting, etc. We never talked much while working on that. But, we often had lively conversations while we passed the pages back and forth for inking or lettering. The late hours afforded fewer opportunities for me to get home to see my folks. I spent the night at the studio more and more often, sleeping in the spare bed during the day.

Drawing is usually a lonely occupation, so I truly came to appreciate Ava’s companionship.

I couldn’t believe how much I learned about the craft in such a short time. My skills were progressing in leaps and bounds under Ava’s tutelage.

Since I was around the apartment so much during my off hours, Ava and I were also spending a great deal of our free time together. We went out to the movies at least once a week, often making it a Sunday ritual. The minute we exited the theater, we’d excitedly discuss what the director and cinematographer had done. They used many of the same visual storytelling techniques that we did. Close-ups, long shots, establishing shots, framing devices - all the same. So, our weekly excursions were as educational as they were entertaining.

She’d also take me to museums and to probably every used bookstore in and around Manhattan, which, back then, was saying something! In those old bookshops, Ava opened my eyes to the master book and magazine illustrators of the teens, twenties, thirties and forties.

I can still remember the first time she introduced me to the work of Joseph Clement Coll. I actually got goose bumps! He had a confidence, a skill...no, a mastery that was almost angelic.

“I know these crazy deadlines don’t leave you with much time to call your own,” Ava told me, “but whenever you get the chance, you should experiment with other media. Oils, watercolors, pastels, anything that strikes your fancy. It’s always good to have as many arrows in your quiver as possible.”

“I don’t mean to discourage you,” Ava continued, “but newspaper strips are harder and harder to come by. For one thing, the number of papers is slowly, but surely dwindling. And even if you do get your own feature, who’s to say you’ll want to do that for the rest of your life? Magazine illustration is dying and illustrated books for adults are just about non-existent now, but there are still children’s books and advertising work to be had. You don’t want to limit yourself to just pen and ink.”

As if to show me that she practiced what she preached, over the next couple of months I began to find a few watercolor paintings by Ava around the studio. They were all the same size and several of them featured recurring characters. This made me think they were illustrations for something specific, instead of random paintings done just for practice. I was curious, but figured she’d tell me about them when she was ready. I also wondered when the hell she was finding time to do them? I was there with her in the studio nearly all the time, it seemed. Did the woman never sleep?