Blast from the Past #334: Superhero idea for "Big Y" advertisements

As you may know if you've followed this blog long enough, early in my illustration career I was fortunate to get several illustrating jobs for a local chain of supermarkets called "Big Y". As I remember, the work wasn't terribly interesting (drawing platters of fruit or cheese or cold meats), but it paid pretty well.

I'm not sure why I did the following conceptual drawing back in 1981 -- I doubt I was asked to do it -- but perhaps I had developed enough of a relationship with my contact at Big Y to feel comfortable making this kind of suggestion. And it was a true comic book geek-type suggestion: Use a superhero to sell groceries!

Yeah.

As you might expect, it didn't go over that well. Too bad -- it might have been fun to work on a campaign like that. -- PL

Blast from the Past #333: Cover art for Smith College Alumni magazine

I think this one was drawn in the late 1970's… possibly 1980 or 1981. It was a job I got through a woman I'd met while she was working at the Daily Hampshire Gazette, and when she moved over to Smith College to be the editor (I think) of their alumni magazine, she remembered me and hired me to do a few gigs for the alumni magazine. Several of the drawings were pretty straightforward, illustrating various stories or articles in the magazine. I only got one job doing a cover for the magazine, and this was it.

And it was kind of odd, especially for a publication from Smith College -- a spectral woman walking through an ivy-covered brick wall. I know that I drew this to symbolize something in the magazine, perhaps the theme of that particular issue -- I don't recall. I do remember that it was fun to draw.

Here's the (very rough) rough drawing I did for the piece.

I have a vague -- and quite possibly flawed -- memory that the woman who gave me the job was shortly thereafter let go from that position, and I always felt a little guilty that maybe this slightly strange drawing had something to do with it. If I am remembering correctly, and that did indeed happen… I'm sorry! -- PL

Enter the blogger...

It was on December 26, 2009, that my brother Bruce put up his first blog post. He followed that up with about half a dozen more, then stopped.

Time passed.

Then, almost two years later to the day from that first post, he posted again -- and now he's started to do it regularly. I couldn't be happier, as it appears that the last two years spent haranguing my brother to get serious about his blog have paid off.

(I haven't really gotten on his case too much… I think. I've just been, uh, encouraging him to post more. Yeah, that's the ticket.)

Seriously, I am really looking forward to seeing what he does with this thing. We live quite a distance apart from each other, and don't get to hang out nearly as much as I'd like to, so this could turn out to be a great way to keep up on a regular basis with what he's up to, especially in the development of his art projects (painting and photography, mostly). I hope he puts up lots of stuff about his process, and shots of work in progress.

Bruce's willingness to try new things and produce lots of stuff has always impressed me. I am proud to be the owner of four of his paintings, all of which hang in our house. No, wait, make that five (I forgot the awesome "Mr. Spock" one he did for me two Christmases ago… how illogical!).

Please join me in welcoming my brother Bruce Laird into the blogging realm. His life will never be quite the same again! -- PL

Blast from the Past #332: Drawing for Artisan Outlet Market Square Day 10K Road Race

Sometimes these days, when I am going through some old stuff looking for something interesting to post, I come across something that I sort of remember drawing… but that's about it. I don't remember exactly WHY, or WHEN, or WHERE, or for WHOM… but the drawing was clearly done by me, and clearly done for SOME reason.

So it is with this piece, with the integral "Artisan Outlet Market Square Day 10K Road Race" logo. I drew it in 1984, and I am pretty certain that it was while we were living in Dover, NH. To add to that certainty, I did a Google search for "Market Square Day" and Portsmouth (because I also had a vague memory of a Portsmouth, NH connection) and, sure enough, I got 37,800 hits. I only looked at a few of the results on the first page, but apparently there is a long-running (no pun intended) tradition of a road race in Portsmouth, held each June.

So it is very likely that I drew this thing in or around May or June of 1984, just a few months before Jeannine and I packed up our bags and boxes and moved down to Sharon, CT. But…

… WHY did I draw it? It has the look of a piece of art designed to be used on a t-shirt, but I don't recall ever owning a t-shirt with this drawing on it (and if t-shirts had been made with my artwork on them, I would have been sure to get at least one of them). I don't recall being commissioned to draw it, and I can't think of WHO I would have been hired by to do it.

Was it something I did totally on spec, and sent it in to the organizers of the event, hoping it would be used? Possibly. At this point, unless I can find mention of it in my copies of letters and such from that period, it's all conjecture.

But the main reason I am posting this is that the Fugitoid appears in it, and I find that kind of amusing. I can't imagine that anyone outside of me and Kevin and some close friends and family members even knew who or what the Fugitoid was back then. Certainly none of the road race organizers would have. Why did I include him in this design? I have no idea… just like I have no idea why I also included the small and slightly demented-looking Tyrannosaurus.

In any event, whatever the original purpose of this piece, I like it. -- PL

So this was Christmas...

… and what have I done? I've taken down the Christmas tree, that's what.

We typically leave the tree up until the first day or two of January. This time, Jeannine liked having it so much that she rechristened the sun room the "Christmas tree room". But all holidays come to an end, and the tree was beginning to drop lots of dried needles, so it was time for it to go.

Yesterday I'd taken all the ornaments off the tree… or at least I thought I had. While taking down the tree, I found four ornaments that had escaped my searching gaze.

I got out my loppers, or pruning shears I guess is what they are really called, and set to work. It usually only takes about ten minutes or so to cut all the branches off the tree. Here it is about three-quarters done…

… and here, totally shorn of branches.

At my request, Jeannine took a few shots of me wielding the loppers (I don't usually wear my hat backwards, but I had been sitting near a window and the sun was right on my neck, so I threw my hat on like that).

And then once the tree was stripped of its verdant finery, it joined the last few years' collection of Christmas tree trunks in the garage…

… waiting for me to someday make good on my idea of turning them into walking sticks or something. Maybe that would be a good New Year's resolution. -- PL

Sublimation

I would prefer to see the sun today, and it's possible that I will as the day goes on, but when I got up this morning and stepped out on our back deck, this is what I saw:

This kind of fog from sublimation of the snow (passing from a solid state to a vaporous state without first going through a liquid state) usually only happens in the spring, but today's temperature is a relatively (for Massachusetts on the second day of January) balmy forty degrees. I am not going to get my hopes up for a REALLY early spring, though... I know this is an anomaly. -- PL

Entering the new year

I looked through a bunch of my old artwork, hoping to find something specifically "New Years"-related, but I only found a few, and I'm pretty sure I've already posted them. So I decided to use this one -- it is a drawing I did in the early 1980's, I believe, when I was involved with a local "Nuclear Freeze" group.

I've always liked the idea here, that of a robot doing the classic "hammering swords into plowshares" thing (based on the Biblical text from the book of Isaiah):

"They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."

I am not certain if this art was ever used for anything. But I did feel that it is appropriate as we enter a new year with hopes for peace… because that's an essential element for the true path to a "Happy New Year".

Have a great (and peaceful) one, everybody! -- PL