On one of my illustration mail lists we've been discussing what early SciFi/Fantasy covers had an influence on us....
My earliest influences were more fairy-tale than scifi. And at least in part, because of the compelling illustrations I read the magical texts that accompanied them. A delightful self-reinforcing circle - the pictures informed the words and the words reinforced the imagery. They are near-inseparable to me.
When I was not much older, I started into more complex scifi/fantasy fare - I read Tolkien in grade school and was absolutely mesmerized. My parents had this Maxfield Parrish book - which I looked at over and over again for years (I still have it). Next for me was CS Lewis, Bradbury and Asimov.
Visually however, the more I think about it, by Junior High and on I may have been more influenced by record album covers than books even. We had a lovely pile of psychedelic Moody Blues records that got lots of eyeball time from me!
So to celebrate my earliest LP-cover-love, I give you this montage of some of my favorites (the Moody Blues were my parents, these were mine!...) Some I bought just for the covers - I didn't really enjoy listening to Molly Hatchet -but they had the best record sleeves! I kept The Steve Miller Band 'Pegasus' album cover for years - long after I'd thrown out the actual record..
So what were your earliest visual influence?
...babies who wouldn't stay any kind of still....
Tired of moving targets, but only had a little bit of time left - speed sketch of room.
I briefly tried a left-handed one, but my purse Moleskine is too small to balance well AND work the non-dominant hand... Just right-handed heads...
Warm ups and short gestures were done right handed, longer gestures and short poses were done left handed...
So these were *drawn* left-handed, but one thing I discovered, I cannot shade them quickly left-handed (you know, where you draw a series of parallel lines to quickly add tone? No parallel lines for my left hand apparently).
...which was interesting, given I had a very limited number of colors to actually choose from. I had some earth toned Dewent 'drawing' pencils (hard and waxy) and a few colored pastel pencils (pink, peach, purple, green, black and white). Nothing really resembling a real triad... It was really interesting trying to balance color and value (it's been decades since I've used pastel or color of any sort while drawing from life) -
- ultimately a bit frustrating given that the model was wearing such luscious colors, and I had nothing with which to approximate them.... But it was fun to play with color...
If you would like to be in the running for this book giveaway, leave a comment on this blog post before midnight, Sunday 11th (pacific time) and I will post the results of the drawing-of-your-names next Monday. I will ship to anywhere in the world, so feel free to participate.
Lots of talking heads today...
...so I used my larger sketchbook and tried to get some semblance of a likeness in the 10-20 minutes I had per head...
This was was attempted left-handed. boy! it's hard!
...so one of the solutions was to expand my beds underneath the trees in the front yard.
I do not like putting chips directly on grass however - it just grows right up through. It is better to put down a nice layer (the thicker the better) of newspaper to suffocate the grass and keep it weed-free. Unfortunately, I ran out of newspaper about halfway through...
Not wanting to leave uncovered grass, I racked my brains and then remembered all the used newsprint I had in the studio! All those old gesture drawings can now be put to good use!
Life -drawing recycled! Can't think of a better re-purposing than this. :-D
Getting back into the swing of 'real life'. Trying to reassert the feeble beginnings of routine and 'balance' (life can't be all about gardening. Or can it...?)
She's been drawing from life with her left hand (see? photographic evidence! and yes, she is normally right handed) - to great effect!
(drawn by Kathleen)
(drawn by Kathleen)
(drawn by me)
(brain dead -back to the right hand)
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