KEEP ON KEEPING ON

A month or two back I became very frustrated with what I was doing with my painting and illustration and literally stuck everything in a drawer until I was ready to start picking up the
brushes and going at it again. I had just finished what I thought was the worst likenesses of
Grace Kelly and Cary Grant that I had seen in some time.

Fortunately I had an old high school friend ask me for a portrait and another friend who asked me for a commission, so I pulled out the boards and the paints and the brushes and jumped back into it. For whatever reason, things just started to flow again, and the last couple of weeks have been very productive for me. What I've learned about the creative process over the years is that it's important to be like a shark and keep feeding yourself. Eventually something happens.

I retouched the Cary Grant portrait, and finished the Dolores Del Rio, Helen Mirren, and two Hedy Lamarr pieces- one daytime Prague and one nighttime Prague...when I was finished penciling the one version I decided I wanted to see more of the figure and redid it and the background. I tried a couple of new techniques painting flesh- using more opaque and less transparent washes. And yes, the real sticklers out there will recognize the Bob McGinnis and Robert Fawcett elements that wound up in my backgrounds.

Next week it's on to restructuring my Lori Lovecraft website to accommodate the new comic projects that I'm working on. Someone has had the audacity to offer me work, so we'll see how my schedule is rearranged in the next couple of months.

(A commission of our old friend Boronwe from "Sisterhood of Steel".)