U is for Urquhart McVarish

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts stumped me at first-- not too many "U" characters out there, & I have a personal rule for this series that I'm only going to do books that I've read & enjoyed. But then I remembered Robertson Davies' The Rebel Angels, featuring the devious Urquhart McVarish, manuscript thief & all-around nasty schemer. The book is a dark take on academic life, part of a trilogy on themes of art, music & letters, religion, skepticism & tarot-reading, along with many other philosophical musings. I found it quite entertaining, although my favorite Davies novel remains Fifth Business.

In this scene Urky has stolen a manuscript by Rabelais & I tried to suggest the master's signature, very loosely based on a letter in which he signs his name in the Latin form, Rabelesus (obligingly including a "u"), but please don't try to make sense of my Latinoid scribbles otherwise! Also, I couldn't really remember Urky's physical description, so forgive me if I'm way off-- I just didn't have time to reread the whole book.

I did my best to make the whole figure (including ms.) form a certain letter, though... do "u" see it? ;-)

Acrylic on text scanned from a 1983 Penguin paperback.

T is for Toad

If you are here from Illustration Friday, you may not know about AlphaBooks, the group drawing project run by Rich Barrett, Andrew Neal & Ben Towle.

AlphaBooks is the name of the game. We will be drawing ficitonal characters from books every week - one for each letter of the alphabet. On the first day (Monday, May 21), everyone will draw characters whose names start with the letter “A.”  The following monday, we’ll draw characters whose names start with the letter “B.” And so on! 


If you'd like to submit your own artwork to the project, please join us! It's loads of fun. You can jump in late with any letter you like so long as you don't go ahead of the game.

My entry for AlphaBooks this week is one of the main characters in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. This is a classic children's tale that tells of the gentle, rural pursuits of Badger, Mole & Ratty... & then there's Mr. Toad. A bit of a spoiled-frat-boy type, he's obsessed with the latest must-have technology, which at the time was the motorcar. His headstrong ways lead to all sorts of misadventures, but his loyal, patient friends always save the day.

Acrylic on text scanned from a 1969 Yearling paperback, ~ 5.5"x8.5" Do you see all the "T"s?

Book Preview!

For a long time I thought I might not live to see the day that this book finally became real, but I have an advance copy on my desk, so I guess it is happening! Below it is the original acrylic painting for the cover.
It should be available sometime in October!

Voracious

This is an older painting (created for my local library), but I haven't posted it on this blog before, & by a curious coincidence, I just added it to my Etsy shop yesterday! (Prints of it, that is, by special request.)

Once again Illustration Friday seems to be reading my mind. ;-) Although, come to think of it, nearly any of my paintings would fit the "book" prompt-- especially the AlphaBooks series!

Acrylic on maps & text on canvas, 12" x  24"