The Elopement

My idea on this little picture was to create a story without actually telling it. "The Elopement" has two lovers running away in broad daylight, in a deserted Italian piazza. I wanted it to resemble an opera scene, or perhaps a romantic novel illustration, with a touch of deChirico surrealism. The architecture is real, adapted from a photograph in one of my many books on Italian architecture. As to the plot and progress of the story, who knows. I never bothered to invent it.

"The Elopement" is ink and watercolor on illustration board, 10" x 7", May 2002.

Mecha Red Triangle

Here's another mecha, again adapted from David White's book. White's main style of mecha design is built from blocky squarish shapes, but depending on the technology a mecha could be curvy and graceful too. I think about what shapes would deflect incoming fire and move easily on the battlefield. Old-fashioned knight's plate armor would be a classic mecha design idea, and there are plenty of them around, but there are other models for battle robots, such as hard-shelled insects or crustaceans. Imagine a Fighting Lobster on your side, with lasers coming out of its giant arms. Or a Fire Ant, with a flamethrower as well as a sting. The possibilities are myriad. Note the mechanical "grinning skull" headpiece of this figure. The Warhammer universe designs are filled with skulls of all sorts, the bony skull seems to be a characteristic of many fantasy fighting figures.

Ink and grayscale markers on sketchbook page, about 3 1/2" x 4 1/2", November 18, 2013.

Queen of the Planets

Inspired by a fantasy costume from an old film, this was meant as a costume design for a large or "plus-size" woman. The ultramarine blue is one of my favorite colors, especially paired with a black velvet dress and purple ribbons. At one point a costumer in the Baltimore area was planning to make this costume for herself to wear at a convention masquerade but nothing came of it. I thought I had never depicted a lady with "cleavage" but I guess I have at least once.

"Queen of the Planets" is watercolor and ink on illustration board, 7" x 10", May 2002.

Green dancer 1972

This composition is from my 1972 journal, while I was at Brandeis University. It sums up a lot of my interests then and now. I have more of those golden treasures you saw in a recent post, and some pseudo-medieval calligraphy saying "Deo Gratias" or "Thanks be to God." That whole journal was filled with my calligraphy, both medieval and Roman. Then there's the green and gold figure in the center, a dancer who is wearing a bodysuit of green and gold, designed by me, which looks more like a superhero's costume than a dance outfit. The action figure of the dancer comes from Eadweard Muybridge's famous stop-motion photographs. I remember that at that time I went to dance recitals at Brandeis' theater. In the bottom rows are a portrait of Saint Augustine the bishop, whose "Confessions" I read at Brandeis. His work was very influential on me and my religious life back then. The portrait is imaginary as no one knows what Saint Augustine looked like. The bishop's miter and vestments are from the middle ages, not Augustine's time. To the lower right is a sketchy portrait of Jesus. Those were my interests at Brandeis at that time.

Colored pencil and some ink on a sketchbook page, March 1972.

Elevated Railway

It's taken years to build this futuristic elevated railway over Route 7 in Vienna, Virginia. Sixty years ago this heavily built-up urban area was a simple crossroads among farm fields. Now it is about to connect directly with Washington, DC by rail, for the first time since the 1940s. The grandeur of its engineering is impressive, especially the curved swoop of the railway, two or three stories high, turning onto the new rail lane in the middle of the Dulles access road. Ultimately the rail will go all the way from DC to Dulles Airport, so you could go directly to your important business trip without using a car at all. Underneath the railway (these were there first) are office buildings, business-oriented hotels, shopping malls, big stores, an urban WalMart with a big garage, car dealerships, and other basic American necessities. There is also a 28-story luxury apartment building at one of the Metro stops, still under construction, in which each apartment will sell for more than a million dollars. 

I drew this in the freezing cold at the still-unfinished Metro station. I sat on a metal bench to do my drawing. They were testing out the pre-recorded announcements which would direct walking traffic at the station. "Please stand away from the door." "Doors closing." But there was no one there, yet, which gave a slightly eerie feeling to the scene. They were also running the first trains over the high rail, to test it all out, and they were empty too.

Brown Pitt technical pen ink on sketchbook page, about 8" x 5", November 14, 2013. I don't want to live here any more.

The Classics are full of Treasures: 1972

I studied Classics as an undergraduate. That means Greek and Latin, and ancient history, and ancient art history, and all sorts of stuff relating to Western civilization before about the year 650, when the Islamic conquests changed the world radically. Reading all these texts about the ancient world I was struck by how much gold and metallic treasures mattered then, even more than now. If you go into major museums such as Boston's Museum of Fine Arts or  New York's Metropolitan Museum you will see these things arrayed on display, long removed from any kind of practical value or use. My intention in this drawing was not only to render gold and metal accurately as an illustration, but to heap treasures together as they would have been piled up as spoils of a conquest. And I used the treasure metaphor to allude to the classical texts themselves. 

Colored pencil and some ink on sketchbook page, about 7 1/2" x 6", February 1972.

It's like drinking apple pie

I haven't posted any Trader Joe's art for a while, so here's some. Spiced Cider is a fall favorite, and its flavors do resemble that of apple pie. I did almost the exact same sign last fall. Autumn is a time of traditional illusions, as if we had anything to do with harvests and hunts and agricultural cycles. But the flavors are real.

Chalk markers on black-painted board, around 3 ft. x 2 ft., November 12, 2013.