Freas-Lawrence

FREAS-LAWRENCE - A Black ink and color pencil drawing on a 9 x 12 size vellum paper, circa 1966.

This is another "copy" drawing that I did in my spare time. The red-haired man in my drawing is a copy of Kelly Freas's figure on the cover of Astounding SF Apr. 1955. The female figure is a copy of a Lawrence Stevens figure on the cover of Famous Fantastic Mysteries Aug. 1949.

It was around this time that I began thinking about not "copying" any more, I thought it was time to create my own pictures, and coming up with my own style. But after copying so many drawings from Loomis's art instruction books, and the many drawings I did copying my favorite SF artists, how was I going to come up with my own style?

I decided to draw real people, animals, and a variety of objects that I saw photographed in magazines like" Vermont Life," "Sports Illustrated," "Playboy," and others. And after a few months of that I came to see what my own style looked like, and decided not to worry about "style" any more. I concentrated on things like composition, lighting, mood, perspective, and a lot of other things related to the making of "pictures".

Some fans have told me they can spot my artwork instantly, and I'm pleased to hear that. Though my artwork may show the influence of the artists that I learned from, my own identity does dominate my work, and I'm happy with that.