Silent Trees

It finally stopped snowing in the late afternoon, and by twilight the skies were clearing. I had only a few minutes to do this Photoshop study while gazing out my studio window. Two feet of snow are on the ground, and drifts are everywhere. I haven't been outside in two days, and my car is almost completely buried in snow. I spent the day doing small domestic tasks and playing with Photoshop among other artistic diversions. I also listened once again to Kevin Kendle's beautiful and emotionally moving album WINTER, just right for the moment. "Silent Trees" is the last track on the album. You can try all the "Winter" pieces here at "Rhapsody."

Photoshop study, done with Wacom tablet, print size 10" x 7".

Cosmic Glamor

Finally, something new for me. I've been wanting to try doing picture of a "glamor" nude in Photoshop, without any scanned and imported pencil sketch as a base. I have lots of model photograph books, and one of them has a lot of very nice pin-up poses done by a stunning model, someone that I would never have the chance to draw in a decade of life drawing classes. I drew directly into Photoshop, with the photo in sight, using my Wacom tablet and stylus. Then I built up the figure using a lot of layers, which is how you're supposed to work in Photoshop. There are layers for the drawing, the skin tones, face details, hair details, and glitter stars. The cosmic blue is the background layer, and I let some of the starry blue show through in the drawing, something which I have done before on colored paper drawings.

I'm not really pleased with the face, which I didn't draw from the photograph but made up. I left too much cosmic blue in it. I need to work on faces but I think I did pretty well with the body this time. As I was working on this a blizzard was raging outside, and there she is, naked in a warm nebula bath.

"Cosmic Nude 1" is Photoshop, 8 1/2" x 11".

Conclave of Light Beings

I love apocalyptic writings. These are not necessarily about disasters. They are visionary experiences, usually of a religious nature, written down for posterity. The most famous example is the biblical "Book of Revelation" which is the last book of the Christian New Testament. This classic apocalypse became the model for uncounted later visionary texts, including many in the twentieth century.

In the twentieth century science, or at least its terminology, was blended into religious mysticism, and aliens and UFO's shared chariots with angels. One of the most creative and organized "schools" of apocalyptic thought was (and continues to be, on a lesser scale) the "Unarius" group of UFO devotees. The original seer and founder was a wonderfully colorful lady named Ruth Norman. Her visions and channeled tales were published by the Unarians during the 1970s in a number of volumes. The center of the group is, of course, in Southern California, in El Cajon, near San Diego.

Since I was working at a New Age bookstore in 1988, I was able to order these books and other visionary writings not only for the store but for myself, and I managed to collect a fair number of them. The picture above is an illustration of a scene from a book called "Conclave of Light Beings." It depicts a vast, city-sized amphitheater in which millions of angels, Masters, aliens, and ascended human souls attend a worshipful event: the wedding of "Ioshanna," Ruth Norman's heavenly counterpart, to "Michiel," also known as the soul-incarnation of Leonardo da Vinci.

As she describes it, the enormous amphitheater has seven fountains, each in a different color of the rainbow, and three giant flames of light, all surrounding the crystal dais in the center of the circle where the wedding takes place. To the uninitiated, this intricately detailed text reads like an antique Hollywood glamor epic on major acid. For me, it's imagination candy: wild descriptions of fantastic stuff just waiting to be illustrated. There are contemporary illustrations in the book, but they are not made by professional-quality artists. I dust off my copy of "Conclave" and think, This is what Photoshop was made for. But so far, the "Space Brothers" have not arrived.

"Conclave of Light Beings" is watercolor and gouache on illustration board, 22" x 16", May 1988.

The White Elf Lord

I spent the 1980s doing endless, endless amounts of fan art for various private publications put out by my Darkover fan friends and colleagues. In retrospect, all this fan art production seems a near-total waste of time, and perhaps one reason why I am not a more successful (better-known and making money) artist today. I scratched most of this fan art out on illustration board with a late 19th century "storybook" style modeled on either H.J. Ford's "colorful" fairy tale book illustrations, or the modern illustrator Barry Windsor-Smith, who was inspired by the older style.

I sold most of the drawings for modest sums, or just gave them away to the publishers or authors of these forgotten diversions. This one here is from a Tolkien pastiche written by Marion Zimmer Bradley. My records say that the original was sold to a fan in Baltimore, but who knows where it is now, as fans always live in chaotic circumstances. As far as I'm concerned, I wasted most of the 1980s doing crap. I'm trying to save whatever was good from that era in my artistic life. I'm not sure this qualifies as "good," but there it is, saved anyway.

"The Jewel of Arwen" title page is about 7" x 10", ink on illustration board, Summer 1983.

The Lights of Paradise

In late 1988 I made some larger nebula pictures, rather than the sets of small 7" x 10" pieces that I had been doing. This one here was sent to the World Science Fiction Convention in New Orleans, where it was sold and thus disappeared into the void. It's called "The Lights of Paradise," a poetic title for a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by stars and protostars. It's acrylic on illustration board, airbrush with some sponge application and hand brushing. The image is inspired by pictures of the Eta Carinae nebula, an elaborate space cloud full of swirling shapes and lights. This was before the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, so the details of the nebula (and all nebulae) were not clear and finely drawn as they are with current space-based views.

"The Lights of Paradise" is acrylic on illustration board, 16" x 20", August 1988.

The Big Can

"The Big Can" is what this picture ended up being called, even though it originally had another title which I have forgotten. It's my attempt at doing a "realistic" space hardware picture. It depicts two joyriding space sports vehicles zipping and playing around a large piece of space junk.

This piece was a big failure in exhibitions. For some reason, people laughed at it. I couldn't sell it even for pennies. I ended up giving it to a friend in the Baltimore area, but who knows where it is now, since he's moved so many times in the years since I gave it to him.

"The Big Can" is acrylic on illustration board, 16" x 20", August 1988.

Four Valentines

Oo la la! In the inexorable march of the commercial year, Valentine's Day is approaching. These signs will go with displays of Champagne, bubbly wine, more wine, and sweets, strategically placed near the registers where people can snap them up on impulse buys. The store is also decorated with Super Bowl-themed signs and football motifs. So in a truly American mash-up, we have sentimental lovers tackling each other while wearing emotional padding and heraldic helmets, vying for a chocolate football. And many goodies will be served and consumed.