You Just Can't Beat the Gladstone Luck

This painting was commissioned directly by a collector. “He's a huge fan of the Barks Donald Duck story, ‘Luck of the North,’ about Donald sending Gladstone to the far north on a wild goose (duck?) chase, resulting in a wild story involving whales, polar bears, and lost Viking treasure. And a rare map, it turns out. Barks had done a painting of the comic-book's cover, which I had too (see here), but never anything from the comic itself. So I thought I'd give it a try. Working with my patron, I did a couple of sketches until I found something I liked. Getting the characters right in a composition like this is hard. Not the likenesses, but the acting… like Barks, I try to convey their personality and the situation in their poses, facial expressions. It's not easy. The most challenging part of the painting itself was capturing the ancient Viking ship encased in ice… that was a real challenge.” You can see Garvin creating and talking about the process behind the painting on his YouTube channel. (▶ See the Video!)

This is the first Barks-inspired painting for which Garvin is also designing a narrative frame. “It just so happened that I was doing the Sultan frame around the time that I finished the Gladstone painting. I showed the collector what I was doing and he asked if I could try one for the Gladstone painting. I love the possibilities that narrative frames offer for adding charm and story to a fine-art cartoon painting. It literally is a new world to explore.”