Visual Artists

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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Mon Apr 20, 2020 2:24 pm

Is that cover Patrick Woodroffe? I think it is.

Bruce Pennington. I adored his work as a young SF reader, always have, and grew up on all those Paper Tiger/Dragon's Dream editions of SF and fantasy illustration. What with the Brain CoralTM, alien rocks, life forms and sultry views of planets, moons and aurora. I later had an infatuation with Jim burns and Chris Moore when I decided I wanted to be an illustrator, subsequently coming to know them both. (Amazing to watch Chris paint, so fast and surgical. He later commissioned me to do a portrait of his wife. I would go on to buy five original Jim Burns paintings, in part to study them but mostly because they were so excitingly textural and strange.) I love the work of John Harris too, since I first saw his paintings. Ron Cobb, Syd Mead, Ralph McQuarrie, Bryan Froud, Alan Lee etc in film design. Moebius, Don Lawrence, Will Eisner, Winsor McCay etc in comics. Tim White, Jim, Chris, and a few others in book illustration. All that said, there was nothing really comparable to that sense of 'alieness' evoked by Bruce. I saw a massive exhibition of Roger Dean paintings on the Isle of Man a few years ago, which was the only time I've been similarly gobsmacked by SF/fantasy illustrations, certainly in a long while, largely because seeing the originals is a totally different experience to seeing them printed on covers and albums, for one thing the colours are absolutely fucking amazing and irreproducible by any other medium. Likewise seeing the Edward Hopper exhibition at Tate London twenty years ago, or the vast Alma-Tadema exhibition at the Walker Liverpool a few years before that, the Breughel room at the Kunsthistorisches in Vienna (not to mention Rembrandt's, Caravaggio's, Arcimboldo's etc) or visiting all my favourite Caravaggio's in situ across Malta, Rome, Naples and Sicily.

Anyway, the two below still give me chills. Nothing in cinema, comix or book illustration has ever came close to that first hit of Bruce's strange window to somewhere else. Only life itself has exceeded them, strangely enough.


Image



Image
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Mon Apr 20, 2020 2:43 pm

I'm imagining you unveiling it to the publishing assistant : "Yah, not bad. Just need to get an oak tree in there somewhere"


It was pretty much always exactly like that. Needless to say, I didn't last long as an illustrator.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


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Re: Visual Artists

Postby semper occultus » Mon Apr 20, 2020 3:51 pm

Yeah I was that kid aswell - all those 70's coffee table books for hippies were really amazing. I think all those artists had a big influence on say 2000 AD who then had to industrialise the output for a weekly on horribly cheap paper ( they did a great job but must be even worse than doing covers from an artistic standpoint ). And I've literally never even considered that Roger Dean pictures exist outside of album covers. It must be great having talent ( like what you've got !) My only "brush" with that world is that I did know Nick Abadzis when we were both school kids who did the graphic novel Laika & we went up to this shop called Dark They Were & Golden Eyed which was the London sci-fi /comic shop before Forbidden Planet started & got some early issues of Heavy Metal magazine - which I've still got.

there was nothing really comparable to that sense of 'alieness' evoked by Bruce.

Exactly ! I think his human figures are actually not that great but its the man's vision that was so startling - alien, almost other-dimensional & also very dream-like but being able to capture the feeling of dreamscapes which is almost impossible to do ( for me ) & conveying this epic scale & grandeur. His Nostradmaus pics are great. Philipe Druillet is maybe similar - I mean he;s all over the place compared to that exquisite, clean sort of Mobius style but he's got the same ability to go somewhere alien & weird. I suppose Giger does it too but I can't help being revolted by his work !
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:13 am

semper occultus » Mon Apr 20, 2020 8:51 pm wrote:Yeah I was that kid aswell - all those 70's coffee table books for hippies were really amazing. I think all those artists had a big influence on say 2000 AD who then had to industrialise the output for a weekly on horribly cheap paper ( they did a great job but must be even worse than doing covers from an artistic standpoint ). And I've literally never even considered that Roger Dean pictures exist outside of album covers. It must be great having talent ( like what you've got !) My only "brush" with that world is that I did know Nick Abadzis when we were both school kids who did the graphic novel Laika & we went up to this shop called Dark They Were & Golden Eyed which was the London sci-fi /comic shop before Forbidden Planet started & got some early issues of Heavy Metal magazine - which I've still got.

there was nothing really comparable to that sense of 'alieness' evoked by Bruce.

Exactly ! I think his human figures are actually not that great but its the man's vision that was so startling - alien, almost other-dimensional & also very dream-like but being able to capture the feeling of dreamscapes which is almost impossible to do ( for me ) & conveying this epic scale & grandeur. His Nostradmaus pics are great. Philipe Druillet is maybe similar - I mean he;s all over the place compared to that exquisite, clean sort of Mobius style but he's got the same ability to go somewhere alien & weird. I suppose Giger does it too but I can't help being revolted by his work !



Yes, I love Druillet too! I only saw one copy of Eschatus, a long time ago, probably at Bryan Talbot's house. I used to stay over after the Preston SF group meetings and he would allow me to pore over the vast collection of art books and comics in his study. Each time I'd take an armful to bed with me, reading and studying until dawn or I fell asleep, whichever came first. I'd known of the existence of Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal before but the first time I held one was at Bryan's house. Pretty much the whole of my comics education took place on those evenings. I couldn't believe the wealth of astonishing art and images, my mind was definitely blown. Till then I'd had a fairly sheltered literary and artistic existence. From the time I discovered them, the local public library, then the school library, then the college library were my second homes and I was pretty much limited to what they contained (although I also spent a lot of time reading books in the bookshop.)

Here's the portrait I did around that time for Bryan's 'author image' in his graphic novel Heart of Empire. (I don't have a better image, this is from the site.)


Image


And here's one or two of my half baked Terry Pratchett pieces, again, these are from the net, all my hi-res scans are long gone...


Image


Image


Image


Image


Image


Image
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


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Re: Visual Artists

Postby semper occultus » Tue Apr 21, 2020 1:39 pm

what do you expect anyone to say - stunning & "out of this world" art damn it Amazing ! The camel is pure Richard Corben except the protaganist doesn't look like a steroid abuser ! Sorry I can't help this geeking out now you've got me started. I mean I've just remembered my first exposure to anything more than the Beano was actually the original Frank Frazetta book & that blew me away big style. His space stuff was cute & old fashioned Flash Gordon stuff but the Conan & barbarian viking ones were almost fascistically brutal & powerful. Oh & lots of under-dressed women with big boobs. I have to admit that was one of the main reasons I was buying Heavy Metal - the under-dressed over-endowed women !

But Portraiture though is an almost uncanny skill - darkly magical & it really plays into the old superstitions about photographs stealing you soul except taken up to 11. The fact that the eyes actually do follow you around the room or if you walk into an unfamiliar room at night in the dark & suddenly see one looking at you & you freak out. Its the opposite of imaginative fantasy art which is pulling stuff out of your deepest inner recesses & getting it down on a canvas but you add that in to it to bring it to life.
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Wed Apr 22, 2020 3:40 pm

semper occultus » Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:39 pm wrote:what do you expect anyone to say


Too eager! :lol:

A publisher asked me if they could use one of my old pictures this morning so I spent a few hours trying to find the handful of transparencies I have left, just in case it was among them and it was. There was also a tranny of the Talbot portrait among them, which I'd completely forgotten about. First time I met him he answered the door with a large and rather friendly rat perched on his shoulder which naturally formed my mental image from then on...


Image
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Tue Apr 28, 2020 7:01 pm

Gary Blythe.

Image
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Wed Apr 29, 2020 2:16 pm

And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:58 pm

And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Fri May 01, 2020 8:24 pm

John Philip Simpson, The Captive Slave (1827)


Image


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... hicago.jpg
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Mon May 04, 2020 8:16 am

Looking across two thousand years to this series of Roman Egyptian portraits.


24 A.D



Image
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Mon May 04, 2020 8:17 am

1st to 4th century.



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And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Mon May 04, 2020 8:21 am

100 to 150 AD


Image
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Mon May 04, 2020 8:23 am

150 AD



Image
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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Re: Visual Artists

Postby Harvey » Mon May 04, 2020 8:31 am

130 to 140 AD



Image
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
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Harvey
 
Posts: 4165
Joined: Mon May 09, 2011 4:49 am
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