Richard Thompson's Blog, page 26

Pretty Picture

Of a fat man eating our planet (who does he think he is, Galactus?), done for I forget. This post and others are part of my self-defeating plan to publish everything from the Art of Richard Thompson and drive down sales.

Bee!

This came out real well, as I was aiming for a smooth, yet subtly gradation in the background, and a big, scary bee in the fore. Of course, this is from 1990, so how can I remember what I was aiming for?

HOI-YO TOHO!

To make up for the last post, and to lessen the intensity somewhat, here's this from the Post Health section.

Two Centuries and One Year of Rigid Vogner*

Richard  Wagner was the first composer whose work I had a real infatuation with. I was in 11th grade and the history teacher, Mr. Honey, was introducing us to early 20th century European history. He dimmed the lights and turned on the record player in the back of the classroom and picked out some mood music, as he often did, and- Wait, you know what's coming next, right?
Well, suffice it to say that the details of the early stirrings of national feeling in post-World War I Germany were for me lost in the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin. Immediately after the class I hit the school library and checked out an LP called something like "Best of Wagner", with excerpts from his operas. Including both of the Lohengrin preludes, Die Meistersinger Prelude, and the Overture to Tannhauser, which became my particular favorite and was the first thing I ever picked out and memorized on my brother's piano. Well, the first page, anyway; right afterward it gets too hard.



The opening theme is then repeated with a galloping accompaniment that made my hair walk around on my head. It's a tune that gets heavy play in the Chuck Jones classic "What's Opera,  Doc?" Pompous, vain and dictatorial, Wagner was a peach to draw, with a wardrobe straight out of a upholsterer's nightmare. Then there're his opinions, expressed loudly and at length, on politics, art, race, everything, each more hateful than the last. And yet, when the Ring begins in the E-flat darkness of a riverbed, when Wotan says farewell to his favorite daughter forever, when Eva launches the great quintet on Johannestag in medieval Nurnberg, all is forgiven, at least for the moment.  

So you know I'm going to try drawing this guy, for my own amusement if no one else's. His face is quite distinctive and caricatures easily, especially when topped off by one of the theatrical hats he affected.      


I had an ingenious technical idea: I'd paint the final in oils, but I'd use two colors that would fight each other. I'd use lead white and bitumen; lead white because it's fast- drying, permanent and thick, and bitumen because it was popular in the 19th Century, never fully dries, and therefore almost destroyed the 19th Century art it was used in.  Over time, the painting would slowly fall apart, becoming dramatically uglier as the layers of paint, of equal permanence, shifted and cracked.
However, I got bored with the whole project. The painting was dull and didn't, as I secretly hoped, explode, but the sketches of Wagner were good. Here are a few.        



Besides, I get fed up with Wagner and his shenanigans, easily. I prefer Brahms. They had a good deal of mutual dislike, tempered by mutual respect. I'll bet Brahms would win if they ever had a rasslin' match though.

Old, forgotten not-very funny Cul de Sac Thanksgiving Special

Thanksgiving was usually celebrated in CdS (during the Post Magazine days) with a full-page cartoon. As in previous years, I thought I'd just sort of pan around the dinner table, let everybody talk and the comedy would take care of itself. It didn't. It's funny enough, I guess but it could've been better. But here it is, from the depths of my studio's Lost & Found, Thanksgiving  200x.

Mahler

This is an image from The Art of book, and you can see what you'll get for your $23.09;  unfinished pictures. I've done a lot of those over the years. Pictures that had something wrong with them, yet something right, or at least enough right that I'd keep working on them, intermittently, long after I should've consigned them to a trashcan. This caricature of Gustav Mahler, for example. He's not one of my big favorites. He's just too angsty , as you'd expect of the composer of Kinderotenlieder. I guess he'd be a little happier if he had a mouth. But this as far as I got before I messed up. 'Cause I'm angsry.

The Almost Cover

Some ancient civilization or another believed that the Earth was a dome carried by a team of elephants, who in turn were carried through the Heavens by a stupendous turtle. It made sense to me, at any rate, when I saw it referenced in a Time-Life book we had called Evolution (there was even a little picture of what such a thing might look like). Then years later Terry Pratchett popularized it in his Discworld books, even giving the turtle a name (Atuan). I did this sketch sometime in the mid-80s, put a little man on it, entitled it "the Commuter", and had it printed on the verso of the Beethoven caricature as a promo piece. So much for cosmology.

A Cover!

We have evidence a cover has been chosen for the Art of. And the winner is-



Jeez! That's a lot of authors for one guy to have! It seems wasteful. We almost used this image for the cover-
I like this because it reflects the confusion over selecting the cover for such a book- how do you boil something as amorphous down to one image? And what is art anyway? I hope this book has some no-nonsense answers, written in plain English.  You can  pre-order it HERE.

New from the Whaddacallit Store

Inasmuch as I've turned  this formerly somewhat erudite and witty blog into a place to vend cheap bric-a-brac with my name on it, here's some more. From the  Musicophrenology Store (jeez, I hate that name! I tried changing it to Musical Caricatures, which is just uninspired.)

The Brahms Beer Glass Brahms loved his beer, and now you can experience this great part of musical history for youself! Only $20.95! Get 'em now, they won't last forever!



The Mozart MugIt's got a caricature of Wolfgang Amadeus on it. Who'd you think it'd be? Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky? Only $14.95.

ANNOUNCING- the Musicophrenology Store!

A new store at Zazzle! We're selling out big-time and that means savings galore on all merchandise in the newly-created Musicophrenology Store! Just don't ask us what "musicophrenology" means!  It was that or "sears" and sears was taken.

Just look at some of these exclusive products-

The Beethoven Mug

Say, don't you wish your morning mug of coffee was as grumpy as you? Well, here's one mug that's extra-super grouchy! It'll put a smile on your face and a song in your heart, or wherever you keep such things! Only $14.95!