Wednesday, May 7, 2008

"Carnival of the Animals" - NFS

Click on image to enlarge.



The last two weeks have been heavy duty spring cleaning duty for my studio and office. That has resulted in both good and bad things. It's so great to be organized again and to have found all the "lost forever" items that cause much stress. I actually found a $50 gift certificate to an art supply store from Christmas of 2000. I moved in 2001 and have been looking for it since then! I also looked at a lot of illustration work filed away in flat storage not seen in ages and brought some out for showing. The bad thing is all this moving of furniture and boxes gave me a bit of neck and shoulder pain keeping me out of the mood to paint. Twice to the chiropractor this week should make me good as new and ready to paint again in the next day or two.

I felt the need to post SOMETHING today and am sharing with you an illustration done in 1992 for Dove Audio in Beverly Hills, California. The CD cover is for "Carnival of the Animals", the well know classical piece by Camille Saint-Saens. The art director for this gave me a rough layout and instructed me to produce the art in the style of the French painter Henri Rousseau (1844-1910). He was a post-impressionist painter in the Naive or Primative manner. His best known paintings depict jungle scenes, even though he never left France or saw a jungle. The artwork was also made into a poster for a live benefits concert to support animal causes. The work is oil on gesso'd illustration board and measures 13"x 9". I can't tell you how many hours this took, but I know I only made about $10 an hour!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, very Rousseau! Great to see this other side of your work! Funny (not ha ha) about your neck and shoulder. Don't tell me it's your right side. I've strained my neck and right shoulder too when I was doing a bit of gardening. Very timely before a trip to do some plein air backpacking! Seems like this "taking a break from painting" can be hazardous to the health!

Marilyn M. King said...

My pain is on the left side, so it shouldn't affect the artistic side of my brain as much the right side will yours. You'd better get that fixed before your painting trip for sure!

I think it was YOUR idea to "take a break from painting" - thanks a lot!

Marilyn M. King said...
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Marilyn M. King said...
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Anonymous said...

I agree with J.Y. very Rousseau. If Rousseau means cute little painted animals. I bet coming from this type of work you are not yet comfortable with wet paint running down your canvas.