Vintage Inspiration

"The Mote in God's Eye"

(9x12", Oils on Linen Panel, Framed)   Price: $575.00  SOLD

 

I was feeling a bit burned out when we went to a friend's home and orchard up north for the annual apple picking back in September. Rather than doing my usual enthusiastic picking of said apples and making cider with my friends, I got myself a cup of the hard cider on tap from the cooler spigot and wandered around the extended house and looked at all of the vintage artworks and books. Vintage pulp art heaven. Little niggles of ideas nibbled at my mind whilst I drooled over inspiring works of wonder. Science fiction, fantasy, western, mystery, thriller, fun and whimsical art that has mostly graced the covers or interiors of novels and books and magazines for at least the last hundred years. I'm not an expert and able to tell the names and techniques of the many artists, but it certainly was inspiring. The huge red sun in a Paul Lehr painting stayed with me and I sat down in the living room with my teeny sketchbook and noodled out a few drawings, one of which became the basis for my new painting "The Mote in God's Eye". I have toyed with this premise in the past and never got any further than ideas in mind and a single aborted attempt at an over sized rocket doodle that I never finished some years back. I think the colour scheme I had on it and a very nebulous idea was all wrong. This time it all fell into place. I just needed the right inspiration and a warmer, if overly dramatic colour scheme. LOL That big red sun got to me. The nostalgia which is prevalent in my rocket doodles comes from my youth in the 1960s and my Dad's love of all the pulps, science fiction and thrillers, particularly. I get that from him. But nowadays, I bring my nostalgia of the old 'what if' days that knew virtually no limits in imagination to life in my tiny rocket microcosms. Small visions of stories or parts of stories that make the viewer wonder what is happening. Yeah, the simple visions of my ideas have gotten more complicated over the years, but there is always a story to tell...even if I'm not always quite sure what it is until I've finished painting it. What do you think?

This is the design I doodled that day...

Thanks for stopping by, and come back soon for more rocket doodles and such.
Cheers,
Marianne