Stiles of Art: 2025

Sunday, March 30, 2025

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER (2012; 1999)

This piece was conceived in part by Gallery1988’s ‘Canon Event’, a group show with unique pieces from each participant dedicated to an impactful scene from cinema. My contribution was inspired by Stephen Chbosky’s film (and book), “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (2012; 1999), starring a plethora of talent including: Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, Paul Rudd, and so many more.

Original typographical illustration layout from 2018

The prompt for this show was a bit more unusual, and I initially processed it as a scene from a movie or film that basically lived rent free in my head. However, I reread the synopsis and determined that my original selection did not meet the requisites for the show (or so I felt). My new interpretation was, that it should be impactful or meaningful to me, and therefore required I find content of a more personal nature (not already covered). Luckily for me I have a ton of concepts in the ‘orphanage’ or land of unfinished projects and ideas. Looking over that I realized it was time to do something that celebrated this piece of media.

I don’t remember which came first for me, the film or book, but I have consumed both, and they mirror each other so closely that I cannot see anyone having a preference. The story remains the same, and the creator (Chbosky), both wrote the screenplay, and directed the film himself which is why it’s such an amazing adaptation.

The film itself is a ‘coming of age’ story about a youth, Charlie Kelmeckis, who must navigate love, loss, and loneliness during his first year of High School. Along his journey of self-discovery, he meets kindred spirits, Sam, and Patrick whose friendship leads to Charlie’s own realizations about himself and reconciling with his past.

Newer layout for final image which was still...conceptual at best

Charlie’s story spoke to me personally, as there are many striking similarities between the fictional character’s life and my own. One coincidental detail we’re given at the beginning of the story is, Charlie lost his close friend Michael the summer before his freshman year of high school (something I know all too well about). There are many more, some less specific, and more widely relatable, but I’d rather not burden you with my own trauma.

My original intent was to turn a piece of dialog from the film that resonated with me into some kind of artwork, however, I lacked a vision for what that would look like and was leaning towards something more abstract like my ‘True Magic’ piece. I already had some sketches but decided instead to start over while retaining the premise or soul of the original idea (the quote).

I rewatched the film, and set to work on some layout ideas, gathering what imagery I knew I was going to need along the way. It didn’t take too long before I had a solid layout which evolved a little from the initial stages. I wanted to incorporate the green hue used for the film and book covers to touch on its familiarity with viewers. I determined the easiest way to do this was to use the green brick from those covers as a background pattern I could manipulate. I knew I wanted to have an image of our protagonist Charlie, but also needed to include some other elements about his life in order for it to paint an accurate picture of him. Originally, I was going to have my image of Charlie slowly dissolved into the background using the bricks, but after some experimentation I realized, it wasn’t going to look right, and it worked much better as a transitional element instead.

Close-up of a pill bottle, and mixed-tape (IYKYK)

After solidifying my central image, I moved onto the supporting illustrations of Patrick, Sam, Sam’s truck, the cassette tape, and pill bottle. Now most of these elements would make sense to anyone who’s watched the film, or read the book, but for those who are unfamiliar with the content, no worries. Music plays a huge role in the film, and book, as Charlie begins to create his own mixed tapes. In one part of the story Charlie gives his friend Patrick a mix entitled ‘One Winter’, which is well known to fans of the tale, with the playlist available on multiple streaming platforms. The bottle alludes to some of the other themes in the film that would be giving entirely too much away for anyone who hasn’t seen it, or read the book.

My biggest challenge with this piece was combining all the images together. Originally, I wanted Sam’s truck to be exiting out of the bottle like the tunnel from the film/book. Unfortunately it wasn’t achievable with my layout. I knew I was going to use the cassette tape as a dividing agent but wasn’t sure exactly how. Eventually I realized I could use the tape to draw us back towards the scene of Sam and Patrick. To keep the image balanced I added the music notes above our joyriders, which offset the left side of the image. My last issue was how sparse the rest of the image looked, and I still needed to add the quote. I thought about adding more bricks to balance the image since the only place they were visible was at the bottom of the image. This strategy turned out to be a great solution and worked well for housing the quote.

Close-up of 'Sam' (Emma Watson), and 'Patrick' (Ezra Miller)

With that done I sent the image off to the printers for a proof which came back looking great. I did end up making a few edits later and sent it in for final copies. Unfortunately, they were printed before I could catch some minor tangents that I had missed previously. I did however correct the error and then saved it as my new final image for future reprints.

I started the piece on February 27^th, 2025, and finished it on March 30^th, 2025 with some final edits taking us to April 3^rd, 2025. I spent approximately, one hundred and two (102) hours, and eighteen (18) minutes working on the image, with ninety-two (92) hours, and fifty-six (56) minutes of that time being in Procreate. The remaining hours were divided between Adobe Illustrator (two hours forty-five minutes), and Adobe Photoshop (six hours and thirty-three minutes), editing.

Final 10" x 10" image on white pearl linen

The 10” x 10” image (printed on White Pearl Linen, thank you SGX), was made for Gallery1988’s ‘Canon Event’, a group show dedicated to the impactful scenes from cinema which opened May 6^th, 2025. At this time the prints are exclusively available via the gallery, so please check their website for all remaining works related to the show including mine.

For more information, or to see a catalog of my other work, please visit my online store here.

You can also find me on various social media platforms below doing a multitude of other artistic things that include hand lettering, and the occasional sculpting, crafting or painting.

Website: www.michaelstiles.com

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Monday, February 17, 2025

THE BLACK CAULDRON (1985)

I typically don’t have a problem finding inspiration whenever I am creating a piece for any show. In fact, it’s usually the opposite, but not always and in some cases, I have too many options or ideas. This piece was part of the former, because the theme for this show was ‘Back to 1985’. With such a broad theme, I went against my instincts and took a recommendation from a friend (thanks Alice), which is how I settled on Walt Disney’s adaptation of Lloyd Alexander’s ‘The Chronicles of Prydain’, formerly know as ‘The Black Cauldron’ (1985).

The holy grail of layout sketches...I had so..so..so many..

The film itself is not necessarily mired in controversy, but it was the last film to be produced in the original Animation Building at the legendary Burbank studios before they moved production to Glendale. The film which was the first of Disney’s animated features to use computer-generated imagery and, also received a PG rating (after frightening scenes were cut), hurting its box office performance. It was such a black eye for Disney, they didn’t even release the film to video until 1997.

Yikes.

Since then, the film has become a cult classic (it’s even currently available on Disney+), most likely in part to it being a much darker film which Disney was known for during a short period of time in the 1980’s (see The Secret of NIMH, Watcher in the Woods, or Something Wicked This Way Comes). Being a child in the 80’s, the band-aid was ripped off completely and without warning.

'The Horned King', his Gwythaints, and his castle (naturally...where else would a king reside?)

For those unaware of the plot, I’ll try to paraphrase in the shortest spoiler-free way possible.

Our story starts with a young apprentice named Taran (Grant Bardsley), and his master Dallben (Freddie Jones), who are charged with the care of a clairvoyant swine by the name of Hen Wen. When Hen Wen alerts both Dallben, and Taran of the imminent danger imposed by the return of the Horned King (John Hurt). Taran is then given Hen Wen and told to hide her from the Horned King, who seeks to use her powers to locate the legendary Black Cauldron. It is along this journey, Taran meets several characters from princesses to denizens of the forest, and even a trio of witches.

I started the piece in much the same I always do…completely lost.

I haven’t seen the film I think since it was released, as it wasn’t even available to watch at home until 1997 over a decade after it was released. I remember my parents taking me to see it at I believe the drive-in, and that was really my only reference for the film. I recalled the plot with accuracy; however, the details were…murky.

Thankfully Disney+ has the film available for streaming, and after a rewatch, I had my missing pieces.

The biggest struggle I had with this illustration was nailing a layout. I wanted it to be either simplified (as to avoid getting hit with copyright infringement), stylized, or narrative. I even did something I tell myself NEVER to do, and that’s google what has already been done. I don’t like to do this because I feel it could easily influence me or leave me feeling dejected.

Oddly enough, with this film there really isn’t a lot of artwork outside of the original to draw inspiration from.

'Taran of Caer Dallben'', 'Princess Eilonwy', 'Fflewddur Fflam Ministrel of Minstrels', and 'Hen Wen'

With that I set to developing my layout which thankfully didn’t take too long. I really wanted to avoid detail in this piece but eventually…I gave in. I concluded early on that it wasn’t going to work without diving in deep, so…I went with it.

I started first by sketching out everything rather loosely and then going back in and tightening everything up. I wasn’t sure how I was going to proceed stylistically as I wanted to make sure that the characters had volume, something the animation lacked (for technical reasons). This proved to be somewhat of an undertaking, and I determined to ditch the outlines I spent so much time on and instead use color for definition and provide the volume I desired.

For some of the characters I had to model myself (like the Horned King’s hand) or create a composite for reference (as with both Taran and Eilonwy). It was challenging, but overall, I think it was successful.

There were also some details though that I had to discard for various reasons outlined below.

The first item omitted was the skeletons, or ‘cauldron-born’. I wanted to place them just below Gurgi, but as I began to work on them, I realized they were going to be entirely too difficult to see (given the scale). The other issue here was also the perspective of the piece. While I was using a lot of layering, and ‘double exposure’ type work here, I felt that I needed to re-ground the illustration at this juncture as we visually lead back to the cauldron.

The second item omitted were, unfortunately, the witches.

I wanted to include them in the clouds that oversee Dallben’s home but felt it legibility was going to be an issue, and due to time constraints I figured, I could always add them later if I wanted to.

'Gurgi', and 'The Black Cauldron' of legend (and title of the piece)

Upon completing the piece, I sent it over to SGX and had them produce a proof for me so I could determine what, if anything needed to be changed/altered/etc. Thankfully the piece legible, so thankfully no edits were needed.

I started the piece in Procreate* on January 6^th, 2025, and completed it on February 17^th, 2025 totaling one hundred and thirty five (135) hours, and eight (8) minutes.

*additional work was also done in Photoshop, but it was solely layout editing, and size manipulation.

Final 12" x 18" framed image on white pearl linen

The 12” x 18” image (printed on White Pearl Linen, thank you SGX), was made for Gallery1988’s ‘Back to 1985’, an online exhibition paying homage to the films, television, and other media giants from the same year. The group show opens online March 11^th, 2025, and at this time the prints are exclusively available via the gallery, so please check their website for all remaining works related to the show including mine.