Roman Abstraction

These are the colors of Rome - orange stucco and the almost opal-like colors of carved and fitted stonework. In the last month of my Roman stay in 1976, I did as many drawings and paintings as I could of the Roman environment. Many times my sketches turned into abstractions of line and color, rather than just portraits of buildings. I would draw the pencil sketch on site and then paint it in my room later on. I used a ruler to get the watercolor lines but at this point so much later on I don't remember exactly how. I wonder if I could do this kind of drawing again. Maybe on the iPad? The iPad doesn't have the ability to automatically draw straight lines, but the much heavier Cintiq does. I still rely on the old standby: pencil, pen, and paper. Unfortunately I don't have plans to return to Rome any time soon. The world is a more difficult place for me and for everyone than it was in 1976.

Watercolor on Canson watercolor paper, 8" x 6", summer 1976.

Stasheff "M'Lady Witch" cover art

My e-book "cover" for the re-release of Christopher Stasheff's "M'Lady Witch" has been done for some time but I finally got approval from my clients on the picture. This gives me permission to show it on this Blog. It's really an Art, not a By-Product but so there. The story is a romantic comedy set in a magical medieval kingdom. A pretty but socially inept Prince loves a beautiful young Witch, and she loves him too but in a rather arrogant and possessive way. In the book, each of them is tempted by other lovers and obstacles appear in the way of their love, and they must work hard and grow in insight to deserve True Love. In the picture the Witch rejects the love-offering of roses from the dorky Prince, because he has proposed to her in a rude and insulting way. In the background is the Tudor Palace seen earlier here, and the Kinkadian Gazebo symbolizing a wedding. The spring flowers are from the real world as this picture was done in April and May. And as always with the characters of this magical family, the black robot horse "Fess" keeps watch to make sure things turn out right.

Note the resemblance of the yellow-clad Prince to the Archangel Raphael in the Buard Diptych honoring my departed friend, in the posting before this one.

Photoshop on Cintiq, May 2017. Click for larger view.

R.I.P. Patricia Buard

 

Patricia Buard, my good friend of over thirty years, a founding member of my prayer group the "Order of St. Michael," passed away yesterday. She was a mainstay of my life, and I could always count on her for hospitality and administration help in our Order. She was also a master costumer and had a background in theater and theology. A few years ago she asked me to paint her portrait as a medieval donor, kneeling before the Holy Beings of our Catholic faith. It was an elaborate commission based on a late medieval royal diptych icon. I worked a long time on it but was finally able to present it to her in mid-2015. I am so glad that she was able to see a longtime dream of hers, to become an artwork among the painted angels. Behind her stands Saint Michael, the warrior angel, as well as Saint Anne with the young Mary.

Here is the complete diptych. The figures are the Sword of Saint Michael, the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child, and three of the Four Archangels, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael. In back of Patricia is a window through which you can see the skyline of Philadelphia, near where she lived. She requested the city view as part of the whole concept. Her craftsman husband, Michael, built a gilded folding frame for the art. This is one way we can hope to keep Patricia's memory alive here among us.

Acrylic on hardboard, 20" x 15", summer 2015. Click on image for a larger view. This has been posted before here but I think it's appropriate anyway.

Dr Who number 10 Marco Polo

This adaptation is from a series where Dr. Who and his companions land on Earth again and find themselves following the famous Italian explorer Marco Polo. As usual they get involved with dangerous politics, this time in the court of Kublai Khan. Marco is on the left while the Mongol bad guy is in the center. The finished TV live action recordings of the series have been lost, so all that remains of it are still pictures, the script, and the spoken audio tracks. The episode dates from early 1964. Many of the audio tracks survived because fans recorded them with tape recorders from the TV. I remember doing the same thing with my favorite TV shows back then but Dr. Who didn't come to the USA until the 70's.

Original art is ink on illustration board, 5 1/2" x 5", spring 1981. 

Baby Me Art 3: "A Bible Man"

This epic drawing was among the papers I took home from the old parents' house. On the back is the title: "A Bible Man." You can see the figure at the top, a bearded man with a triangular shield divided into two areas, his other arm uplifted in a battle fist. The Bible character is not identified. On the lower level is another, less humanoid figure with a boxy body and flipper feet. This one also has the upraised arm, adorned with a big bicep muscle. This muscle motif shows obvious influence from Popeye cartoons, which I loved to watch on TV. I must have been around 3 or 4 when I drew this.

Pencil on red paper, about 6" x 9", c. 1956.

Disruption of studio

My air conditioner failed during a heat wave recently so the apartment management is replacing it. I have lived in the same apartment for an amazing 25 years, in a place where most residents leave after one year or less, all of them immigrants who either do well and buy their own house, or do not do well and have to go. This is the second replacement of the air conditioner in those years. I love hot weather and heat but even I have limits to my tolerance so this is good. Unfortunately I built my studio with all its paints and storage and books and computers near the AC unit's wall cabinet so they need to move it all to get space for the bulky module to be brought in and installed. This is a drawing of some of my art stuff and storage boxes stacked in the living room while the installation happens. Massive amounts of dust have been liberated.

Sepia brown tech pen ink on sketchbook page, 5" x 5", May 26, 2017.

Dr. Who Fan Art 9: The Keys of Marinus

Doctor Who played by William Hartnell stands in front of a dodecahedronal computer that has directed the lives of its humanoid subjects for 2000 years, but has failed due to a violent attack. The machine can only be revived by finding five keys scattered over the primitive planet, and  uniting them to re-start the machine. (This was 1964, long before the age of floppy discs and lost operating systems.) The Doctor and his companions travel around the planet by a teleportation device from some lost technology, and in each of five episodes they retrieve one key, until they can escape while the computer falls into the hands of invaders and is destroyed by a false key. 

There must be some meaning to all this storytelling, but I just don't have the sacred calling to memorize it all. I used an old-fashioned inking style to do this illustration, a style I would later use in sequential art.

Original drawing is black ink on illustration board, 5 1/2" x 4", spring 1981.

I have FINALLY finished my book cover for the Stasheffs and once it is approved by the clients I can publish it here. 

Iris Logo for T-shirt

I did a lot of flower studies in the early 1990s and many of them appeared on this Blog years ago. I am especially fond of irises and it is iris blooming time in the northeast USA just now. When a group of friends asked me to do the T-shirt/program design for a convention featuring, uh, erotic science fiction, I designed this rather explicit iris for them. It was printed in white on a purple T-shirt and I still have mine and I still fit into it, too. I have designed dozens of T-shirts in my time, but not so many now since I am not doing the "fannish" thing so much.

Original drawing was ink on illustration board, 8" x 10", June 1991.

Reef Life Doodle

Inspired by tropical fish and coral reef environments I dashed off this color doodle with my simple dye markers. This is an improvisation starting with one curved blue line, the first one at the upper left. The rest is creative exercise, so to speak. Tropical fish and coral reefs are all endangered so I thought I'd honor them before they disappeared.

Dye markers on sketchbook page, 4" x 5", May 23, 2017.

Incredible Shrinking Doctor Who number 8

This one's adapted from a 1964 episode, called "Planet of Giants," where the Doctor and his companions are miniaturized and have to contend with ordinary house creatures such as flies and a cat which are now the size of cars and houses. The menace is a newly developed insecticide which is revealed to kill all life, not just insects. The travelers manage to communicate from their miniaturized state and are able to escape back to the TARDIS where they are restored to normal size.

Original drawing is ink on illustration board, about 5 1/2" x 5 1/2", summer 1981.

Winery Visit Back to Otium Cellars

We were going to go to the Virginia Wine and Craft Festival this "Wine Saturday" but decided not to, due to the high price of admission and the chilly overcast weather. Instead we went to an old favorite, "Otium Cellars," where unusual and delicious German varieties are offered. We sipped in the hand-built wooden tasting room, watching the beautiful horses who live in Otium's show barn. Cheese, crackers, sausage, and fine wine made a good decision out of a dropped festival. I got to meet a dressage rider and her big brown horse, "Bee." As always I had my art stuff with me and did Winery Art including, if you look closely, a golden horse with white face and tail.

Sepia brown tech pen ink, colored pencils, finished in studio, May 20, 2017. Click for a larger view.

Geometrikon May remix

I do the drawing first in black or brown marker and color markers. Then I scan it and send it over to Photoshop for coloring in. I blog that and save the original line drawing. After a while I color the original drawing in colored pencil and markers, and re-post the image from the paper final, which is what this is. So you and I get two color and texture schemes for the price of one. This "re-mix" has some spacey and metallic inspirations. Better than a jaw-dropping visceral dumpster fire I suppose.

Markers and colored pencil on sketchbook page, 4" x 4", May 2017.

Three Graces of Wonder Woman

The "Three Graces" is an ancient theme used for art work since Greek classical times. It shows three lovely ladies holding hands, each one representing another virtue or good thing such as "Splendor," "Mirth," and "Good Cheer." When I was doing fan art for zines back in my earlier days my clients had me illustrate an article about the evolution of Wonder Woman. When the character was first created she had a bit of "Wild West show" about her with her lasso and a ruffled skirt. Other later costumes from the fifties showed her in circus garb or a shiny bustier. Wonder Woman continues to evolve and is now about to appear in yet another superhero movie though the costume is quite different from the old styles. I illustrated Wonder Woman's changes by showing her as a triple version of herself (but not "Triplicate Girl") and I made her into the classical Three Graces.

Original art is black ink on illustration board, 5 1/2" x 6", summer 1980.

Dr. Who image 7 "The Time Meddler"

This image is adapted from one of the last Who series that William Hartnell played in. The time frame is 1066 AD, just before the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest. A rogue Time Lord, disguised as a monk, is causing trouble on Earth, interfering with the time stream and introducing non-period technology like the light bulb he holds at the top left corner.

I experimented with pen strokes on this drawing, using them a bit more loosely like some of the early 20th century pulp or society illustrators. Hartnell is at center.

Black ink on illustration board, 5 1/2" x 6", Summer 1981.

Fantasy Gazebo

The background of my current book cover work depicts spring gardens as well as the "Tudor palace." I took inspiration from the legendary and fantasy-prone Thomas Kinkade to create the environment. But this is, more or less, a real environment, my own area in springtime. There are azaleas of many brilliant pinks and lavender, dogwoods in white, and an abundance of spring green. Then it is all gone. Kinkade is only right once a year. The gazebo symbolizes a wedding since this story from Stasheff is a romantic comedy. The yellow thing at left is part of a character's costume. I should be done with this soon and you'll get to see the whole thing.

Excerpt from "M'Lady Witch," cover in progress, Photoshop. May 2017.

Dr. Who fan art number 6

William Hartnell looks like an old orchestra conductor in this one, but he's more than that, he's Doctor Who. This episode, which features the biorobotic enemy the Daleks, as well as a museum displaced in time, is from 1965. Just in case you need to know the storyline and characters here, it's at another Talmudic site, "Wikia" fannish. These costumes are made from what looks like construction paper, but not the Doctor's bow tie.

Original drawing is black ink on illustration board, 5 1/2" x 6", July 1981. I had no clue in 1981 that I would be transcribing these old illustrations to digital and sending them forth into a vast world of information I could not envision.

Geometrikon for Spring

I designed this one to fit in a space in a crowded sketchbook page. Also I like the aqua color which makes me think of spring. This week it is unusually cold for spring and I am busy working on my Stasheff cover which is why you have not seen new material here. There's something vaguely three-dimensional illusion here if you look at the triangles long enough. This is mixed media, the aqua blue texture is simple marker and the lines are marker ink. You can use the very fadeable marker for Art if you scan it immediately afterward. The rest is colored in Photoshop which at this point is deteriorating on this computer and failing to work. Do you think that Donald Trump is the Nietzschean Superman, having become beyond good and evil? See if anyone reads this. Pretty picture!

Markers on sketchbook page and Photoshop, 4" x 4", May 15, 2017.

Dr. Who in ancient Rome adaptation 5

The "Doctor Who" TV show was originally created to educate children and adults about history and historical civilizations. One of the earliest ones was set in ancient Rome as you can see here. The program quickly morphed into a fantasy/science fiction adventure story. This is still from the William Hartnell era, when Who was supposed to be "educational." I didn't get to illustrate any episodes with another Doctor. My favorite is the Fourth Doctor, the brilliant Tom Baker, the one with the "chaos scarf."

Black ink on illustration board, 5 1/2" x 5", summer 1981. A note to Mike: The creatures you liked in the previous illustration were designed by the BBC, not by me. I just adapted them.

Don Orione care home Roma

Only a few weeks before I left Rome, I acquired a Rapidograph technical drawing pen and loaded it with a reddish-brown ink made by Pelikan of Germany. The pen was the metric equivalent of a 4 - 0 very thin point but it made a great line in architectural drawings. I drew every day with this pen, including ordinary Roman scenes like this building, which was next door to my temporary residence. The building here is the "Ospizio Don Orione", a small home for the elderly. From its Website (in Italian) it sounds like a peaceful place to, uh, finish up. The walls are painted that characteristic bright orange of Roman stucco.

I used that technical pen in the USA too but found it too difficult to maintain. The Rapidographs, as any artist/designer who used them will tell you, tend to dry up, clog, or leak. The introduction of the disposable and highly efficient Faber-Castell "Pitt" technical drawing pens in sepia or black solved the problem and that is the drawing pen I still use today, 40 years later.

"Ospizio Don Orione" is brown tech pen ink on thick paper, colored in watercolor and watercolor pencil, 9 1/2" x 7", 1976. Click for a larger view and a peaceful old age.

Doctor Who "The Rescue" fan art 4

Can you believe that every expletive-deleted episode of "Doctor Who" has a Wikipedia entry and a cast and plot description? That's hundreds of episodes. People on Earth have too much time on their hands! Even in 1965 they find clever ways to create monsters on TV, without a computer! This hand-drawn adaptation is from a Who episode from 1965, appropriately titled "The Rescue," when William Hartnell (upper right corner) has to rescue his companions from alien creatures on a desolate planet. I suppose I could become just as learned as some of the Who-Encyclopedists but even I would rather learn calculus or Persian language than do that.

And I wanna know, how is it that something I drew in 1981 is as good as or even better than something I could draw today? 

Original art is black ink on illustration board, 6" x 5 1/2", summer 1981.

Roman roof fantasy

The photos that I am transcribing are from my time in Rome in 1969 but most of the buildings I  photographed were from hundreds of years ago, re-built over and over again during the centuries. Many terraces, roofs, windows and rooms probably hadn't changed since ancient Roman days. This image is a fantasy combination of roofs and walls and arches from old Rome. The red tiles which make up the roof covering have not changed at all. I wish the buildings in my area were that picturesque. But I suppose corporate towers and high-rise apartments have their own picturosity. (Not a real word.) Of all the things I draw I still like architecture the most.

Brown sepia tech pen ink on sketchbook page, 3 1/2" x 3", May 10, 2017.

Foxwife end illustrations

At the end of the story, Jiro finds happiness with his fox wife and she runs off into the moonlight. 

These small sketches were to be placed at various points in the story, just for filling empty spaces. One is the ceramic bowl with the flowers of love floating in it. The middle is a picture of the little foxes that Jiro and his fox wife will have. The right is a traditional Japanese  Shinto torii gateway.

All illustrations ink on illustration board. Top one here, 8" x 3 3/4". Bottom ones, each about 3" x 2 1/2". July 1981.

Stasheff excerpt Tudor Palace

The text of Christopher Stasheff's book that I am currently illustrating called for a "Tudor palace," so I gathered info from the Great Vastness of Information to find me something that looked "Tudor." Twenty years ago I would have looked it up in one of my reference books. I have little idea what "Tudor" architecture was or how it developed, but if Google Images says it's Tudor, I am not gonna disagree. This is a small excerpt of the cover art with the palace on it. Most of the cover are character portraits which I haven't "painted" yet. All my Stasheff covers have some sort of architecture on them, and also feature an image of "Fess," the black metallic robotic horse, which I am painting now.

Photoshop on Cintiq, work in progress, May 2017.

Jiro and the Broken Bowl

A sorry moment in Jane Yolen's story, as Jiro in a fit of rage smashes a precious ceramic bowl. I don't remember why he did this, but there was a symbolic flower in the bowl which may have been a love token. I know if I searched hard enough and paid enough for an out of print book I could find Jane Yolen's text. My bibliophile friends could help me. As for the people who commissioned these illustrations, I don't want to know where they are now. What they look like now is SHOCKING.

Ink on illustration board, 8" x 6", July 1981.

Baby Me Art 2: Spacecraft

Here's another drawing from Baby Me, about 3 years old maybe. The drawing looks like it might be a big spaceship, with a little rider astronaut at the top. Or it could be a car, it has headlights at upper right. The bent rectangular shapes on what is either the body or an airwing originally looked like a keyboard to me but I think they are architectural. It seems to be a mixture of animal and airplane. Remember that in the early 50s rockets, like me, were in their early youth.

This piece was drawn on what I believe was blue paper. This has faded to the grey you see here. With the techno-magic of Photoshop I restored the blue. But, alas, I cannot restore my youth. That's OK, I remember too much to want to do that. Here's the blue version:

"Spacecraft" is ink on blue paper, about 10" x 8", 1956

Blogapology for these weeks, no fresh art because I am working on a book cover for the Stasheffs.

Old Doctor Who Fan Art part 3: "The Reign of Terror"

Here's more old fan art from my work reconstructing images of Dr. Who scenes for a fanzine. This one is from "The Reign of Terror" in which the Doctor's time machine takes him and his companions to the time of the French Revolution. They are immediately involved in the counter-revolution with much intrigue and deadly action. The Doctor, at left, is dressed as a French official and two of his companions are being led to the guillotine, from which they are saved at the last moment. This episode was one of the very first, from 1964. 

Black ink on illustration board, 6 1/2" x 5", Spring 1981. This is an OLD piece. I don't see many contemporary illustrations done in this pen and ink style, and even I don't do that much of it.

Jiro and the Foxwife

The secret to Jiro's new wife, as any Japanese person will tell you, is that she is a were-fox, who turns into a fox at night. This explains her mysterious disappearances as well as her clever, sly behavior. You can see her fox ears and tail on her head disguised as a headdress as well as a paw hidden in her kimono. This is another illustration in the Japanese print-styled set I did for author Jane Yolen's folktale story "The Foxwife."

I have foxes in my urban back yard and not only are they not dressed in kimonos, but they make a lot of noise which sometimes sounds like a human scream, which makes me wonder whether the foxes can be just as angry as Jiro. They also bark and howl which might alarm even a folktale spouse.

Black ink on illustration board, 8" x 5", July 1981. My records show that these illustrations were given to Jane Yolen as a gift. I wonder whether she still has them, or even remembers them.

Via Anicia Roma

Here is another of my Roman watercolor studies from 1976. I tried to capture as many textures and colors as I could. The dark red wall sits upon the old brick foundations of a noble Roman family house of the late era about 400 AD. They were called the Anicia family hence the name of the street you can see on the stone sign is "Via Anicia."

The Anicii were important to me because I used them as characters in a historical/fantasy novel I wrote most of in college and in Rome. I never finished it but here, as much as I can remember, is the plot, with some embellishments from now added for it to make sense.

The scene is Rome, 410 AD. Aurelia Anicia, age 15, is an educated young lady of the Anicia family (yes, based on me) who escapes from her family as she tries to run away from an arranged marriage to a money-grubbing young noble. She falls under the influence of a powerful, rich ship-owner (think Aristotle Onassis) who is a eunuch from the imperial court and an ex-slave, named Heliodorus. He is rumored to have in his possession a magical manuscript (the title of the novel would have been "The Miraculous Manuscript" or "Codex Mirabilis"), a Bible which can not only heal people by touch but predict the future by opening a random page and pointing out a sentence. He allows Aurelia to examine it and decides that he will offer it to the archbishop of Constantinople, with Aurelia as its keeper. They sail, along with many of Heliodorus' friends and allies, to Constantinople where a major religious dispute and street war is going on. After many adventures including fending off a pirate attack they arrive in Constantinople and gain access to the Archbishop, John Chrysostom. The Archbishop views the manuscript and declares it a fraud, and threatens to lock Aurelia up in a convent for blasphemy. During a riot Heliodorus and Aurelia manage to return to their ship and sail away from Constantinople, carrying the precious manuscript. At one port stop Heliodorus is found by fanatics trying to get the manuscript and is stabbed in an assassination attempt. Aurelia finds him dying but since she still has the book she invokes its magical powers of healing and he survives. They set sail again and in the middle of the night, giving up on this madness, Aurelia drops the book overboard, considering it too powerful and blasphemous to keep in the world. Heliodorus, when he finds out, decides to simply send her back to Rome where a barbarian invasion is imminent. Instead, she foretells that Heliodorus is doomed unless he sends her back to Jerusalem where she will join the scholarly circle of Saint Jerome. Having destroyed the miraculous book, she now has the powers of it attached to her. She persuades Heliodorus to change course. At the end, Aurelia is seen at the bow of Heliodorus' ship heading towards Jerusalem, while Rome burns under the Vandal attack.

Not all of this is the original plot, I've changed a lot of it, but no, I will NOT re-write this text, once is enough.

"Via Anicia" is watercolor on Canson paper, 8 1/2" x 11", painted in Rome, summer 1976.

Jiro of Japanism

When I first got into science fiction and fantasy fandom the dominant ethnicity was Celtic and anything "Celtic" was thrilling and heroic. That was something that is the heritage of the Romantic literary and political movements of the nineteenth century which has recently re-surfaced in a dark way. But the other thrilling ethnicity was Japanese, something which came to the English-speaking world on its own promotional hype of anime, games, sushi, manga, samurais, and Toshiro Mifune films. Back in colonial days it was called "japonisme," (French coinage) which inspired much of 19th century Art Nouveau and Impressionism in painting, graphics, and design.

Japonism, or Japanism, hit hard in the 1980s and hasn't gone away. We enjoy all sorts of imports, even if we never play a video game or pick up a samurai sword. I drive a Honda wagon (built in the good old USA), I love sushi (made by a Thai emigre in a mall) and many of my best art materials such as my Irojiten colored pencils are made by Japanese companies using Asian workers. 

This piece, "Jiro the Angry," was done as an illustration to a Japanese folktale, re-told by the renowned children's author Jane Yolen. The story is about an artisan named Jiro who has what we would now call "anger management" problems. He marries a mysterious woman and finds something astonishing about her. The rest of the story is in anthologies none of which I have found. My illustration was for a fan magazine which was unfortunately never published. This is a series, more will follow.

I did my best to imitate a "Japanese print" or Kabuki theater style. I remember poring over this whole world of design I had never known about, just as the Europeans did during the period of "japonisme." And the Japan-ery is still going strong, just ask Hello Kitty or any anime enthusiast.

"Jiro the Angry One" original is ink on illustration board, about 8" x 5", July 1981.

Baby Me Art 1: Ocean Creatures

Some of the art portfolios retrieved from the old family house were drawings and paintings made by me in my early childhood. Even though my mother was an artist, you couldn't see from these pieces that I would eventually follow in my mother's artistic path. I suppose that I was about three at the time I did this study of octopus-like sea creatures. There's a bit of design that looks like a thumb at the bottom and maybe that's what it was. I got my ideas from all sorts of things, like children's books or TV (yes, there was plenty to watch back then) or other people's art. My mother was all enthusiastic about my attempts at art and she encouraged me even before I could read or write, and kept the results until they re-appeared, 60 years later.

"Ocean Creatures" is crayon and pen on red paper, 5 3/4" x 8 3/4", about 1956.

Geometrikon April Remix

It's a bit of a cliche, and a bit "modernist stained-glassy" but I remixed the April geometrikon from a couple of weeks ago. They are fun to make anyway, and it's a way of playing with colors without having to mess with sticky paint or Adobe Photoshop's endless complexities. I really like the mid-blue (light cobalt blue) in many of the areas here. It's one of the friendliest colors I know. Everything goes nicely with it. 

Original drawing is marker ink on sketchbook page, colored pencils, and a touch of marker color, 7 1/2" x 2 1/2", April 2017.