Art By-Products

Techno-mite

2012-01-28T01:26:00.002-05:00

It is impossible to put something down without picking up something else, which has to be put somewhere else, where something even elser is. Drop it on the floor, then. You are fighting for a cubic foot of space in a set of dusty cubicles where there is no longer space, only pieces and chunks and sheafs of matter, some of which is important and valuable and some of which is not. The important matter, such as bills, clean laundry, and contact information for clients, is scattered in little piles all over the rooms. Get something done! Some of them need to be attended to right away, but you get distracted trying to throw something out. Then you think of that project that was supposed to be progressing, but you can't even see it any more, it is behind other projects that are supposed to be progressing, like the digitization of photographs and tapes and other documents. Despairing of getting anything done, you return to Facebook hoping you will find something new from one of your good friends, but there is nothing there but people passing around old music videos. Back to the room where there is a pile of bills and a bag of dirty laundry. The sink is full of dirty dishes. Get something done. You clean them but then an hour later the sink is filled again because you ate something. You have thousands of books you can't bear to part with. There's one on the shelf now. Time to read it, after 20 years of neglect in your collection. There is an eighth of an inch of dust on the top edge, which you blow off in a cloud of annoyance. The book's open page says, "Get something done." There is dust everywhere, dust on the books, dust on the floor, dust on the windowsill, dust on your collected collectibles. And in all that dust are the mites, millions of them, your little unseen companions. Some of them are equipped with nanotechnological sensors and mini-processors, reporting to the Search Engine that you have not gotten anything done.

Photoshop, "digital ink," about 5" x 5 1/2", January 28, 2012.

Most of a Pin-up Girl

2012-01-27T01:55:00.003-05:00

This is as finished as I'm going to go with my first "official" digital nude sketch. The lower legs of this girl were documented earlier, and I didn't feel like combining and attaching them. So she's sitting on a white sheet and covering up her legs or something. I don't want to deprive her of her limbs but she is only a sketch after all. I see many failures in this digital "painting" which will be remedied in later attempts. As for the bikini armor and giant sword, that will be part of subsequent assignments. No one is assigning me but myself, you understand, but I always work better when I have some sort of goal in mind. Later I will even put time limits on my "assignment" to simulate an art school or commercial studio environment. I don't know if I will go so far as to require all-nighters from me just to get the work done on time, but then I'm up all night anyway mostly.

Photoshop, about 8" x 8" (print size).

Five Doctors Who

2012-01-26T03:23:00.004-05:00

In the early 80s I hung out with a number of comic book and British TV fans who had ambitions of creating a little media conglomerate in the Boston area. They conceived of a number of semi-pro fan magazines ("zines") which would cover their favorite subjects as well as show off fan fiction. They commissioned me to illustrate lots of interior illustrations, cartoons, and covers for these publications. Among them was this illustration of the five Doctors Who for their British TV fan magazine, "Fantasy Empire." This was my first color cover and I was thrilled. You can see the famous faces of the first five Doctors, in order of appearance in the series: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, John Pertwee, Tom Baker (my all-time favorite), and Peter Davison. There have been six more Doctors since then but I confess I am not at all familiar with them.

"Fantasy Empire" ran for a few issues, and then faded away as did the rest of this media enterprise. You have to give them credit for their ambition and good intentions, all on paper with ink in a time before blogs, sites, and social media.

"The Five Doctors Who" is ink, watercolor, and gouache on illustration board, 8" x 11", March 1981. Colors extensively restored in Photoshop.

Horse-like Dragon

2012-01-25T14:03:00.003-05:00

My latest page of dragon drawings, copied or inspired by Peffer's book, show a traditional Western type of dragon that looks somewhat like a winged horse, with its large quadruped limbs and horselike head. This type of dragon is similar to the Welsh dragon which is on that country's flag. Some artists have created fantasy anatomical drawings of just what a dragon's musculature should look like, based on animal anatomy. There is a dragon's hoard of "information" about these creatures! I have always been ashamed of liking dragons because they are too large and fierce for what I am supposed to be, which is some sort of service provider. But I do enjoy them! There are many species and the horse-like "Welsh" dragon is only one of them.

Dragon studies are pencil, 11" x 8 1/2", January 25, 2012.

More Body Rendering

2012-01-24T02:58:00.004-05:00

I did the digital rendering of the torso and thighs on this study. It's crude and simple and I will have to make lots more of these before I am confident enough to make a pin-up. I still have the face and hand to do, and after that I'll move on to another figure pose. I just do a little every day, it's better than nothing. Photoshop as usual, 5 layers. If I use more than about 4 layers, I forget what is on which layer, which happened here. I don't know how they keep track of those huge multi-layer renderings.

Quick-Klee

2012-01-23T03:29:00.003-05:00

Here's another of my first attempts at digital art using the MacPaint program back in the mid-80s, printed out on my neighbor's printer. I could make squares and rectangles, (and one oval) simply with moving a mouse around! And the squares and rectangles all lined up, in a way that it would take hours to do with a pencil and a ruler. You couldn't add color into it just yet, but MacPaint had all these interesting and sort of industrial patterns you could put into your shapes. So much fun, but yet I didn't seriously get into computer art till the early 1990s. I didn't make the move to have one of these revolutionary devices until 1991, when I got my first PC.

The digital piece here is titled "Quick-Klee," in honor of Paul Klee, one of my favorite abstract artists. I think Klee would have loved playing with the computer.

Arm and Breasts Render

2012-01-22T00:06:00.003-05:00

I'm trying to do a nude who is well-equipped. She is paler than my previous attempt to render a leg, as most models are rather pallid. Only parts are fully rendered. Eventually I'll put a whole body together, and I'll have the "Pin-up Bride of Frankenstein." No, I'll have a pin-up girl image. I am most dismayed that "Bud Plant Art Books," source of great amounts of pin-up and figure study materials for me, is going out of business. I will keep doing these drawings nevertheless. I have enough resources to last me for a good long while. Photoshop, January 22, 2012.

Kandinsky Beat

2012-01-21T02:22:00.002-05:00

This is the earliest piece of digital art I ever did. It emerged from a heap of dusty old papers which I have been sorting out. I believe that this image is from 1984 or 1985, and was done on a first-generation Macintosh, with the program "MacPaint." My parents' next door neighbor, who was an engineer, bought the new gadget and showed it off for us. He even had a black and white printer to give us paper printouts. I quickly learned to use this program, which at first reminded me of an "Etch-a-Sketch." There was no color, just black and white pixel patterns to fill shapes with. And yet looking at this primitive first attempt, it is not that far a journey to the sophistication of Adobe Illustrator, where I could draw exactly the same shapes with the same ease. Very soon, the "Paint" programs blossomed into the ancestors of the ones we now know and use: "Painter," (now a Corel product), and Adobe Photoshop, the main engine of illustration all around the world. Even the "tool" icons from this earliest MacPaint have been preserved in the Adobe CS series.

You can see that back then I composed "mid-century modern" geometric abstract arrangements, just as I do now, inspired by Kandinsky. Hence, the swingin' title "Kandinsky Beat." The "mid-century" wasn't that far in the past back then. Now, it's considered a bygone age suitable only for period dramas and retro design resources. And the little stump-shaped Macintoshes are now considered retro relics.

Lady in Red miniature portrait

2012-01-20T04:10:00.005-05:00

On occasion during my artistic life I have had what you might call "hangers-on" who weren't quite friends but just wanted to hang around me. Now I don't think I'm that thrilling a person that people find my company irresistible. I think it had to do with my ability to make their imaginary worlds and identities real. Patricia was one of these folks. She had me make a number of miniatures, all relating either to herself, her original imaginary characters, or her favorite comic book characters. This is a miniature portrait she commissioned, with her beloved black Labrador dog "Henry." It was done in the format of the "Lowell Trumps," a set of miniature portraits I shared with you some time ago. Pat would come into my house and sit talking while I worked on art. Many times she would "forget" some small item of hers in my house so she had an excuse to come back. We weren't, uh, that kind of friends as she was quite straight and had a sad-sack boyfriend whom she treated poorly. After a while she decided to seek her fortune in Chicago and disappeared into the Midwestern fog, never to re-appear. I have not heard news of her in 30 years.

Portrait of Patricia is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, mounted on black matboard, 3" x 5", winter 1981. Colors restored in Photoshop.

Dragon Build

2012-01-19T03:55:00.003-05:00

Jessica Peffer's "DragonArt" book takes me through the steps of building a dragon from basic shapes and gestures. These little figures are copied from the "dragon build" that she presents in the book. The more I draw them, the more I will be able to create dragon characters. This is only one type of dragon, of course. Its legs are a bit long, as if it were a mammalian quadruped. But even some reptilian dragons have some features in common with mammals. Real large reptiles like crocodiles or monitor lizards are low to the ground and have short little legs. Dinosaurs had longer legs and I have always speculated that the idea for the Dragon in the first place came from people discovering dinosaur bones. But that can't be true, because dragons appear in very ancient art, long before people knew about dinosaurs. In my "I Can Draw Dragons" unofficial course I will learn to draw and paint both Western and Eastern style creatures as well as the ancient type portrayed thousands of years ago.

Equestrian of Darkover miniature

2012-01-18T01:29:00.003-05:00

Brenda was a friend of a friend in the Darkover fan community. She lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where for some reason I had many fantasy fan friends. I learned a lot about rural Tennessee culture from Brenda and her group, and I even got to taste authentic moonshine liquor. (Nasty stuff.) Brenda made me a beautiful afghan in a traditional design, and I picked the colors. This was one gift I could return to her. Brenda had had polio in her childhood and used a wheelchair, but she loved horses and so I portrayed her as a rider with her golden steed in the background. She holds the long knife of the Darkovan Free Amazons.

I have lost contact with many of my Southern fan friends, though I still have an excellent Chattanooga friend on Signal Mountain, above the city. I don't know where Brenda is these days or even if she is still alive. But I remember learning about places and people that I would never, ever know about had I not explored places far from my native New England.

Brenda's portrait nametag is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 2 1/4" x 3 1/2", September 1991. Colors restored in Photoshop.

Keyboard Dragon

2012-01-17T03:50:00.002-05:00

A neatly coiled tail makes a proper seat for a keyboard-playing dragon. There are many kinds of dragons, ranging from the destructive Dragonzillas to the highly cultured and artistic Dragonaires, with their miniature cousins the Dragonelles. All part of my "I Can Draw Dragons" project. This drawing was done in "digital inking," January 15, 2012.

Digital Pencil Figure 2

2012-01-16T01:00:00.003-05:00

Here's another figure study in "digital pencil." Model is from "Art Models 6." I'm trying to learn to control the Wacom tablet and stylus so it looks as much like pencil as I can make it. I stylized the face because I didn't have a lot of time to do this drawing. Life drawings are usually made under time pressure and I want to simulate that when I am drawing on the computer. I used a lot of "digital erasing" too including a feature that controls the amount of drawing that you erase, it's not just there or not-there. A real eraser will do the same thing. Now if I can invent "digital eraser leavings" that I have to brush off the screen, then it will really be like a realistic art studio drawing.

This is all part of this year's human figure and dragon practice campaign. Photoshop, January 16, 2012.

Winged Cat miniature portrait

2012-01-15T04:10:00.003-05:00

I continued to do miniature portraits as gifts or commissions, all the way into the decade of the 1990s. This one was a commission for a gift, from one of my Darkover friends to another one. Jeanne was, as all Darkover fans, a lover of books and writing and also cats. In my fantasy portrait, I portrayed Jeanne as a writer with a bright feather quill pen, and her real orange cat got a pair of catwings. Unfortunately, Jeanne was already suffering from Alzheimer's disease when the portrait was given and she didn't have much chance to wear it. Now she's another one of many, many fans who only exist in this world as portrait images.

Miniature is, as always, ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", November 1990.

Rendered Leg

2012-01-14T00:26:00.002-05:00

Are you a leg man (or woman)? Well, this one's for you. It's my first serious attempt at rendering the flesh and shadows and roundness of a model's leg. I'll start with one limb at a time. She is my pre-recorded pin-up model from "Art Models 6," from "Art Model Books," which loves us artists and has given us a volume of lovely lady models in light and shadow. This is so much better than the usual flat light provided in life drawing studios. So I rendered in digital coloring, the pin-up leg from the art model CD. Not traced from a photograph! Two Photoshop image layers were used in this.

Early Graphic Story Attempt, page 2

2012-01-13T02:41:00.003-05:00

A few posts ago I put up the first page of my early (1979) attempt at a fantasy comic book/graphic story. It was, as you might remember, illustrated from a script by a Boston-area fantasy writer, Leo Giroux. I managed to get 2 1/2 pages done from this before I had to give up due to lack of skill and experience as well as an overly wordy script. I know I have this relic text somewhere but it is buried under tons of papers and other archival material. The title was "The Jewels of Entythe" (sounds like "Enticing") that being the name of the babe in the green robe showing some tit to taunt master thief Pram Zata, the man in black behind the yellow force-field prison. I was aiming this at "Heavy Metal" magazine and you had to have naked women in your story. I wonder if I could do any better with this now.

You handful of loyal readers may notice that I have gotten a bit more personal and talky in this Blog. I don't get to talk to a lot of people about much of anything these days. Most of the people I used to blab with at work are gone to another Trader Joe's or are somewhere else, and I don't yammer on my cellphone the way everyone else does. (What the hell are they talking about anyway?) So if you hear a bit more from me than just about art, you can choose to go somewhere else for a more entertaining read. The good thing is, I'll never know. Or, you can delight me and comment. Did you know that "Art By-Products" will celebrate its fourth blogiversary this March? That's four years of some sort of art on this page, almost every day of the year, and very few repeats.

Page 2 of "The Jewels of Entythe" is ink and watercolor on Strathmore illustration board, 11" x 15", summer 1979. Click on the image to see a larger view.

Dragondraws

2012-01-12T16:39:00.004-05:00

I apologize for the rubbish drawing I posted last time. I've drawn that same pose before much better. I'll try again with another photo-pose soon. Meanwhile, this late posting features some gesture drawings and small draws of dragons, in pencil on paper. Some of these are copied from the "how to draw dragons" book I'm working with, and some are original to me. The one on the lower right, looking at the flaming egg, is one of my own. I'll keep drawing these creatures until I feel confident that I can render one in color. The book has been very helpful and like an old-fashioned art student I copy the guide drawings to gain skills.

Digital Pencil Figure

2012-01-11T04:14:00.002-05:00

Today's figure sketch was done in "digital pencil" using Photoshop and my Wacom tablet. I've used this tablet for years now and still have trouble making drawings with it. The stylus slides around too easily on the slick plastic surface, it doesn't have the resistance that pencil on paper has. But if I scan in original pencil drawings, they get a grainy texture I don't like. The model is from one of my "Art Models" books, each of which comes with a DVD loaded with all the model photographs from the book and hundreds more from different angles of the same pose. It's "virtual life drawing" and is all I can manage at this point. I am still trying to find an opportunity to draw from a live model that does not conflict with my day job work schedule. I want a model who will take comic-book, pin-up, and superhero poses for me.

Cinnabar the Adventuress

2012-01-10T03:27:00.003-05:00

Most of my friends in the science fiction/fantasy community have imaginary worlds of their own, populated by characters they made up. I'm no exception, I have one too. Some of these worlds are borrowed from TV, movies, or texts, and some of them are original. Often these imaginary worlds are used for role-playing games. This character is from an original world and gaming scenario shared by a group of my friends who flourished in the Boston area in the late 1970s. Meant to be an avatar of an Egyptian cat goddess, "Cinnabar" has the requisite red hair, dagger, and sexy figure of a fantasy adventuress. And she's got an Abyssinian cat as well (lower right corner). The text block says "Cinnabar" though it has been lost in the bad photograph. I borrowed this figure and her dress as well from a fashion magazine photograph.

I made this picture without permission of the character's owners and that taught me a lesson I'll never forget. Never do a picture from someone's imaginary world and then show it to them, hoping they will buy it. In this case the gamers did buy the picture, but it caused bad feeling all around the circle and I never did it again.

Well folks I've got a New Year's resolution now. Since I need to work on my dragons and human figures so much, I resolve to draw at least one dragon and/or human figure a day, no matter how tired I am from the day job or distracted I am by the endless temptations of the internet and media. If I do something good, I'll post it here. Eventually, I'll try to put a fully rendered digital illustration together. If that is good, I'll post it here. I also would like to get a fantasy illustration published this year, although that's a goal rather than a resolution. My drawings will be either in pencil or "digital pencil." I will also be looking into online workshops or courses in digital illustration. They do exist but I don't know what kind of schedule, workload, or price they have.

"Cinnabar" is watercolor on Strathmore paper, 4" x 8", Spring 1978. Rescued from a very deteriorated color slide.

Hairy Eyeball

2012-01-09T04:46:00.002-05:00

I usually follow a guideline for this Blog which says that it should contain no more than half vintage material, that newly created stuff should be posted alternately with those dusty old slides which I process one by one. But I haven't been able to meet my quota and I am sorry for that. It's winter and even though the weather has been far from snowy or even dreary, I haven't been able to do much of anything artistically. And just recently on Saturday I had a very disappointing setback which I am still dealing with emotionally. I had signed up for a class in making concept and game art which was to take place every Saturday afternoon throughout the winter until early March. But when I went to the art studio where it was to be held, I found that it had been canceled because not enough people (only two) signed up for it.

As you handful of readers and/or friends know, I want to be a professional illustrator/concept artist, and I want my work in digital media to be of the quality that is featured on the (juried) site "CGHub". I want to sell my fantasy art and/or get it published. I also want to do my sequential art, as I have said before. But I realize that for me to get as good as those artists, I need more training in all kinds of drawing and digital work. Most of those young professionals have been to elite art schools in Asia or California. If I had the money and the time, I would go back to art school and learn everything that didn't exist when I was younger, and also do endless life drawing figure studies from real models. (You may remember that I did have the opportunity to draw a live model in the spring of 2011. Why didn't I ask her to do a "pin-up" pose when I had the chance?) I need to find more models to draw, at a time when I am not at work on the day job.

I feel incompetent and out of it, and that's not a good thing because I have one large commission to work on. The frenzy of the "Christmas season" brought no peace on earth nor any good will on my part, just more clutter all over a dwelling which is far too cluttered already, not to mention exhaustion at the day job dealing with long lines at the cash register. Most of my work at Trader Joe's is now working the cash register, not doing signs. The current management wants the signs done in the early morning, and I don't work in the early morning.

I know I'm just making excuses for not making any progress. The managers of the studio suggested I contact the artist who was supposed to teach the class and ask whether he gives private tutoring or classes elsewhere. I sent an e-mail but have not heard back. I am considering doing some online classes but I don't know how that works. There are loads of "tutorials" for digital art and I'm sorry to say that most of them do not tell me what I need to know. I feel as though I am going to have to start all over again studying drawing and painting, this time all on the computer. At this point I have little interest in doing "conventional" painted work, unless the client specifically requests it. Since I am not selling any of my work, I just don't have room to store stacks of paintings on boards or canvas. Works on a hard drive don't take up space or collect dust. Any portfolio of new art will be online, not in a dusty flip book.

So as usual I apologize for not producing quality art product and by-products in the last month or so. I will try to work on sketching my dragons and nude women and a winery here or there. If you want something else artistic from me, just ask. For now, it's just a Hairy Eyeball (done in Photoshop) for you.

Celtic Couple miniatures

2012-01-08T02:10:00.005-05:00

Robbi and Curtis were dear friends of mine in the fannish and costuming community. They still are dear friends though they retired to remote Oklahoma where I am unlikely to visit any time soon. When I wanted to give them miniature portrait badges they requested that they be depicted as an ancient Celtic couple. He would be a warrior and she would be a healer with her box of medicinal herbs. Both of them had been in the military where Robbi was a public health nurse and administrator.

I recently spoke to them on the old technology of the telephone and found that they were not in good health, in fact Robbi was bedridden with severe auto-immune disorders. They have only a little money and aren't near cultural opportunities. I tried to convince Robbi that internet overcomes isolation but in her mind it is too impersonal and she won't use it for personal communications.

Robbi and Curtis miniature portraits are the Usual Configuration, December 1986.

Northpoint Rose' Wine

2012-01-07T03:27:00.005-05:00

I wined on Friday this week, at my favorite hilltop wine haven of Chateau O'Brien. Earlier in 2011 I did an architectural concept sketch for Howard O'Brien, the owner, who was planning to create an artificial barrel cave dug into the side of a hill on the property. He traded me a case of his best selected wines for it, and I still have a few bottles left. I saw the art in a stairwell near his office, but so far, due to bad weather, the construction has not happened yet. He's planning to start in early spring, if all goes well. I sipped the Chateau's "Northpoint Rose' " and drew this quick study of the rustic woodsy interior with its stone wall areas, and a color sketch of the leafless hills in orange sunset light.

Winter wining is so difficult that I probably won't do much of it. It is already getting dark when I visit the winery, and I have to make my way back home in darkness, heavy traffic, and construction, all after "de-wining." There are always plenty of urban wine shops to visit, though I wish I were able to get to the countryside more often. Right near Chateau O'Brien is a little neighborhood in which the owner of a number of houses is renovating them. These are historic buildings, some from before the Civil War. Some of them are homes to rent. There is a problem, though: a freight train roars through the neighborhood every couple of hours, including early in the morning, and the tracks are literally only a couple of yards from the front of the houses. You would really have to love trains to live there. It's a fascinating place anyway and I hope I'll be able to make more drawings there when it's warmer out.

Early Graphic Novel Attempt page 1

2012-01-06T03:20:00.004-05:00

From the very beginning of my artistic life, I've always wanted to do sequential art, also known as graphic story or just plain comic books. The trouble is, I've never completed one. I've done a lot of pages but somehow don't have the perseverance to get the whole thing done.

This piece is one of my earliest attempts as an "adult" artist to do a graphic story. One of my fantasy fan connections contacted a Boston-area fantasy writer, Leo Giroux, Jr., who wrote me an adventure/horror script to illustrate. The story was set in a typical Renaissance-style fantasy world with all sorts of humanoids and creatures and opportunities for magic and violence. The hero was "Pram Zata," a master thief and brigand who lusted for the royal princess (red-haired, of course) and her famous collection of huge rubies as well as other gems and treasure. Her name is "Entythe," an unpronounceable word which sounds like "Enticing." Of course, there is a terrible secret about this femme fatale. (She is a witch who rips people's hearts out and turns the hearts into giant rubies.) I was trying for a style and subject matter that would appeal to the "Heavy Metal" magazine people. You can see a portrait of the author Giroux in the upper left corner.

I managed to get two and a half pages done of this tale. Giroux was not a comic book writer nor a script writer and his dialogue and narration were way too wordy for a graphic treatment. I tried to include everything he wrote in the design but as you can see it ended up being overburdened and busy, at least by the simple standards of the day. You can read Giroux's script if you click on the picture to enlarge it.

If I were to re-do this story now I would edit the daylights out of Giroux's script and make the design simpler and easier to follow. But I'm trying to figure out how to finish my own graphic novel set in my Noantri world. I swear, if I had big bucks and didn't have to do any day job, I'd just sit and do graphic story all the time. It's what I want to do most in art. Somewhere in my large and dusty collection of files, there hides this script by Leo Giroux as well as at least one more by an old writer contact. Giroux has long since passed into the other worlds, and the other writers have scattered to the four winds, but at least a few images remain from the projects we tried to achieve.

Page one of "The Jewels of Entythe" is ink and watercolor on Strathmore illustration board, 11" x 15", summer 1979. Click on the image to see a larger view.

Larry Niven's Warlock

2012-01-05T03:44:00.004-05:00

This is a very old picture of mine, so old that its number in my art catalog is a single digit. (4, if you must know.) It was done for one of my early arts patrons, who features it in his online gallery. This image is from a story by well-known science fiction writer Larry Niven. He tried his hand at fantasy sometimes, purely for fun, trying to re-create fantasy concepts on a scientific basis. This series of stories, which my patron especially liked, take place in a universe where magical power, or mana, is a non-renewable resource that is permanently used up by magical workings. In this scene the main character, the Warlock, interrogates a young werewolf who had broken into and entered the Warlock's dwelling. The Warlock holds a glowing glass dagger, a powerful magical weapon. The title of the story is "What good is a glass dagger?"

My art patron is still active as a writer and blogger and supporter of the arts, often in the virtual Internet world of "Second Life." His gallery is here, where you can see other works by me dating way back to my early days in Cambridge, Mass. even when I was still a graduate student. By the way, the lighted brass lantern which you can see hanging at the upper left center of the picture, is a real lantern which still hangs in my studio right here where I'm typing this.

"Warlock and Werewolf" is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 6" x 9", fall 1977.

Winter Worker

2012-01-04T03:05:00.005-05:00

I have a strange fascination with heavy work garb. This includes rain slickers, farm wear, construction gear and clothing, work clothes, and coveralls. I have a number of catalogs for this kind of thing that sell everything from construction shelters and equipment (I also love bulldozers, garden tools, earth movers, and on-site office trailers) to whatever you would need to get the job done. This is a study of a worker in a winter coverall, without the hood attached, copied from a model in one of my catalogs. It's done in "digital pencil," something I am trying to learn. Later I will color him in.

One of the origins of my fascination with industrial gear and sites comes from my heritage of "Socialist Realism," a type of art from the 20th century which glorified manual labor and old-style industry. In some countries, especially ex-Communist countries where the government had a lot of this art produced and published, this style is considered "ironic chic." The only things you cannot be, as an "ironic chic" designer, are honest or authentic. Our information age cannot show us heroic workers building the cities of the future, only computer users poking at their keyboards at three in the morning. And you don't need heavy winter coveralls to do that.

My Friends Were Vampires: miniatures

2012-01-03T01:07:00.004-05:00

My miniature portraits often featured couples in a fantasy or historical identity. But sometimes I was asked to portray them as Undead Creatures, or vampires. This pair of women had a wide-ranging interest in vampires. They played them in role-playing games, they wrote vampire fiction, and they commissioned me to illustrate it. Here are my portraits of the sanguinary ladies. This was long enough ago that I have lost track of them. I don't know if they are still together. Katheryn, on the right, changed her name to a poetic Tolkien-Elvish name, by which she is known nowadays. This was one of the inspirations that moved me to take my new name, "Pyracantha." If she could do it, so could I, and possibly for the same reasons, that I wish to have a poetic new name that didn't have any of the ugly associations that come to me with my old given name.

Vampire couple are the usual miniature portrait configuration; created in January 1990.

Sky Hunt

2012-01-02T01:40:00.004-05:00

As you know, I am very fond of "sequential art" and want to keep doing it. I haven't been very successful in continuing my graphic novels, and I am still looking for a way to work on them despite everything else going on in my life. Meanwhile I experiment with markers. There are such things as "abstract sequential art" in which there is no dialogue or recognizable characters, but there is still a sequence of events. This is what I am experimenting with here. A wide selection of these was published in 2009, in the artsy book "Abstract Comics" edited by Andre Molotiu. Most of them are in the "fine arts" genre, but some of them, such as the vintage entry from the famous cartoonist R.Crumb, are heavily pop-influenced. It's an interesting way to approach sequential art, which has been up until recently reviled in America as stupid and childish "comic books."

This sequence here, "Sky Hunt," is inspired by a bird seizing its prey in the air. It's natural-historical but also abstract-arty. The smaller black-bordered bar near the blue circles is meant to suggest the bird's calls.

"Sky Hunt" is 7" x 8 1/2", markers and colored pencil on sketchbook page, January 2, 2012.

New Year Midwife

2012-01-01T03:29:00.003-05:00

This is a commissioned portrait of a lady who is a midwife in "real life." The portrait depicts her as a Renaissance midwife holding a swaddled baby. I tried to make the details of the interior reflect a warm European ambience. I think her dress would be a bit too fancy for the actual birth but in this picture I imagine that she is presenting the child to the family after a successful delivery.

"Renaissance Midwife" is 14" x 18", ink and watercolor on illustration board, March 1994.

Many thanks for my handful of faithful readers and I wish you all an art-filled, creative, prosperous New Year 2012.

Earth Dragon

2011-12-31T01:00:00.004-05:00

I had a little fun playing with the different textures available in Photoshop. Some dragons are not majestic fiery dragons, but shaggy earth beasts who sometimes can be caught indulging in....salad! He doesn't have wings because an earth dragon doesn't have to fly.

Photoshop, 9" x 7", December 31, 2011.

Italian Leprechaun miniature

2011-12-30T02:47:00.006-05:00

I used to hang out with Philadelphia science fiction fans, almost to the point of joining their official group, "PSFS" or the "Philadelphia Science Fiction Society." Philadelphia fandom shared the character of its host city, with many folks of Irish and Italian descent. And all of them loved to eat and drink. I made portraits for many of them, including this miniature of one of their club officials. Pete was of both Irish and Italian lineage, so he asked that both these nationalities be represented on his portrait. Thus he got an "Italian leprechaun," complete with shamrock hat, Italian banner colors, a green bow tie, an Irish (or Tuscan?) landscape background, and, of course, a forkful of spaghetti.

Nametag miniature is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 2 1/4" x 3 1/2", December 1990.

Cat Girl miniature

2011-12-29T01:38:00.003-05:00

I did Leslie's portrait as a streetwise, knife-wielding cat girl. The stripes on her shirt were like the stripes on an alley cat's coat. I put the cat's ears where they would be on a cat, rather than giving her pointed furry humanlike ears. She probably has a tail, but you can't see it in this portrait. Leslie still frequents conventions and I see her about once a year, but I suspect this portrait has gone the way of most of these miniatures, lost in many chaotic moves from one residence to another. I suppose I could ask her next time I see her. I think this counts as mildly "anthropomorphic," that is, mixing human with animal in a fantasy character.

Leslie the cat girl's miniature portrait is 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, February 1989. Colors restored in Photoshop from a poor photograph.

Winter Flames

2011-12-28T04:32:00.003-05:00

You cannot make this stuff up. This is the sky over Tysons Corner, Virginia at around 5 PM on Tuesday, December 27, 2011. Other than the artifice of using a digital camera, I didn't alter or intensify any colors. Sometimes you can't do better than reality.

Taken with a Canon Powershot S-90, right in front of Trader Joe's Tysons.

Mechanical Spider

2011-12-27T03:32:00.003-05:00

Here's a little Photoshop action improvising a mechanical creature. It's an arachniform, that is, a spider-like form done in robotics. I think a spider is an ideal model for a robot. It would be stable, swift, and might even be able to climb walls, if it were small enough. In a large version, it would be able to crawl over broken or rugged terrain. Its "palps" or mouth parts could be adapted to all sorts of tasks. This is meant only to be a sketch and the leg mechanisms are not meant to be "realistic" representations of what it would "really" be like.

Done in Photospider, about 10" x 6", December 27, 2011.

Another mini dragon miniature

2011-12-26T01:44:00.002-05:00

I drew countless illustrations for Katharine's mother's fan magazines, over the 1980s. Mom commissioned me to do a portrait nametag miniature for her daughter, and the girl herself specified how I was to portray her. She's in medieval Norse garb, holding a Pernese "fire lizard" mini-dragon. I wonder where she is now. So many of these portraitees are lost to the dust of time.

Nametag miniature is The Usual Specifications, February 1989. At that point I was newly established in the Metro Washington DC area, working as an architectural illustrator for a firm that produced drawings for real estate ads.

The Snowflake of Metatron

2011-12-25T02:33:00.003-05:00

I send out Christmas cards every year which I design myself. Sometimes I actually paint them all but nowadays with the restraints on my available time I use a digital design. In fact my first digitally designed Christmas card was back in 1992. I use a different "theme" color each year, which I will work with in the upcoming year. Thus, my "theme color" for 2012 will be a sky blue like the one you see in this image. The "snowflake" is an interpretation of an esoteric diagram called the "Cube of Metatron." Metatron is a powerful Angel in esoteric lore who protects the earth. I will be using this color scheme and the Cube in a large painting which I hope to finish by late winter.

"The Snowflake of Metatron" is made in Photoshop, 4" x 6", December 2011.

For my readers who celebrate this holiday, may you all have a joyous, light-filled Christmas time. For my other readers, happy Solstice! The days are now getting longer.

Modernist Winter Design

2011-12-24T01:17:00.002-05:00

Here's another modernist-style winter holiday design. It's done with a set of Crayola markers that are usually used by kids, but I like them for layouts and quick color doodles. I was trying out a different style, inspired by mid-century (1960s) designs. It's just an experiment.

Markers on sketchbook page, design is about 6" x 8 1/2", December 23, 2011.

Scotsman Portrait Miniatures

2011-12-23T01:09:00.003-05:00

In the fannish world, it's cool to be Scottish or some other form of Celtic ethnicity, at least it was back in the 1980s. You may remember Phil from other portraits I've done of him as a mail-clad Scottish warrior or a bespectacled barbarian. He commissioned these miniatures to show off his Clan Campbell kilt and his very large claymore sword, part of his extensive weapons collection at the time. At first I thought I was supposed to add his name to the tag, as the conventional convention required. That way, I used the tartan as a drapery. But he preferred his portrait alone without the name, so I made him another one, this time vertical and showing the kilt where it should be, complete with sporran and decorative belt.

Phil's portraits are the usual miniature dimensions, ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, December 1986 and January 1987.

I can Draw a Dragon's Head

2011-12-22T02:37:00.004-05:00

I worked on drawing people until my figure drawings achieved mediocrity rather than wretchedness, and I'm still working on making them better. I intend to do the same with dragons and other fantasy creatures. I have a whole stack of books on "How To Draw Dragons." I learn the old fashioned way, methodically copying and analyzing how dragons are created. Unlike with people, I'm not going to get a live model here. Iguanas made large just aren't dragonish enough, though some Earth reptiles can serve as partial dragon inspiration. This is my first attempt, copied in regular old pencil with some adaptation from an example in "DragonArt: How to draw Dragons and Fantasy Creatures" by Jessica Peffer. The Pern dragons that I did 30 years ago don't count. They looked like stuffed plush animal toys. I want the (un)real thing now.

Winter Solstice 2011

2011-12-21T03:20:00.004-05:00

One of my handful of loyal readers encouraged me to create and post "modernist" winter/Christmas themed graphics so here's one. This is called "Paths of the Solstice" and I post it on the Solstice, the darkest passage of the orbit of the year. The purple color is for Advent, the Christian waiting period of four weeks before Christmas. Created while listening to the moving and appropriate ambient album "Black Trees Among Amber Skies" by Canadian composer Altus.

Photosolstice, about 5" x 6", December 21, 2011.

Another Cat Lady miniature

2011-12-20T03:22:00.004-05:00

Susan wanted her portrait in a festive, flowery costume of green and pink that she was wearing at DarkoverCon, with the addition of a longhaired black cat. The cat, modeled on a similar cat belonging to a friend of mine, is playing with the ribbons from Susan's headdress. Lots of people wanted their portraits done with their cats. It is a way to remember them when they are gone. You could measure your own life in cat-lives, if you were so inclined.

Nametag miniature is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", December 1986.

Diana Wynne Jones montage

2011-12-19T01:00:00.005-05:00

You saw an image I did from Diana Wynne Jones' "Homeward Bounders" a while ago. This is another Wynne Jones illustration from a somewhat earlier assignment. Some friends of mine were planning to produce a magazine devoted to English children's and young-adult literature, called "Pendragon." They persuaded Diana Wynne Jones to contribute an original fantasy story, "The Three Rings," which would be published in the magazine. I was commissioned to do the cover illustration, based on the Wynne Jones story. This is what I created for them. The story has some scenes set at Oxford University, hence the tower and quadrangle depicted in the background. I don't remember much about the story. The image is a mix-up, or montage, of characters and events from the tale. The magazine title and writing was supposed to go over the sky portion of the picture. I also produced a number of black and white interior illustrations for another story by Jane Yolen, a well-known American young people's fantasy writer.

Due to lack of organization and funding, the magazine was never produced, and all the work I did was never seen except by a few people. My records show that I gave this picture to Diana Wynne Jones as compliments of the artist. Now that Diana is gone, I will never know what happened to this picture.

"The Three Rings" is ink and watercolor on illustration board, about 11" x 14", summer 1981.

Drowsy Dragon Doodle

2011-12-18T02:56:00.003-05:00

I drew this when I was playing around with "I Can Draw Dragons" doodles. A dragon should be flexible and fold up neatly when asleep, like a cat. I felt the same way all day, the Winter Solstice time just makes me want to sleep all day and not wake up till spring. Drawn with "digital inking" in Photoshop, December 17.

The People dance in the sky

2011-12-17T04:15:00.002-05:00

Zenna Henderson's "People" were gifted with numerous psychic and telekinetic abilities, including levitation. When they were among themselves, with no humans present, they could use their abilities freely. One free moment was on their annual festival "Gathering Day," where all the People who were settled in the American southwest could meet together quietly without being persecuted by the ordinary humans. Then they would levitate together, dance in the sky, and share memories of their lost extraterrestrial home. One thing they managed to bring along with them from the Home were glowing flowers and fruits, which these folk are wearing as garlands.

The "People" were kind and good to an eerie level, and in a way this was part of their alien-ness. They were not brutal or corrupt, although a few of them were ultimately changed by their Earth experiences. During the time I was illustrating the "People" stories in the late 1970s, I was struggling with religious matters and the Henderson stories resonated with me deeply. It occurred to me that perhaps the "People" had somehow been born unfallen, that is, without original sin, and thus had retained their "angelic" powers and abilities which were stripped from us by the Fall. I knew that Zenna Henderson was a devout Christian and I dared to write her a letter asking about the idea of an unfallen People. Amazingly, she wrote back to me, with a mild comment that perhaps it might be true. That letter may still be in my files somewhere. Zenna, like the other pioneers of fantasy and science fiction, is long gone back to the Home.

For this picture series, I used references from utopian communities, hippie gatherings, and early 20th century Western rural people. Henderson's work was a major influence on my own fantasy writing and art back then, but not any more these days. This picture was sold to an unreliable person who didn't pay me for a year, though she finally managed to. It's one of the few of my artworks I wish I could retrieve.

"Gathering Day" is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 10" x 14", spring 1978. The image has been heavily restored in Photoshop.

P.S. Please don't lecture me about how awful the idea of "Original Sin" is. I see it demonstrated every day.

Tysons Mall Spaces

2011-12-16T02:02:00.003-05:00

There I am in the nearby Tysons Corner Mall, doing what most other Americans are doing, shopping for a present for someone. Before shopping, a sip of something is advisable. From the reversed signage lettering at the top of this sketch, you can figure out just where I am. Malls are full of interesting interlocking spaces, made from doors and screens and stairways and storefronts and vending carts and booths. I tried to make clear how all these spaces interact in this drawing, which shows a gateway space between one section of the mall and another. Later I shopped successfully and I know the recipient (a TJ co-worker) will love what I bought her.

Ink on sketchbook page, 6" x 7", December 15, 2011.

Keilian Guide

2011-12-15T03:56:00.003-05:00

The Keilians are one of the ethnicities of the Noantri people in my imaginary world. Though the general technological level of Noantri New Earth is relatively high, most Keilians choose to live in a low-technology society, equivalent to our pre-industrial level. They live in tribes and clans, mostly herding and agricultural, though they are also skilled in crafts. They trade with the higher-tech societies, selling the products of their work, but don't want to mingle with them except at festivals. Keilians are also excellent hunters and fishers, and are at home in the wilderness.

Keilians will also hire themselves out as guides for those who want a wilderness adventure, hunting and fishing the old-fashioned way. Anyone who wanders into the mountains without a local guide team is in great danger, not only from wild beasts but from tribal Keilians who will not hesitate to kill an intruder into their territory.

This young man, probably less than 20 years old, is a typical member of a Keilian guide team. In the mountains, he will also be equipped with a rifle and survival gear. He is also trained in what might be called "woods telepathy," able to mentally detect and signal game, other living beings, and men in the forests.

Photoshop, 7" x 10", December 15, 2011. I'm trying to do character portraits in the style of the power professionals such as "Massive Black." I am far from being at their level.

Zenna Henderson's Classroom

2011-12-14T01:47:00.005-05:00

Zenna Henderson was one of the first modern women science fiction writers. She spent much of her life as a schoolteacher in Arizona and she used classrooms as settings, as well as teachers as characters. Her main line of writing was about a race of magical (or endowed with psychic powers) people, simply called "The People," who had escaped the destruction of their world and settled in the American southwest. They look no different than Earth people but must keep their powers hidden. They also try to remember their culture and customs from the world they came from, while trying to adapt to early 20th century American life.

This picture illustrates a shocking moment in one of her tales where a whole classroom of empowered "People" children misbehave and run wild with their powers of levitation, telekinesis, etc., thinking that no one can see them. But one girl leads the human authorities to them and when they open the door to the rural one-room schoolhouse, this is what they find. I titled it "Moment of Truth."

This idea of a psychically empowered race secretly living among non-empowered humans is very close to, for instance, Katherine Kurtz' medieval "Deryni" folk, and it has become a very basic repeating theme in science fiction and fantasy. Fans identify with the alien race. We must keep our true nature secret.

I painted this for "Iguanacon," the World Science Fiction Convention that was held in Phoenix, Arizona in 1978. It wasn't sold there, but was later sold to my uncle Joseph back in my Massachusetts hometown. I had no idea why he wanted it; he had no interest in fantasy fiction and knew nothing about Zenna Henderson or the story. My picture, and some others of mine as well, became part of my uncle's art collection, where I could see it whenever I went over to his house.

My uncle Joseph died last month, aged 86. The art remains in his house, but like so many other collections, will probably be scattered by his descendants.

"Moment of Truth" is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 11" x 14", July 1978. Click on the image for a bit larger view.

My Dragons Suck

2011-12-13T01:54:00.003-05:00

Most fantasy artists depict dragons sooner or later. In fact a dragon, along with the scantily clad babe or the brawny barbarian, is kind of a touchstone of how good (or how conventional and commercially successful) your fantasy art is. You have seen many poor representations of dragons attempted by me in my recent "vintage" posts. I might as well admit it: my dragons suck. No matter how I try to do a good picture of a dragon, someone else's dragon will be better. High school kids do better pictures of dragons than I do. But I am determined.

It's kind of sad that I want to improve my ability to draw and paint dragons. Shouldn't I have "graduated" to fine arts and stayed there, making serious and unsellable geometric abstractions? No, for me the challenge is dragons. Not killing them, but depicting them in a respectful and at the same time exciting manner. I have many books of dragon art. Some of these books have step-by-step instructions on how to draw dragons. Some of them even have standard prototypes which you are invited to copy. How easy is that? More art than you think is just some artist carefully copying some image source which you don't see.

So I drew some dragons tonight. Just for doodles, you understand. And soda cans were involved, for some reason. You see? My dragons suck. Through straws.

Photoshop Doodle, digital "inking," December 13, 2011.

You Can Win

2011-12-12T01:53:00.003-05:00

In the studio I'm involved with a couple of big projects that do not generate by-products, so I continue to show you either vintage art from my transcriptions, or signage from Trader Joe's. This one is pretty clear. It's done in a retro "carnival" or "comic book" style, accented with a blue and white striped banner with gold accents. The blue and white stripes are taken from the flag of Uruguay, along with the gold accent similar to the Uruguayan flag's sun disc. Why Uruguay? Because I liked the colors, needed a striped banner to catch people's attention, and didn't want to use the all-American red and white stripes just to sell shopping bags. Not that there's anything un-American about selling stuff. Thanks for bringing your own bags...remember to sign up for the raffle!

Spray paint and acrylic markers on Masonite, about 2 feet square, December 11, 2011.

More Dragons of Pern

2011-12-11T03:47:00.002-05:00

I'm not a big Pern fan, despite it having gotten me to Ireland when I won the "Dragondrums" art contest. But it seems I did quite a number of pieces from the Pern mythos before I lost interest in it entirely. I styled my dragons after the portrayal that the author herself had endorsed to me, which made them look like big flying horses. And I tried to be true to the books' rationale for the dragons in the first place, that their fiery breath burnt the poisonous fungus threads out of the sky and saved the people on the ground.

But something about this whole deal just made no sense to me. It didn't make sense in the early 80s when I was doing the pictures and it doesn't make sense now, so maybe I'm missing something essential from my Pern appreciation. The idea is that every century, a rogue planet approaches Pern's orbit and gets close to Pern. This reddish wayward planet, known as the "Red Star" from its color, is infested by a poisonous, spacefaring fungus which it emits as it passes by (or orbits) Pern. The fungus travels through space and rains down on Pern, destroying all life wherever it touches. The human settlers of Pern, after almost being wiped out by this, genetically engineered these flying, fire-breathing beasts from the local fauna. The "dragons," each with a human rider, take to the air and burn the Thread out of the air with their fiery blasts, thus saving human settlements.

OK, so dragons can burn away Thread. But how much can they do? If this poison invasion is happening on a planetwide scale, the dragons can only do so much. Their defense would only be local. And even on a local scale, a squadron of highly mobile dragons wouldn't be able to burn out a whole sky full, say a few cubic miles of infested air. What am I missing here? Does it all ignite when a few dragons breathe fire on it? If so, then there would be way too much conflagration. The dragons might be able to fly in formation in a sweep against Thread, but it just keeps coming. So if there are any Pern fans reading this, please could someone explain this burning question.

"Dragons in Flight" is gouache on illustration board, 10" x 7", fall 1982.

Winery interior

2011-12-10T01:09:00.004-05:00

Since I was out in Leesburg placing pictures with the Gleedsville Gallery, I might as well go to a winery. I went to Casanel, where I am familiar by now. Nelson, the colorful Brazilian character who runs the place, offered me a complimentary glass of his excellent Cabernet Sauvignon. After the sip, I took out the wine-loving iPad and did this detail sketch of the wall and mantelpiece of the tasting room. You can see the craggy stonework of the wall, a small window, part of the mantel, and a black armchair on which rests a red pillow with a white snowflake embroidered on it. It's all very homelike. I wish they had a bed and breakfast inn there as well so I could sip more wine and then just go over to the inn rather than drive home. As is, I have to "de-wine" myself before I can drive. Winter wining is much more difficult than other seasons because it gets dark before you leave the winery and then you have to slowly pick your way through long dark country roads to get back to the main highway.

iPad sketch of interior is Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, December 9, 2011.

I can has Leesburg

2011-12-09T01:15:00.005-05:00

This Leesburg landmark, the Stephen Donaldson Silversmith house, is right across the street from the gallery where my architectural studies are now on the wall. It's said to date from 1700 although obviously rebuilt many times. It was part of the Loudoun County Museum with historical displays and a gift shop inside but is currently closed and unused. When it was being used it looked well-restored and kind of cozy. I don't think I could fit all my stuff and my book collection into it, if they wanted to rent it to me. I still think it looks like Lincoln Logs and also, the Balsam Incense Cabin, those house-shaped wooden boxes, sold in New England tourist traps. You burned pine resin incense in them and the suspicious-smelling smoke came out the chimney. I miss it. I want to log in.

Donaldson house is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, about 10" x 8", fall 2011.

Snow Falling on Bagels

2011-12-08T02:04:00.003-05:00

Decorations for the Winter Holiday Season demand that I be "traditional," and depict snow, evergreens, gifts, bright ornaments, candles, snowmen, sleighs, angels, elves, and other stuff in an endless parade of cliche's. I'd love to do something radical and different, but the retail world can not risk "radical and different." Similarly in the bagel and sandwich shop; I need to stay within the holiday boundaries lest the clients get disturbed. But if I must be within the boundaries, I might as well make pretty traditional images, hence the wreathlike evergreen boughs twinkling with frost and snowflakes. We'll get some real frost and snowflakes soon enough (that October blast was a freaky occurrence).

If you would like to see what I would do for a "radical and different" Winter Holiday theme, then fantasize how I could decorate a New Age book and gift store, or a chic Vegan restaurant, or some other hipster business that might have a more adventurous clientele.

Chalk ink markers on black-painted Masonite board, about 30" x 20", December 7, 2011.

The Homeward Bounders

2011-12-07T02:52:00.004-05:00

During the early to mid 1980s I was in friendly contact with the late British fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones. I loved her work, though I never read very many of her books. I ended up illustrating a number of her tales for various small magazines. During one of her visits to the USA, Diana commissioned me to do an illustration of a scene from her book "The Homeward Bounders." In this climactic scene, all the main characters storm an interdimensional fortress belonging to the demons who "play" the worlds as a multi-user roleplaying game. The central figure, the girl in black, has a right arm that can shape-shift, in this case into a fiery beam that can shatter the fortress door.

"The Homeward Bounders" is acrylic on illustration board, 14" x 10", Summer 1982. Click on the image for a larger view.

In Memoriam "ZipDrive"

2011-12-06T03:14:00.004-05:00

I have many, many friends who are cat lovers, and some friends who are cat breeders as well. I have done a lot of art for cat-related purposes such as logos or show awards or T-shirts. This was a portrait of a champion Maine Coon named "Marcus Brutus," which I did on commission for a cat breeder.

I post this majestic Maine Coon image in memory of another majestic Maine Coon, "ZipDrive," who left this world just a few days ago. He was the beloved cat of my friends in Lawrence, Kansas, and he will be greatly missed. I never met him in person, but I saw many endearing photos. I offer this tribute to the departed ZipDrive, long may his memory endure.

"Marcus Brutus" is black ink on illustration board, about 6" x 7", 2003.

Abstract Nametag Miniature

2011-12-05T04:09:00.004-05:00

This nametag miniature was commissioned by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, one of the authors whom Galen represented as an agent for Scott Meredith Literary Agency.

She was to give it as a gift to Galen. The design is a colorful "linear-abstraction" suggesting a sunset over the sea. The circular logo with the SM initials of the Scott Meredith agency is done in gold metallic paint in the blue "sky." The name was pressed into the design using white adhesive "press-type," a graphic medium which has almost disappeared with the use of digital lettering.

In those days I did plot and create geometric abstractions, but only in miniature sizes. I only started making them in larger sizes in the early 2000s. They are much appreciated by my more sophisticated patrons and art friends, but they seem to be un-sellable, whether at a convention or in a gallery. Thus I have a stack of them, some of them framed, gathering dust and taking up space in my cluttered quarters. They're too "accessible" for the "serious" avant-garde crowd, and too abstract for the fantasy fans. I shouldn't say this to potential art buyers, but I don't love doing these abstractions. I find them tedious. I really want to paint kitschy, tawdry fantasy pictures with dragons, castles, warriors, mechas, spaceships, monsters, and babes, in digital form which takes up no space and can easily be printed. But don't worry, fans, something will always keep me from abasing myself in that fashion.

Russell Galen's nametag is, uh, ink, watercolor, and metallic paint on Faboo Fabriano paper, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", December 1986.

Snakeydoodle

2011-12-04T00:53:00.003-05:00

I haven't done one of my "natural history" photoshop doodles in quite some time, so here's one. Twilight, and the jungle is rustling as the emerald snake slithers down in search of dinner and a glass of Cabernet Franc.

Photoshop, about 7" x 9", December 3-4, 2011.

Elizabethan Fan Portrait Miniatures

2011-12-03T02:14:00.003-05:00

Jean and Geoffrey were a married couple when I knew them in the mid-80s. They lived in Berkeley, California and were active in Darkover and other fan circles. They came east to DarkoverCon and that's where I first met them. They asked me to do their nametag miniature portraits as Elizabethan noblemen who were Catholic holdouts, not willing to convert to the Anglican Church. Jean holds her prayerbook, and Geoffrey, titled "The Queen's Scholar," holds an open book of theology.

Jean and Geoff, like so many other couples I depicted, are no longer together. Jean, who is the daughter of a fairly well-known writer, became a writer herself. I have heard nothing from Geoff since the time of these miniature portraits.

Portraits are ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 2 1/4" x 3 1/2", January 1986.

Idyllic Leesburg Porch

2011-12-02T02:58:00.005-05:00

Even though it's almost winter, I can visit summer anytime I want by looking at this leafy, idyllic porch in pleasant old Leesburg. Am I ready for my rocking chair yet? I'm not sure the good people of Leesburg would want to hear the ambient electronic music issuing from my sound system. Nor would they want to look upon my horror fantasy art, should I manage to produce any. But nobody doesn't love pretty buildings. I like this one myself, it's one of my favorites so far. I'll try to place this in the same gallery that accepted its siblings.

I hope that's enough buildings for now. I'd really like to do something else. I also have commissions to work on. Stash my watercolors and bring out the "heavy artillery" - acrylic paint and my airbrush cannon.

Leesburg porch is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 7" x 10", November 2011. Clickonthepic for a larger view.

Illustration for Visiting Anne McCaffrey

2011-12-01T03:14:00.004-05:00

Since I won the "Dragondrums" art contest, I was entitled to visit Anne McCaffrey in Ireland. If you visit someone, you have to bring them a gift, but what could I possibly bring to the Dragon Mistress? Art, of course; original art that no one else would have. I put together this folksy illustration of McCaffrey's popular character "Menolly," and portrayed her with her nine friendly fire lizards. I borrowed the style from Russian illustrator Ivan Bilibin, though I didn't do a very good job imitating him. I also made a nametag miniature for McCaffrey, also with a portrait of Menolly on it.

When I got to Ireland and finally visited the author, I presented these pieces to her, and it seemed to me that her reaction was rather indifferent. Some of that was tiredness, as she had just returned from New Zealand, but also, she had a collection of hundreds of pieces of art that fans and artists had done for her. Mine was just another for the stack. She had at least one of the original covers done by the famous Mike Whelan. As I recounted in a previous post, I got to see a lot of art that she had put up on her walls.

Now that she is gone, I wonder what happened to the art. It could just pass to her descendants, including her son Todd who is carrying on the writing. But what happens to an art collection once the owner dies? If it is of no monetary value, does it just get thrown out if no one else wants it? Is it sold as a lot along with other unwanted possessions? I would imagine that fans of McCaffrey would be glad to buy up the art collection, one by one, including mine, if it ever had to be sold off. Most likely, I will never know what happens to this piece.

This is a personal matter for me. My mother, an artist all her life, has amassed hundreds and hundreds of original works which she has rarely if ever tried to sell (she doesn't believe that fine art should be "marketed", or didn't have the energy to do the marketing). They fill not only a studio but a room of my parents' house. Mother is 90 years old and sooner or later I will face the matter of disposing of (or storing) this art collection. As for my own art, I don't keep it if I can at all help it go somewhere else.

"Menolly and Fire Lizards" is ink and gouache on illustration board, 11" x 14", summer 1980. Click on the pic for a larger view, at least the border is kind of nice.

Snowman

2011-11-30T02:23:00.003-05:00

This is from my day job at Trader Joe's. I was tasked with painting 28 identical snowman panels, that is, fourteen two-sided boards which hang from the ceiling and advertise the Winter Flyer ad booklet. They aren't completely identical, since each one is painted by hand and is slightly different, and also each side is the reverse of the other except for the lettering. The original design is not mine, it came from another member of the sign team. The boards were cut to shape by brave co-workers with a skill saw. I did most of the painting though I did ask another co-worker to help me with some of the details at the last minute. Fortunately she saved my, uh, snowball by helping me finish on time. She did the lovable faces and the arm-sticks and sign stick. When I was painting the signs held by the snowpeople, I kept wanting to put something "Occupy" on the placard instead of "Winter." It's amazing how fast a movement with a legitimate and serious theme can be commercialized and trivialized. The snowmen are currently marching through my Trader Joe's, demonstrating on behalf of...winter. Just feed them hot chicken soup, though, and the snowpeople will melt and reveal the revived children inside, just as in the famous Campbell's soup commercial.

Snowman series is acrylic on masonite, 14 boards about 2 feet in diameter, November 2011.

Elric Deryni miniature portrait

2011-11-29T02:42:00.003-05:00

"Elric's" real name was Andrew, but he was better known by his name in the Society for Creative Anachronism. I did his nametag miniature portrait as a "Deryni," one of Katherine Kurtz' psychically empowered medieval characters. The elf-like Deryni live among ordinary humans, in fear of persecution should their magic be discovered. Deryni are often blonde, with brilliant pale jewel-like eyes, though they don't have pointed ears. One of their more common magical operations is the conjuring of "hand-fire," a ball of cold light in their hand which they use as illumination in the darkness, and I depicted Deryni Elric with it here.

Deryni Elric miniature is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 2 1/4" x 3 1/2", November 1986.

Back from Darkovercon

2011-11-27T23:12:00.003-05:00

I left DarkoverCon early, only a few hours after the art show closed. I couldn't justify staying another day and paying for the hotel room when I made so little money. I only sold a few prints. My cosmic abstractions were not the right thing for a fantasy convention. Other artists displayed "conventional" fantasy subjects such as dragons, unicorns, exotic creatures, and sexy maidens - and they sold plenty of pieces. I'm not about to paint stuff like that just to sell at conventions. I need to pay attention to the work I actually have commissions for. And I'm still thinking about my sequential art projects (graphic novels). How can I make time to continue these graphic works? It's an endlessly ongoing concern.

DarkoverCon is really about seeing friends anyway, and I did a lot of socializing, feasting, and imbibing. Some of these people, I only see once or twice a year. As always, it's good to catch up with them and hear what they've been doing, and admire their craft work. It seems like everyone in the fan community does some sort of craft. There were spinning wheels and knitters in the hotel lobby. You could also hear live music (usually Celtic folk) coming from many of the rooms. Sort of like a mini-Renaissance fair held indoors. There were plenty of vendors and I bought a few nice things, including a silver-pewter goblet, very shiny for the winey.

So now it's back to pre-holiday stuff and the continuing battle against clutter. I wish I had some extra dimensions to stash it in. But things that go into those dimensions tend to get warped, so I don't want to get anything artistic bent out of shape.

This drawing is the only one I did at the con. They all look the same after a while. The guy with the headphones is selling 'zines, an archaic form of communication that involved binding printed sheets together and selling the paper sheafs.

Pitt black technical pen on sketchbook page, about 7" x 5", November 27, 2011.

Dragonriders of Pern

2011-11-24T02:51:00.005-05:00

Here's another artwork I did from the Dragons of Pern books of the late Anne McCaffrey. This was done after I had met Anne and seen what she considered the "correct" illustration of a Pernese dragon. Note the powerful horse-like body and pony-like head, with the tubular ears of a giraffe. The wings are relatively small and if the "levitation" bit is true, act more like propulsion and steering than lifting wings. According to McCaffrey and the books, the dragons are not clad in scales and spikes like so many other reptilian models. Their surface is more like hide, with the texture of suede. But it also has an iridescent quality which I tried to capture in the bronze dragon behind the main figures.

The picture was done for a fan on behalf of his sister who was a devoted Pern fan. The girl riding the golden "queen" dragon is Lessa, one of McCaffrey's main characters. She is leading her weyr, or company of dragons and people, into battle against the environment-destroying alien "Thread." I tried to evoke the land, sea, and atmosphere of Ireland, as you see the earth tilting under the swooping flight of the dragons.

"Dragonflight" is ink and watercolor on illustration board, 15" x 10", March 1981.

There will be no By-Products from Thursday to Sunday as I will be at DarkoverCon. Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers.

Memories of Pern

2011-11-23T04:02:00.003-05:00

I just heard that Anne McCaffrey, author of the "Pern" books, has died. I was not as much a fan of the series as others of my friends, but I have vivid memories of Ms. McCaffrey and the era of Pern fandom. In its day, it was a widespread fan community where people took names and role-played in that imaginary world and wrote loads of fan fiction.

This picture won a contest, sponsored in early 1980 by what was, for a while, a fantasy and science fiction art gallery in Boston named the "Earthlight Gallery." The co-sponsors were WBCN Radio (then a rock music station) and Bantam Books, McCaffrey's publisher. The contest was a promotion for McCaffrey's latest book, "Dragondrums," which was the story of a talented but mischievous young lad named Piemur, who finds himself transported to a tropical southern continent on Pern which is mostly unexplored. Piemur is accompanied by his mini-dragon, or "fire lizard," named "Farli." This picture shows Piemur surrounded by tropical plants on a southern beach. The tropical plants are real Earth plants which I copied from books or from a local florist shop.

I only heard of the contest a couple of weeks before its deadline, and after seeing that there were only a few entries, decided to enter it myself. I painted this in a rush, taking only about four days to do it. The picture is in acrylic watercolor, a little-known use of acrylic as transparent wash, which makes the colors very bright and long-lasting. I also made it larger than the other entries. My picture won the contest. Even though it won, it annoyed the gallery-owner who felt that I had "stolen" the prize by throwing in a hastily-assembled but flashy piece of inferior quality.

The prize was a trip to Ireland (for two) to meet Anne McCaffrey. In the autumn of 1980 I went with a friend to the Emerald Isle and we spent a week touring around. One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to McCaffrey's cottage, where even though she had just returned from a trip around the world, she was gracious enough to receive us as guests for a couple of hours. I got to see her own art collection, including a painting of a bulky dragon which she said was as "authentic" as could be depicted. I commented to her that this dragon was kind of heavy and the wings were too small to bear that weight. How could those dragons fly? "They levitate!" was her response. There has always been a wide range of interpretations of what "Pernese" dragons should look like.

This is one of the few Pern and dragon-themed artworks I've done, compared to the myriad Darkover pieces I have turned out over the years. I've never depicted a dragon I've been satisfied with, and I sometimes feel that I am not really "authorized" to depict them like other artist friends of mine who do marvelous dragons. So I have not artistically explored the Pern world very much.

This painting was exhibited in various conventions and then given to a couple of friends of mine in 1982, in return for transportation to DarkoverCon 5. In a couple of days, if all goes well, I will go to DarkoverCon 34. My, how time flies...like a dragon, burning up the years.

"Piemur of Pern" is ink and acrylic watercolor on Strathmore illustration board, 30" x 20", Spring 1980.

White Cat miniature

2011-11-22T03:25:00.003-05:00

DarkoverCon approaches, it's that time of year again, for better or worse. In the thirty years I've been going to this, I have watched my fan friends grow old. This nametag miniature brings back memories of 1982. "Morwenna" was a friend of a friend, and both of them still come to DarkoverCon. In 1982 I stayed at her house and was awakened by the white cat crawling on me and putting her face right up to mine so all I could see was a huge cat face. "Mizi" was the name of the cat but I called her "The White Shadow." "Morwenna" was the portrait person's name in the "Society for Creative Anachronism." She had me include not only Mizi, but her favorite triple whorl metal pendant, and the moons of Darkover. The butterfly ornament in her hair is made of copper, and is a typical piece of Darkovan ladies' jewelry. Mizi is long gone but "Morwenna" still appears at Darkovercon.

Morwenna's nametag miniature is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", January 1986.

Bespectacled Barbarian miniature

2011-11-21T04:23:00.004-05:00

This was a nametag miniature portrait from the mid-80s, and part of another his 'n' hers set. I portrayed Phil as a well-armed barbarian from the 20th century. I remember Phil vividly, mostly for his weaponry. He had a gun collection and taught me how to shoot at a range, on a memorable outing in suburban Virginia, long before I moved there. We fired on soda bottles filled with water, while bluebirds chirped in the background. His wife was a fantasy fan and fiction writer, a good friend of mine in those days.

Like so many other of these portrait couples I depicted, they are no longer together. The wife left Phil for another woman and they are still together nowadays, though I have no contact with them and haven't for many years. Phil is also lost to the mists of time.

"Bespectacled Barbarian" miniature nametag portrait is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", January 1986.

Twilight at Loudoun Valley

2011-11-20T00:30:00.004-05:00

I placed four of the Leesburgs you saw on this Blog into the Gleedsville Gallery in downtown Leesburg, where I hope they will be viewed and bought by tourists. Three more will follow. I'm glad to have my art in a real gallery. It's progress, of a kind.

Afterwards, it was wine time. My Saturday Sip was at Loudoun Valley Vineyards and winery, near Leesburg. I arrived there late in the day and was able to capture the sunset over the hills with my iPad, while a guitarist played and wine flowed. They have a tapas restaurant there which serves gourmet bits every weekend. I would like to return and try it.

"Loudoun Twilight" is Autodesk Sketch Pro, about 8" x 5", November 19, 2011.

Shaman and Rabbi portrait miniatures

2011-11-19T01:23:00.002-05:00

Leigh Ann and David were two of the more interesting people I did a "couples" nametag set for. Leigh Ann was a Pagan and worked with shamanism; David was a conservative Jew who debated whether to become a rabbi, and studied Kabbalah. I did their portraits respecting their spiritual paths. Leigh Ann was a "sea shamaness" who identified with the ocean and its creatures. David, wearing a traditional tallit or Jewish prayer shawl, is surrounded by the flaming Hebrew letters of his name.

This pairing, not unexpectedly, didn't last. Leigh Ann went on to a musical career in the fantasy/s.f. world, and unfortunately died a dreadful death in a motorcycle accident in 2006. I have not been able to trace David Oster, even on internet.

Nametags are the usual, December 1985. Some restoration in Photoshaman.

Norris House Leesburg color

2011-11-18T03:07:00.004-05:00

Here's another Leesburg. I'm coloring them as fast as I can so that I can frame them and bring them to a gallery in that town which offered to host them for the holiday season. This is the Norris House, which you remember from my ink drawing, which is a bed and breakfast that I'd love to stay at someday. I'm not sure my colors improve the overall painting, but I added color anyway. 2 more to go and I'll be framing them tomorrow I hope.

Norris House is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, about 8" x 10", fall 2011.

Ipomoea Porch

2011-11-17T04:31:00.003-05:00

Here's the colorized version of one of my Leesburg architectural drawings. There really were morning glory plants on the railing, but the flowers were deep purple, not the heavenly blue of the Ipomoea tricolor plant. So I have substituted the heavenly blue ones. By the way, the word "Ipomoea" means "worm-like" in Greek botanical notation, referring to the way the tendrils twine around anything they come into contact with. This porch is probably a private house so I am not identifying it or specifying what street it is on.

Ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 7 1/2" x 10", fall 2011.

Heroic Scots-Canadian miniature

2011-11-16T04:56:00.005-05:00

For some reason, the name "Julian West" sounds like the name of a dashing fictional adventure hero. But the real Julian West was a techie at a convention who commissioned a nametag portrait from me. His specifications were, uh, specific. He wanted a portrait of himself in cerulean and crimson Scottish garb, with a banner displaying a mathematical pentangle symbol that he used as an identification. Since West was a student at M.I.T., originally from British Columbia, Canada, he wished his colors to be the cerulean blue and wine-red of the British Columbian official tartan. I had no idea that Canadian provinces had an official tartan plaid pattern, but there it was. The portrait was highly idealized, portraying Julian as a banner-bearer. I titled it "Knight of the Nine Elect," inspired by the degree of "Knights Elect of Nine" in Scottish Rite Freemasonry.

"Knight of the Nine Elect" is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 2 1/4" x 3 1/2", January 1986.

Leesburg portico colorized

2011-11-15T22:14:00.003-05:00

Whew, made it...trying to post a November 15th image here in order to keep my string of consecutive days going. This is the Leesburg portico you saw on my November 10th entry. I've added color but only in monochrome, for a "brownscale" look. I didn't want to get in the way of my inkwork which I was pleased with here. I think extra colors would only be a distraction. The other Leesburgs will probably be in full color.

Ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, about 8" x 8", November 15, 2011.

Flame Tree of Autumn

2011-11-14T01:24:00.002-05:00

I saw this blazing maple on my walk break from work. The tree is right at the side of the main road. Though this picture is taken from memory, I am not making these colors up. Virginia fall colors have been vivid this year, and also a week late. Right now gusty winds are scattering the leaves from the trees. Photoshop is very good at making leaf textures and color blends. Bare twigs take more invention but are also a good Photoshop subject. I feel as though I never have enough time to sketch. Digital sketching is a good way to do a lot of color and black/white drawing without stacking up lots of space-filling papers.

Photoshop, 10" x 7", November 13, 2011.

Village Vino Crowd

2011-11-13T04:21:00.003-05:00

I had a one-day art show at the Village Winery in Waterford, Virginia on Saturday. The owner invited me to set up my prints and cards on two tables in the tasting shed for that afternoon. I got a lot of views and met a number of nice people. I showed prints of my Virginia wine art which you have seen on this Blog, as well as some of my abstracts and my "Modern Science Angels." I sold a few cards and got some contacts from people interested in my work. During my show hours, a busload of about 40 wine-lovers arrived and the crowd filled the rustic little wine lodge, as you can see from my drawing. The group looks all female here but there were numerous males as well. Winery visiting is a big attraction here in Northern Virginia and the bus tours allow people to get happy without having to drive. The Village specializes in unusual wines made from fruits and berries, as well as the classic wine grapes. I took home two bottles of their elderberry wine.

Drawing is Pitt black technical pen on sketchbook page, about 5 1/2" x 7".

Cavalier Cat miniature

2011-11-12T01:46:00.004-05:00

Instead of his own portrait picture, Kenneth asked for a Cavalier Cat. This was inspired by a wonderful statuette of this character, about 18 inches high, in which the clothes were elaborately created in miniature and the cat's figure was made of black velvet. It was on display at a Baltimore area science fiction convention. I loved it so much I wanted to own it but the selling price was far too expensive for me to afford back then. So I re-created it in a miniature portrait. I have often wondered what happened to that fabric creation. I hope it is in someone's much-admired collection somewhere. No clue, or interest, about Kenneth.

"Cavalier Cat" is watercolor and ink on Fabriano paper, 2 1/4" x 3 1/2", December 1985.

Tom Bombadil and Goldberry portrait miniatures

2011-11-11T03:15:00.003-05:00

Tom and Nancy were friends of mine in the 1980s. They were part of the then-active Darkover fantasy fan community as well as explorers of esoteric spirituality. I did these miniature nametag portraits for them for DarkoverCon, the same convention that is now approaching its 34th (can you believe it?) meeting.

They were also Tolkien fans (who isn't?) and so I decided I would portray them as Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry, a pair of nature spirits who appear in Book I of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, as the Hobbits and their associates trek out of the Shire and into unknown territory. The faces here are highly idealized, but they are built on the couple's real looks. Nancy had sky-blue eyes and a cloud of frizzy golden hair, and she modeled for me many times. She had two orange cats which I depicted in her portrait. Tom was a huge Deadhead who had been to over 100 Grateful Dead shows, and he introduced me to the Grateful Dead fan world, where I eventually attended about 11 shows.

In the old days of hippies and outright fantasy in the late 1960s, Tolkien, and especially these two characters, were thought of as analogues for a hippie, all-natural, and, uh, mind-expanded lifestyle. I did not see these friends indulging in anything illegal, and in fact Tom had a PhD in economics, so if he did indulge, he somehow found a way to coexist in a highly technical field. They went on to have two children and are still living somewhere near me, though we drifted apart for various reasons and I have not seen them for many years. The fantasy lives on.

Nametag miniatures are the usual, November 1985.

Leesburg Portico

2011-11-10T18:05:00.003-05:00

Blogger, my host here, has been unusually wonky these last few days. Last night, it didn't work at all. Now it's OK. Here is another in my Leesburg architectural studies. This majestic portico is now the entrance to a group of insurance and real estate title offices.

The details in this nicely restored woodwork originate more than 2000 years ago in ancient Greek ornament, which was then elaborated in ancient Roman times. One of the things I love about historic Virginia Americana is that the people who created these buildings lived in a culture which was aware of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Those who were fortunate enough to have a higher education in those days (relatively few, that is) knew Greek and Latin and had read the Classics. They also knew their Classical architectural elements and this was the vocabulary of the American designer all the way from colonial times to the late 19th century. As a one-time classical scholar myself, I feel a kinship with these bygone classical designers and people living in a Classically inspired culture.

None of this survives today as anything but antiquarian. The world is globalized and design no longer comes from ancient Greece and Rome. But every time I see some of these white pillars I remember and appreciate my personal cultural origins.

Leesburg portico is technical pen ink on Fabriano paper, about 8" x 9", November 2011. Some color will be added later.

The Peacock Lady portrait miniature

2011-11-09T18:35:00.003-05:00

Bobby Gear, wife of costumer and vampire entertainer Marty Gear, has been gone for many years now. Back in the 1980s I was friendly with these folk and did art for them, especially costume-related. I did a number of portraits as well. This nametag miniature commemorates one of Bobby's fabulous get-ups. The lady peacock in reality doesn't get to wear her man's gorgeous plumage, but in fantasy costumeland she does. It's a nice thing to remember her by.

I nearly didn't get a posting entered here today (November 9)...I was too tired to post after midnight last night the way I usually do.

Bobby Gear's miniature portrait is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 2 1/4" x 3 1/2", January 1985.

Darkover bit of a sketch

2011-11-08T02:45:00.004-05:00

This is a bit of a doodle practice sketch, set on Darkover, world of the red sun. DarkoverCon is coming and I'm not sure I will have anything specifically Darkovan to show there. This is just something for me to experiment with textures and colors, trying to get an alien vegetation effect without being weird or scary. The figure is a wanderer, probably a hunter, though you can't tell what he will catch his prey with. The ban on long-distance weapons for Darkovans means that you can't shoot down animals or birds with a bow and arrow. Probably, he is checking traps or snares. I don't claim any illustrative excellence for this. It's why this Blog is called "Art By-Products."

Photoshop, 10" x 7", November 6-7, 2011.

Cat and Dragonette miniature

2011-11-07T02:18:00.003-05:00

This nametag miniature is one of the only ones where I still know both its location and its owner. Patricia, (known mostly as "Pat"), a costumer and Darkover fan, commissioned me to do her portrait with her cat and a mini-dragon, set on Darkover. Pat placed the nametag in a plastic pin sleeve and has worn it at conventions ever since. The nametag is well-preserved but the plastic display folder has deteriorated and turned brown. Pat's still a good friend of mine after all these years.

Cat and dragon miniature is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", February 1985.

Autumn Winery Colors

2011-11-06T01:40:00.003-04:00

My destination winery for "Wine Saturday" was "Miracle Valley" Vineyard, hidden away deep in the countryside near Delaplane, Virginia. It was a splendid autumn day, with crystal-clear skies and colorful trees. I did my usual sip and draw, choosing their tasty sweet rose'. "Miracle Valley" is run by military veterans who find jobs and new lives for wounded warriors. The grounds are beautifully kept and in one hilly space is a metal angel which was created to honor those who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks as well as the wars which followed them.

Drawing is colored pencil and Pitt technical pen on sketchbook page, about 7" x 10".

Leesburg landscaping

2011-11-05T02:15:00.004-04:00

Here's another in my series of architectural studies of Leesburg buildings. This porch was especially nice because of the colorful shrubs and morning glory vine twining up the pillar. This version of the drawing is all brown (rendered in Photoshop) though my original drawing is in not only brown but green and blossom-blue colored ink. Watercolor will follow. Drawn from a photograph.

Leesburg porch is technical pen ink and some brushwork on Fabriano paper, 8" x 10", November 4-5, 2011.

Well Fed

2011-11-04T13:48:00.004-04:00

I enjoyed a tasty and satisfying Indian dinner with a friend on the night of November 3. And unlike this critter, I took home the leftovers! I think he looks a little like the comic book character "Wolverine," but this guy wouldn't hurt a fly. Well, unless it was his dinner.

Photoshop, digital drawing on wacom tablet. If I hadn't told anyone, Tristan, you would think it's a pen drawing.

Lovely Autumn Evening in the Courtyard

2011-11-03T01:19:00.004-04:00

The pleasant landscaping and garden furniture of the courtyard at Marriott looked inviting for an evening cocktail. I wanted to take my glass of pinot noir out into the space and enjoy the autumn evening. Just brush off that powdery coating....what is it, pollen? stardust? cocaine? Have a seat. I'd like to do some fantastic art like what you see from Blizzard Entertainment, but I seem to be snowed in when it comes to imagination. I hear there's a freeze on hiring anyway, so I might as well just chill.

Yes, this is a photograph. Marriott Courtyard in Wallingford, Connecticut, a welcome refuge for stranded travelers. October 29, 2011.

And then I discovered straight lines

2011-11-02T01:57:00.002-04:00

So far I have done only "reality" drawings on my iPad. That is, portraying only things I am actually looking at, whether landscape or buildings or interiors. But my attempts at depicting buildings continued to look messy and imprecise because I did not have a "ruler" to draw straight lines. But lo and behold, in the controls for Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, I found a tool to draw not only ruler-straight lines, but frames and blocks and circles and ovals as well. So now when I draw a window, I don't have to draw the frame free-hand unless I want to. I want to draw things that look like what digital master artist Robh Ruppel draws. His architectural scenes are amazing, and at least some of them are drawn on an iPad.

The window you see here is in the music room of my parents' house, over the piano. This used to be a really nice room until it became jammed with my father's hoarded clutter. No one can do anything about it now. You can see overgrown foliage and some fall leaves out the window. The fall colors in New England this year were surprisingly dull, due to heavy rains in August and September.

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, October 2011.

Honda Windows

2011-11-01T03:22:00.003-04:00

While in Natick, Mass. I took my Honda to Bernardi Honda on Route 9 for regular maintenance. I sat in their well-maintained, WiFi equipped waiting area while they did the work on my car. I had the iPad and after checking my thrilling (not) e-mails I did this drawing of the door and front windows of the Honda showroom. It was a grey day so there wasn't much contrast or color. You can see parked cars as sketchy black and white areas with red tail lights. As I was waiting and drawing, people were putting up blue, white, and silver-colored balloons (visible at upper right) for a marketing event.

Honda drawing is Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, original image about 8" x 6".

Autumn Winery

2011-10-31T01:40:00.004-04:00

I've returned from a very difficult trip to my aged parents in Massachusetts. I'd rather not talk about personal stuff on this Blog, but I will say that I think my parents need more help in their household than they have. My father refuses all help because it costs money and invades his privacy....and costs money, even though they can afford it. There are mental issues. More than that I will not say in public here.

One of the few bright moments on the week-long trip was my gift for Mother's 90th birthday: a wine tasting at Nashoba Valley Winery in Bolton, Mass. I sat on the wine porch and did this iPad drawing of their grounds with their Chinesey gazebo. I bought a bottle of their delicious "Dry Pear" wine, made from pears. In Massachusetts, only a few varieties of wine grapes will grow, but Nashoba Valley is full of orchards, and wineries make excellent vintages from fruit.

I did a number of iPad drawings on my visit, and I'll feature some of them here. I got caught in the October snowstorm on my way back, taking refuge in a nice Marriott hotel. I just didn't have the desire to make an iPad drawing of all that snow.

Nashoba Winery sketch is done in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, about 10" x 7".

Traveling Heavy

2011-10-22T01:18:00.004-04:00

It's that time of year again, when go up to the Boston area to visit my elderly parents. I don't know whether I will be able to post to the By-product when I am up there. It depends on availability of internet access and time to post. Also, I may not get time to make any art. I will be there for a week. I'll have the iPad so I won't lack for gadgety resources.

Doglike beast of burden drawn in Photoschlep, 22 October 2011.

Deryni Couple miniatures

2011-10-21T02:54:00.003-04:00

The Deryni are a race of psychically empowered humans who lived among normal humans in a medieval civilization created by author Katherine Kurtz. Their origins are obscure, perhaps either extraterrestrial or elvish. Purebred Deryni look a bit like elves, with fair hair and brilliant eyes, but no pointed ears. They can interbreed with humans and so a number of empowered half-Deryni exist in Kurtz' world, whether for good or ill. The normal folk persecute the Deryni as witches and heretics. Kurtz' Deryni books contain many graphic depictions of this brutality.

Two of Kurtz' favorite characters are Rhys and Evaine, a married pair of full-bred Deryni. Rhys is a physician and psychic healer. Evaine is a scholar and researcher, the daughter of a great Deryni statesman, Camber of Culdi. In these miniature portraits, Rhys in the symbolic green of a Healer shows the tools of his trade, a scalpel and a bunch of herbs. Evaine holds a distaff for hand-spinning fiber, something which any good woman of any class would do in those days of old.

Katherine Kurtz is married to Scott MacMillan. They're friends of mine, and I did these nametags for them to wear at public occasions and conventions. But I decided to do a character switch with the portraits, symbolic of marital devotion: the man wears his wife's portrait and the woman wears her husband's portrait. This exchange didn't quite go as planned, as there were too many questions asked about why the nametags were switched.

Rhys and Evaine portrait miniatures are ink and watercolor (some restoration in Photoshop) on Fabriano paper, each 2 1/4" x 3 1/2", August 1984. Click on the pic for a bit larger view.

Leesburg Side Porch

2011-10-20T03:36:00.003-04:00

This is a well-restored porch in the town of Leesburg. I love porches and would like to live in a house with one, the way I did when I was in Cambridge, Mass. You can do all sorts of container landscaping with it and you can sit outside in good weather and still be under shelter. Porches have been said to increase good community feeling because back in the "old days" before air conditioning people would sit out on their porches and visit each other and socialize. I don't know whether that happens any more anywhere in the USA. This building may be a private house, or it could be a gift shop. I am not sure whether it is completely legal for me to make a publicly viewed art piece from a privately owned house without the owners' permission. I have changed enough details on this house so that it is not easily recognizable.

Leesburg porch picture is brown ink from technical pens on Fabulous Fabriano Paper, 7 1/2" x 10", October 19-20, 2011. Color will be added later. Click on the pic for a somewhat larger view. With a needle-pointed, old fashioned Rapidograph tech pen, you can get a lot of deeee-tail into a drawing.

Tolkien Hobbit Miniatures

2011-10-19T02:07:00.004-04:00

Laura and David, the previous nametag people, had (and have) two children. Sam was born in 1984, and Eleanor was born in 1986. Though these are family names, they not so coincidentally were also important characters in Tolkien's Middle-earth mythos. Sam Gamgee was the incredibly loyal gardener who accompanied Frodo on his quest to return the Ring of Power to its origin. Eleanor (spelled "Elanor" in the books) was Sam Gamgee's daughter. She is holding the book of Middle-Earth's history and mythology, the "Red Book of Westmarch." Both these portraits were done when the future owners were just babies, and the faces are, like the previous two, idealized character portraits and not representative of any real person, at least, not in this world.

Sam and Eleanor's nametag miniatures are the usual configuration. Sam's is from February 1985, and Eleanor's is from February 1987.

Tolkien Couple Miniatures

2011-10-18T02:36:00.002-04:00

David and Laura were a married pair who loved Tolkien's characters and world. They were some of my best friends during the 1980s when we all lived in Massachusetts. I helped raise their children and we enjoyed many good times together gardening and eating Japanese food in local restaurants. When it came time to do nametag miniatures for them, they asked not for their own portraits but of their favorite Tolkien characters, in these two, Aragorn and Princess Arwen Evenstar. Aragorn is dressed in the heraldic armor described by Tolkien and bears a royal banner, also described in "Lord of the Rings." Arwen holds one of the Rings of Power. This was long before the movie versions of "Lord of the Rings" came out.

Laura and David are no longer together, and we have all moved in very different directions, but I still can remember our good times together when I see these little character portraits.

Both miniatures are, as always, ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 2 1/4" x 3 1/2",

February 1984.

"Star-a-Star" miniature

2011-10-17T05:03:00.003-04:00

This nametag portrait commission mystified me until the guy explained it to me. He wanted his portrait as one of the "Grey Lensmen," the proto-Jedi Knights of the great early science fiction of E.E. "Doc" Smith. These heroes wandered around the galaxy in their space cruisers, righting wrongs and fighting space crime. According to my portrait person, "Star-a-Star" was the code name for one of the Lensmen characters. It may have also had some computer code significance for the portrait guy. It's been a while (a century?) since I read any of these books so if any one of you knows where this codename occurs, or has familiarity with the "Lensmen" series, I'd love to hear more. I remember having a lot of fun reading the books, and wonder why they haven't been made into films, comics, or games. There seemed to be a lot of good stuff to illustrate in them and I would be interested in it. Anyway, it was all a long time ago...

"Lensman" nametag miniature is ink, watercolor, and gouache, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", December 1984.

Douglas Skyrocket miniature

2011-10-16T02:42:00.005-04:00

In the early to mid-80s I used to hang out with science fiction author Shariann Lewitt. We would build worlds, try out plots, and explore esotericism together. She had ambitions to be a famous s.f. novelist, as I had ambitions to be an s.f./fantasy illustrator. She got further along in her dream career than I did. We drifted apart in the later 80s and she moved to the Boston area where she now teaches writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I did some art commissions for her and this is one of them. She loved test pilots and the "Top Gun" types, and some of her books celebrated this sort of flyer characters. The plane depicted here is the Douglas Skyrocket, an early supersonic jet sponsored and flown by the Navy. I copied the image of the plane from the cover of THE LONELY SKY, a book about test pilots. It is one of the few nametag miniatures that I painted in acrylic paint.

"Douglas Skyrocket" is acrylic on Fabriano paper, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", spring 1984.

Autumn at Piedmont

2011-10-15T00:44:00.004-04:00

I wined on Friday instead of Saturday, and went back to Piedmont winery and vineyards, hidden away in the fancy hunt country of Northern Virginia. Their standout wines are a trio of Chardonnays, one without oak, one with "native yeast" which is the stuff that naturally occurs in their vines and makes fermentation happen. The third is a "Reserve" that is delicate, aged in oak for a longer time than the others. I sat inside the tasting room and sipped Reserve and drew this scene on my iPad. The pyramidal building is a corn crib (storage bin) which is on the property but currently unused.

Drawn on the iPad, "Autodesk Sketchbook Pro," October 14, 2011. Some touchups were done in Photoshop.

More Leesburg Log House

2011-10-14T03:23:00.004-04:00

You may remember that in August I posted a picture of an old log house in Leesburg, VA. Well, here it is again, the Donaldson house right on one of the main streets of the historic Old Town. This time I drew it in colored ink which will be painted over in watercolor. For some reason, this drawing makes it look like a toy. I played with "Lincoln Logs" when I was a kid and I built things like this. I'd love to have Lincoln Logs to play with again.

Donaldson house is ink on Fabriano paper, 10" x 8", October 13-14, 2011.

Ornate Leesburg Facade

2011-10-13T02:40:00.003-04:00

This ornate 19th century building facade was created by craftsmen in Leesburg, Virginia who wanted to show off their woodworking skills. It is the Norris House, which is now a bed and breakfast inn. The innkeepers are British expatriates, hence the Union Jack flying next to the Stars and Stripes. I had a nice conversation with them when I photographed the building for my reference, and I'd love to stay there someday. This drawing was done from one of the photographs I made on that day. (The usual disclaimer apology for not doing the drawing on site like a "real" artist.) Leesburg is full of interesting architecture and I am starting a series of architectural studies which will be shown in a gallery there.

"Norris House" is technical pen in brown ink on Fabriano paper, 8" x 10", October 12-13, 2011. Color will be added shortly.

Christian Wizard miniature

2011-10-12T04:41:00.003-04:00

There has always been a connection between religion and magic. Magic seeks to influence reality by symbolic actions, and so does religion, though its attempts to influence reality (or God, if you wish) are more pleading than commanding. The "Deryni" series of author Katherine Kurtz, set in an imaginary medieval world where magic works as well as engineering, explore the boundaries between "legitimate" religion and "occult" magic. This nametag blank is a portrait of a non-specified wizard from the Deryni world, who conjures by magic as well as praying to God. Is that a good combination? The Inquisition would say no, but the fans say yes.

"Deryni Wizard" nametag miniature is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 3 1/2" x 2 1/4", summer 1981.

Autumn Flyer Sign

2011-10-11T02:07:00.003-04:00

This is what I've been working at for Trader Joe's lately. The design is not mine, it was done by a co-worker in the sign crew. The making of the signs was my job. The assignment was to make 12 identical signs, with the same design on both sides (it needed to be adjusted a little bit to reverse). That's 24 sides. The base material is Masonite, which was first primed with spray primer coat. Then I traced the design onto the boards. A helpful crewmember with a skill-saw cut them out to the shape you see. Then I painted them with spray paint. Due to bad weather which made it impossible to spray outdoors, I had to take them into my apartment and spray them all in my living room, on a surface of cardboard sheets and newspapers. When they were dry, I returned them to Trader Joe's and painted the details on the leaves with acrylic. Then after that I painted the yellow leaves and lettering onto the signs. That's 24 sign faces in about, uh, 42 hours. In an ideal workshop with enough space to work on them all simultaneously, I might have taken less time. They are now done and will be hanging in Trader Joe's Tysons today.

Koori's Nametag

2011-10-10T04:12:00.003-04:00

When I was in Ireland long ago, I saw people (especially in the rural areas) who had hair so red it seemed literally to glow like neon lights. Their skin was pale pink and almost translucent, but they were not albinos. I suspect they were a little inbred, but this coloration would be worth it. I have never seen that color type anywhere else. Now imagine thousands and thousands of people with that rare coloration, and you have the population of fantasy heroines, both written and artistically depicted, emoting and enchanting their way through the genre you love and cherish, as the brown-haired unheroic non-entity that the reader is.

This nametag portrait of a Darkovan lovely was made for a fan who used the pseudonym "Koori," which was the name of a (non-red-haired alien) character on the 1979-1981 TV show, "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century."

Nametag miniature is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 3 1/2 " x 2 1/4", July 1982.