Skating Sketches

As I'm going through the packed stuff in my own closets, I find collections of neglected art copies, usually fan art I did years ago for zines that don't publish any more. All fanzines have been made obsolete by Internet lists and forums, but that's OK, I don't have all that time to do fan art any more. There were zines for figure skating enthusiasts too and the editors of one of them asked me to do a series for their "Brian Boitano" themed issue. I've published on this Blog some costumes from this skate fan series but here's a rendering of Brian himself doing ballet on ice. The inkwork here isn't as bad as I thought it was then. Here's another of "Determined Heroic Brian."

Boitano won the gold medal in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His victory was one of the greatest sports moments I've ever witnessed. I still think Brian Boitano is the best American male figure skater, ever.

Pen and black ink on illustration board, September 1990.

Nerdcon 1992 Poster Girl

Yes, that would be me. Not in 1992, but in 1969 which would be a high point in nerdiness for me as well as the ossumness of the Buchla synthesizer and my trip to Europe. I'm wearing my shabby grey sweater and a similarly shabby turtleneck. Fashion and I were not friends in those days. (Or any days, I guess.) I have those hideous black "cat eye" glasses that were popular about 10 years previously, and my hair is frizzy. I'm carrying Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land," published first in 1961, which was the rage among the more intellectual types in the ritzy private school I went to. 

"Nerdcon" wasn't a real con, it was a party to be held at "NotJustAnotherCon" at the  University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The invitees commissioned me to do the program cover art which would also be on the invitations and T-shirt. So "Nerdcon" was a mini-convention inside another convention. I must have gone to it but I don't remember much about it, even without alcohol. This was a college convention so drinking was illegal. As for NerdMe, fortunately by 1970 I had gotten rid of those horrible specs and wore a more modern set.

Original art for this was ink and computer lettering on illustration board, 11" x 14", September 1992.

Geometrika Works

Working with shape templates is an interesting by-road for pen and ink doodles. It's not something I often see in other people's art. But when you want to fill one of those spaces in the sketchbook journal and you don't want to draw another chariot, this will fill the square. Over the years I've collected quite a lot of graphic design templates, from simple circles and ovals to squares, hexagons, and other engineering-oriented geometric forms. Now that drafting and design are done on computer, that leaves the old templates for the artist to play with. This one has a bit of Steampunk influence in it, and it's also inspired by fantastic watches now sold to overly rich collectors. I'll call this template-driven mechanical style "Geometrika" and you might see more of it if I get ideas.

Black tech pen ink on sketchbook page, 3 1/2" x 3 1/2", October 5, 2016.

A note to Tristan and other readers: I have often thought of doing a book of my Darkover illustrations. If I get to "Chessiecon," the successor to DarkoverCon, I might ask to see if there would be any market for it after all these years. There would also need to be copyright work done with the Bradley estate.

Another note. So you want to know what "F.S.P." stands for on the diagonal bar. Well, one of my art professors, the late David Ratner of the Boston University art school, used to draw these hilarious little cartoons where the three letters "F.S.P." showed up, as in a word balloon or a shirt or a sign, etc. I finally asked him what "F.S.P." stood for. So...just choose three common rude 4-letter words that those letters stand for and you've got it. I carry on the tradition.

Horse-Tamer's Daughter

This title page was not for a prose story but the lyrics to a song. "The Horse-Tamer's Daughter" was set on Darkover, in a remote area where one family worked with wild horses, capturing them and taming and training them. (The horses were introduced to Darkover by the human colonists.) The young lady has a psychic gift of working with animals especially horses, and this ability is amplified when she finds a lost magic talisman left in a ruined tower. Eventually she and a band of equines are able to drive off an invasion by a group of power-seeking wizards.

The song was very popular among Darkover fans and is probably still in some fan ("filk") singers' repertoire. I was commissioned to illustrate the lyrics in many pages so this is one of many. It was published in a fan magazine called "Fesarius" in 1984. 

Black ink on illustration board, about 7 1/2" x 3", summer 1984. You can hear the song here on YouTube.

Magic Bishop

Here's some more vintage artwork from my "Deryni Portfolio." I did a whole collection of black and white character and scene drawings from the works of Katherine Kurtz, way back in the Middle Ages. This character is a Bishop who is secretly one of the magically endowed Deryni. I know it's "InkTober" month encouraging artists to make ink drawings one a day but I am overwhelmed with photo processing and when I get to the studio it's on the Cintiq which allows me to do "digital" inking which looks just like the real thing except for the mess and the blots and the sticky points. But it's not real ink, it's magic.

"Bishop Arilan" is real black ink on illustration board, 2" x 4 1/2", 1981.

Two to Conquer Darkover

Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Darkover" was a violent place, full of vengeance, vendetta, battles, stabbing, dueling, intrigue, and swordplay. Fans loved it this way, although "Two to Conquer" was more violent than usual. It  had a complicated plot about an Earthman visiting on Darkover and the endless battles to rule the "Hundred Kingdoms." The main character was a brutal warrior type, depicted here in faux-Celtic armor and weaponry. I did this elaborate portrait for the cover of "Jumeaux," a fan magazine that flourished in the mid-1980s. 

Original drawing is ink on illustration board, 8 1/2" x 10 1/2", mid-1980s.

Clutterscape of Saved Stuff

Ever since I got back from the House of Mildew in Massachusetts, I have been living with all the stuff I brought back from there. There is so much stuff that I cannot see the floor. I have to creep through pathways and little canyons to get to my art table or computer. I am living in Hoarderland right now.

If I try to undo some of this or sort it out, it just means more clutter everywhere because there is literally no open flat space to put anything down. So I have to put it on top of something else, thus hiding it from my view. I have been working on the photos, and now there has been an explosion of photos, with boxes of paper prints stacked all over anything that won't fall down.

Why keep this stuff you might ask. Because this is not trivial crap that I have bought for my own vanity, nor is it some sort of intentional collection. This is the record of lives, valuable lives of my parents, self, and family, and I want them to be remembered. Each photo is a moment that I remember, or I heard my mother and father talk about. It is my duty and my honor to save these memories and put them in Digital Land so that they will be preserved for at least a few years longer. No one knows how long digital files will remain. 

The current push in our cluttery society is to get that Zen Mindfulness which I see on all the glossy magazine covers. We've got to be MINDFUL of everything. And keep our dwellings mindfully maintained, with mindful vacuum cleaners and mindful kale salad. And some Japanese lady will tell us that I don't need to keep that picture of my friends' long-deceased cat. But I am not mindful. I am chaotic, at least now. I want to make order but it's taking a long, long time. I drew this sketch of what my living room looks like now, full of shopping bags and crates and boxes and stacks. It's actually a composite of two drawings, mindfully done from a small place I could mindfully clear from a Zen piece of furniture. 

Pentel Japanese tech pen black ink on sketchbook page, composed in Photoshop, 8" x 5", October 1, 2016. Click for somewhat larger view.