Autumn Winery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.