Nekron's Glacier

This yawning maw is the entrance to Nekron’s glacier kingdom.

It's an establishing shot from the Bakshi / Frazetta’s animated film Fire and Ice, cel vinyl paint, 11x14”

The Value of Copying

In 1983 I did this oil study of the sculpture of Menelaus Carrying the Body of Patroclus (also known as Ajax Carrying the Body of Achilles). This sort of grisaille copy is fairly commonplace in today's Bargue-based ateliers, but I was working in a vacuum because the contemporary atelier movement had not yet developed.

I had left art school and set up my own curriculum because nobody on the art school's faculty seemed to know anything about the academic method. I found my answers in books. One of the most useful books was "The Academy and French Painting in the 19th Century."

The author Albert Boime points out that there were several goals of academic copies, ranging from technical to almost spiritual. The practice was far more than a superficial exercise. Yes, I was learning about light and form of course, and deepening my understanding of gesture and anatomical form and composition.

But it was more than that. By copying the masters of the Renaissance and of the Greek and Roman period, I felt as though I entered a deep sympathy with them that I didn't feel from just looking at them. Classical musicians understand this sympathy, because to play Beethoven or Mendelssohn well, you don't just play the notes. You have to try to understand them and enter their mind.

Unfortunately not all art students are encouraged to copy, so they don't get to share in this enriching practice of mind-melding with great artists of the past.

 

Warrior Woman

Warrior Woman, an oil painting for a paperback cover, plus one of the tone paper studies I did for it.

 

A House in Gouache

 

Playing a little here with lightening and unifying the tree masses to make that dark shadow shape stand out. Gouache, 5 x 7 inches. 

Verdi's Otello

 Verdi's Otello, sketched from Parterre Box 27, Seat 1 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

A Background from Fire and Ice

Here's a background painting from the 1983 animated movie Fire and Ice, painted with cel vinyl on board. 

The round hole and the twin horizontal holes are for aligning the acetate animation cels. This was an extra long BG, designed for a horizonal camera move to follow small figures running along the icy path.

 

Couture's Satire of French Society

In Thomas Couture's 1873 painting "The Thorny Path," four men struggle to pull a cart driven by an angelic figure.

According to the Philadelphia Art Museum, the image is Couture's satire on the decadence of French society during the 1870s. They note that the carriage is pulled... 

"...not by animals but by four male captives who represent different ages and states of society. The naked old man leading the procession is flabby from indulgence; the troubadour following him, a symbol of young love, parodies the medieval ballads popular in nineteenth century France. The old soldier bends his head in self-reproach, and the young student writes as he walks, symbolizing the educated nobility's ignorance of the realities of daily life. The thistles and thorny plants along the road suggest the painfulness of their journey. The decrepit figure seated at the rear of the carriage with a bottle of wine in her basket foreshadows the courtesan's future. Finally, Couture signed his initials on the stone figure at center, which seems to be laughing at the entourage."

Couture developed an alternate version set in the open plain with the city in the distance.
 

Fun with Reference

When I need a model, I set up a mirror and some charcoal paper, and I draw.

With a wig and a costume and a scowl, I can be anybody—in my imagination at least.

During a break I forget to take off the wig, much to the amusement of FedEx man, who chooses that moment to come by the house.

The final painting appears as a gatefold in Nintendo Power magazine to promote the game Dinotopia: Timestone Pirates.

(Link for more info.)

 

World Beneath Audio Adventure / Cassette Version

For the retro enthusiast, cassettes are the best way to listen to a audio dramatization because they're so portable and fun to use, and they remember where you left off. 

They're a great way to wean your kids away from screens and show them the tech you used when you were their age. 

And this production is one of the best audio adventures, with a full cast, music by Tim Clark, and rich sound effects by ZBS Studios.

World Beneath Audio Cassettes

French Braids

Am I listening to the sermon? Well, sort of. I'm monitoring the droning sound with half an ear.



But really, most of my conscious attention is devoted to understanding the amazing weaving of those French braids. She tells me later that she wove them all by herself by feel, without even looking in the mirror.

Aren't humans amazing?