Blast from the Past #251: "Vegetable Wheel" Hampshire Life cover

This is one of my favorites of the covers I did for Hampshire Life, and if memory serves it was one of my editor's favorite, too. I like it for the drawing, which I think came out well, but also for the fact that it was one of those rare times when the art was meant to be USED.



This was intended not only as a cover illustration, but as the front of a practical "wheel"-type guide for planting and harvesting vegetables. The black rectangles in the drawing, labeled "Type of Vegetable", "Time to Plant" and so on, were meant to be windows through which the appropriate information could be shown. The second part of the "wheel", containing that information positioned so it would appear behind the correct window, was printed inside Hampshire Life, as were the directions for making the "wheel". (Those were basically to mount the two pages on two sheets of stiff cardboard, then cut them out -- including the windows -- and join them together in the center with a paper fastener. In the printed version, I think a small dot was added in the exact center to make assembly easier. Note the small indent on the right hand side -- this was meant to be cut out, along the dotted line, so as to make turning the wheel with the instructions on it a bit easier.)

I've always wondered how many people actually put this thing together. -- PL

Blast from the Past #250: Chickpeas and lentils

Here's another pen and ink stipple piece (with a little bit of white-out) from the late 1970's/early 1980's. It's one of a number of vegetable drawings I did back then for "Hampshire LIfe", some of which ended up being used on the menu of one of my favorite restaurants in Northampton, Paul and Elizabeth's.



This was drawn from life -- I bought some dried chickpeas and lentils for reference. I remember being amazed at how convoluted the surface shapes of the chickpeas were. -- PL

Blast from the Past #249: Tea party

This is another piece I did for Hampshire Life, back in the late 1970's or early 1980's. -- PL

What lies beneath

Easthampton, MA is just a few miles south of Northampton. It's a nice little town. It has a lovely pond in the middle of the town, one I have enjoyed walking around and occasionally over (when it's frozen in the winter).

Recently, for reasons unknown to me, the pond was drained. It's been this way for several weeks, and a few days ago I happened to stop and take some shots of a view which I might never see again. I put them together into this little panorama, looking south across the pond from Cottage Street.


I've always found this kind of thing fascinating -- a glimpse of a secret world, revealed. -- PL

Fall is here...

As we enter the first week of November, we face the winding-down of the motorcycling season. The air is getting colder, the leaves have fallen from many of the trees and the wooded landscape is beginning to take on the somewhat skeletal appearance of late fall. But it hasn't snowed yet, and there are still a few times to get out and take a short ride.

Such an occasion was enjoyed by me last week, when unexpected warm temperatures and blue skies beckoned. I took the Victory out to Pittsfield and, on my way back on some roads I am only slightly familiar with, pulled over when I spotted this location.



It looked like a fine spot to stop and eat my lunch... and it was. -- PL

Blast from the Past #247: Fertility symbols

This is one of my favorite drawings from my freelance days. I'm pretty sure it was commissioned by and published in "The Real Paper", a somewhat short-lived "alternative" weekly paper out of Boston, MA.



I did this during my "stipple" period. -- PL

Tricky treat

Hallowe'en is now officially over for 2009, and I hope everyone who celebrated it had a great time. While going through a batch of files today, I stumbled across this funny illustration relating to the holiday that I drew years ago (back in the 1970's) for the "Hampshire Life" weekly supplement to Northampton's newspaper, "The Daily Hampshire Gazette". This was probably drawn for one of several columns I regularly illustrated -- probably "Life Line".



The thing I like most about this piece is how the grimace on the cheap molded-plastic "Hulk" mask accurately captures the likely disappointed reaction of the kid wearing the mask, who is given carrots instead of candy on Hallowe'en. -- PL

P.S. -- Don't forget to set your clocks back one hour today! (For those of you in "daylight savings time" regions.)