Drawn to it.

A relatively brief personal aside for those of you hanging out tonight...

In cleaning up a few things in the basement Laboratory, I discovered a cache of artwork from my earlier years.

Well, rediscovered, really -- I knew I had them, and remember creating each of them -- I just sorta forgot that I had put them where I found them... and hadn't looked at them in a good, looong while.

I won't bother posting all of them; a lot of it is really personal (art, personal? go on) and not necessarily interesting to anyone else.

But there are some I find very impressive for the 12, 14, 16 year old I was when I set down to scribbling them.

Certainly my personal tastes and influences will shine through...

Aslan, from the Chronicles of Narnia, 1982.

What good is drawing monsters if you can't do it in school wasting valuable
educational time? A 'study' for a werewolf costume, sometime in
Autumn of 1980. I was 12.

Five years later, a Junior in high school, and I'm still scribbling instead of taking notes.
This Sasquatch was done during Mr. Merritt's Business Law class
one sweaty afternoon in the Spring.

Some time in 1986 I inked what I intended to look like a mad doctor's journal/sketchbook.
I made this monster not long after, and it found its way into Hallowe'en at Grandma's house.

A distinctly Bradbury-esque Martian, created during a memorable
three week stay in Reno, August 1983.

The following Winter, and aliens are still on my mind. Apparently at 15
and 16 I thought aliens were required to have one shoulder up high, and be all
windswept and sad when observing us. Like if Iron Eyes Cody were
from Gleep Glorp.

A monsterbot from 1982. Can't explain the fangs, sorry.

1983 saw me in a rather post-apocalyptic mood. A Mad-Max-Meets
Middle Earth attempt called Survival of the Fittest; it seems
the least fit was the most worth coloring.

Uncle Creepy, 1984. Watercolors rock.

Some kind of wolf creature, crouched and waiting for someone or
something at the end of an alley or someplace... Summer 1985.

Pretty much my 16 year old take on the famed cover art from Uriah Heep's 1982
album Abominog. Blood spattering is so effective for a horror kid.
Again, watercolors rock.

Lastly...

My favorite drawing from my '80s days. A Poe-ish revenant, Bosch influenced,
pure classic terror. 1984.

Detail:

Love the look -- the blurry, sketchy 'you can't win' insistence/near-smile of Death.

Such a curious thing, looking at handmade snapshots of a certain time in your life. Impressed with your past self, wondering why you were incapable of recognizing that you didn't stink at it, that you only thought that way because any time you did something no one else could or hadn't tried, you got teased.

It happens like that sometimes... for everybody, at some point.

Thank God I had parents who always talked me through such times, and encouraged uniqueness and expressing myself through my scribblings.

I think these ought to hang here at the ol' S&P. They were good, are good.

They fit the decor, that's for certain!



Anyone have any of their own they'd like to share?