My book, "Visionary Landscapes," featuring Drawings from the Genesis Collection.

Dear Collectors, friends, and first time visitors,

If you're already aware, Visionary Landscapes, the long awaited coffee table style book featuring thirty-one hand selected master drawings from my Genesis Collection, has been published for quite sometime. We are proud to offer the world this 160 page full color published book through the independent publishing source, Lulu. Our vision for this exclusive volume edition was to have a high end collector style book that features many drawings from my chess, anatomy, mind, spiritual, and abstract collections. We decided on a 7.5"X7.5" format that is suitable for many table styles including most coffee table settings. We have published this through my publishing division at Imaginative Pencil called Imaginative Pencil Publishing. You can visit the storefront for our publishing division at Imaginative Pencil Publishing

Visionary Landscapes fuses the insights, critiques, and reviews from various artists, critics, and scholars from all over the world with the intimate perspectives of each work by myself. We collected numerous sources from around the world with regard to my style and approach and organized the book in such a way as to portray each drawing from various perspectives. The goal of this exclusive edition is to give hidden insights that would otherwise go unnoticed by many viewers and create a collection of reviews and critiques by selected artists and scholars with a large portion of the deeper understanding coming from myself. I want each reader to explore this large selection of drawings that span many of my collections and to become more aware of what I am trying to achieve both in meaning and message. My hope is that readers will be rewarded with not only the secrets of how I came to certain conclusions and how I achieved them and why, but essentially the core meaning of each work will be revealed in the simplest terms by showing each drawing as a separate analysis within the overall meaning of the book. The intimacy of the book centers on my deep critiques and viewpoints of each drawing featured which gives the reader access to me on a more personal level like I am in front of them explaining each work.

Book Preface

This first volume will approach the latest drawings from the studio of award-winning artist Justin Jenkins with a fresh and insightful point of view. With the help of the artist, we have compiled a small volume that will contain thirty of his most recent drawings taken from five unique collections. The artist will give us his insight into each work of art and the hidden meanings behind the symbolism's and objectivity that lie beneath the color and forms.

This book attempts to give viewers, collectors, scholars, and historians an ambitious and fresh examination into the mind, soul, and overall vision of the artist. We have collected various critics, essays, and feedback from numerous people about the approach and style of artist Justin Jenkins and organized it in the pages ahead along with a gallery of works. We hope this book will give each reader a broader understanding of what the artist is trying to accomplish within the bold shapes, twisting forms, and surreal settings. We also want to shed light on the message his work tries to convey to the world.

Now that you have a basic understanding of what this book will attempt to accomplish, let’s begin our journey and exploration into the surreal, visionary, and inventive world that lies deep in the corridors of the artist’s mind with the hope of finding the truth and inspiration behind his style.

Imaginative Pencil Publishing came to Lulu because the company wanted to be in control of the publishing process and found Lulu’s print-on-demand tools to be fast, easy and, most importantly, free. Visionary Landscapes is available for purchase at Lulu, in a marketplace filled with other unique and wonderful surprises. Independent publishing and print-on-demand is the wave of the future, and the future is now. The Lulu process allows me to cut out the middle man (i.e. a separate publisher) and get my work out there the way I want it. My book, Visionary Landscapes, is much like Lulu itself  - it puts control of my destiny in my own hands.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Imaginative Pencil is a company I founded in 2004 that specializes in the sale, distribution, and exhibition of my surreal pencil art.

Justin Michael Jenkins was born in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. to George and Carole Jenkins. Besides his professional status as a full time artist, he is also a writer, designer, and webmaster. His hobbies include studying the game of chess and collecting Civil War memorabilia.

ABOUT LULU

Founded in 2002, Lulu is the world’s fastest-growing print-on-demand marketplace for digital do-it-yourselfers. Please see www.lulu.com for more information.
For more information about selling this book in stores or to order a copy for yourself, please visit our book website at Lulu or contact Michael Retla at publishing @imaginativepencil.com or call 1-304-376-0762.

Featured Drawing: "The Gyrating Vigor of Carnal Sustenance"

I want to first start off by saying that I want viewers of my work to be open minded and form any opinions they want and if they see something that speaks to them and they form a conclusion from it, that makes me very satisfied as an artist. Keep in mind that although I do feel that all art should be open to interpretation in some form or another, I do set out to complete a work that is based on a story, theme, or underlying premise that guides me and inspires me to manifest the symbolism's and objectivity throughout the work. There is a collective reasoning behind the flow and organized surreal chaos in a lot of my drawings from the Genesis Collection.

In this drawing, my underlying theme was man and animals reliance on one another. I want to somehow fuse man and animal in a way that showed various connective symbolism's and how we are all connected spiritually and rely on one another to make the world function smoothly. In my mind, a
carousel type feel like a merry-go-round came to mind where a horse would be made up of faces joining together in solidarity as the pole slices down the composition and circular platform divided the separate planes at the bottom of the work. The pole actually is used in two ways to fuse man and animal together (as a cane with hands on it and a carousel pole.) I made the horse shown in various positions (upright and down like it is eating grass) with faces and hands interconnecting the horses body and composition. Blue and red is used t harmoniously intertwine the symbolism's together. The overall result was a very multifaceted analysis and surreal representation of what I envisioned in my mind throughout the work as it progressed.

This original drawing is available for purchase for any serious buyers or collectors interested. Contact me through blogger or you can view my on twitter at @jjenkinsartist 

Which are my favorite art mediums and why?

There was a time in my life when I transitioned to acrylic paints to create my first paintings. I was fresh out of college and beginning my personal journey exploring my own style without the limits of a classroom environment and cookie cutter classes. Acrylic paints offered a more precise and easier application for me and one I could get sharp details with. My paintings evolved to a point where they were complicated and saturated with lots of detail. My style became very complex with small worlds within other worlds. After a while, it took me months to finish one painting spending thousands of hours on one complete work. I still enjoy acrylics for their precision, but over the course of the last 10 years have moved back to pencil to manifest my visions from my mind onto paper or board.

Moving to pencil as my main source of medium was a smooth transition that felt right to me. Pencil is my medium. It is like finding that perfect shirt or pair of pants that actually accentuates my figure and makes me look better. I love precise details in my work and colored pencil has given me that control. I prefer Berol Prismacolors for their buttery soft consistency and using the white pencil as a blending tool gives you a rich matte finish like a painting. I have used pencils so much the last 10 years they have become "one" with my arm and body. They are an extension of my overall creativity and process. The ideas flow from my mind through my arm and the pencil moves like auto pilot without too much effort. I have confidence in my knowledge and control of them. It empowers me to reach new heights and explore even more conceptual approaches.

The smell of freshly sharpened pencils and the broken lead puts my mind into a creative trance of euphoric pleasure. The only thing to come close to that feeling is a freshly brewed coffee when I awake. I will continue on my journey wielding my colorful pencils that look like a beautiful garden waiting to blossom and continue to wonder what they will produce next.