Saturday, August 9, 2008

Happy Birthday, Garrison Keillor


Although I'm two days late. About 15 or 20 years ago I read a string of Keillor's books, Lake Woebegone Days and collections of his random pieces, and I enjoyed them. He gets too folksy sometimes, especially on his radio show, but he can make me laugh, and I think he's at his best in the short comic sketches, like The Tip Top Club.
This drawing was done around 1987, when I was enamored with colored pencils. You can do wonderful things with them, if you've got time but who does? I still like this drawing just fine, though I couldn't replicate it today because I"ve gotten sloppier. I did it from a simpler pen & ink sketch that was drawn for the Wash Post Book World, and it went on to get a Silver Funny Bone from the Society of Illustrators. The SoC doesn't give out Funny Bones any more which is unfortunate as they make useful and attractive blunt weapons. I got a string of freelance work out of this piece, and the Beethoven drawing I did around the same time in a similar style, but eventually I found it was a mistake to promote this work, though fun to do occassionally when not on a deadline.

6 comments:

paul bowman said...

Such a face deserves such a fine drawing.

Did you ever get comment from or have contact w/ Mr Keillor, before or afterward?

richardcthompson said...

Thanks, Paul. I like the new blog, by the way, it's elegant. But no, I never approached Keillor. Sometimes it's best not to hear from the subject of a caricature, even a somewhat flattering one.

Stacy Curtis said...

Do you do work now that is not in your Cul de Sac drawing style?

You are a master of each of the styles you have allowed us to see. It blows my socks off!

I
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sock

richardcthompson said...

Yeah, the CdS stuff is what I'd call naturalistic-cartoony, with maybe a childish element to it. It'd be fun to push it into a more expressionistic style, like I dunno, Feininger. He'd be fun to steal from. But the caricature work I do now isn't too much like CdS, though it is pen & ink.

You'll notice I'm not showing you the crummy stuff. Like a job I did in this colored pencil style for Esquire on Dan Quayle about 16 years ago. It pretty much sucked, and I threw all evidence of it into a dumpster. So put you socks back on.

paul bowman said...

Many thanks for the compliment.

I hope to find the new setup pulls me back into drawing a bit more frequently. We'll see.

Mike Rhode said...

Lovely, absolutely lovely.