Sunday Snippets

As promised, here are a few close-ups of the "Night in the Orient" poster, showing some of the work in a much higher resolution. These are digital photos of the piece, so forgive any cloudiness/washiness of color. First off, let's have a look at our model from the waist up...

As is my habit, I've tipped her turban with metallic ink - a scanner-friendly method of capturing light, without clogging up the works via the tinsel I'm so fond of using (shown in the trapeze artist piece, in the last entry). I stuck with my trusty Prismacolors for her plumage, much as I did for that of her peacock friend...

Admittedly there are spots of ink in the tail, but largely the colored pencils are doing the work. Peacock feathers are a near-obsession for me - I love drawing them, and observing their incredible sense of fluidity and spectrum. I remember, years ago, a friend telling me that her family refused to allow them in her home - an old cultural bias, stating that they brought bad luck. I'm so grateful that my mother didn't believe in such hash, liberally distributing them throughout our home... particularly in the late 1970s. Her sense of style clearly influenced that of her daughter...
And finally, a little feature time for our feathered friend. His chest and tip of his tail have sadly been a touch washed thanks to the camera, but this will do. Granted, this poster reflects the all-encompassing attitude characteristic of the Oriental fox trot - that is, doing all that's possible to capture the cultures of the Middle East, as well as Asian countries. Thus the peacock, alongside a concubine and hookah. This type of music was a purely American invention, much like other pseudo-cultural crazes our country was so fond of getting wrapped up in during the early 20th century - I figured this was a suitable illustration to convey that sense of presumptuous exoticism, for lack of better term.

As an aside, another peacock memory has been stirred. My father, who was a deeply accomplished classical tenor, had a true knack for mimicking peacocks. If I had a dollar for every time he got those birds going during our Cincinnati Zoo visits, I'd be rolling in dough...