A Beatle related drawing a week for a year... That's
how I started this blog. If you are looking for my Beatle related posts, check the buttons below from February 9th 2010 through
February 9th, 2011. Now I just draw what I feel. Check out my new book, Amglish, published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers;
order on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Amglish-Like-Ten-Easy-Lessons/dp/1442211679
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Something New
| Here's a sketch done entirely on the iPad. It's from the pub scene in A Hard Day's Night, just after
Ringo has thrown the dart. It was a little bit of a headache to keep the pause on my DVD player on the scene while managing
the sketchpro software , but whoomp, there it is....
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Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Big In JapanIn the summer of 1966, over protests from Japanese traditionalists, the Beatles played 5
shows at the Budokan auditorium. I thought it was interesting, and a timely followup to last week’s post about
George’s early trip to India. Here was the band immersed in Japan. For John, his immersion in things Japanese presaged
his marriage to Yoko Ono. Though a rebel against the strictures of Japanese society, Yoko is still a child of the culture.
So here’s John in performance at the Budokan, an earlier Pacific Overture.
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Tuesday, October 12, 2010
George discovers India
| During this week in 1966, John was in Almeria, Spain, filming “How I won the War”, Paul was
working on the score for the film “The Family Way”, and George decided to take a sojourn under the radar to India.
He wanted ot study sitar, yoga , and Indian culture. the trip did not stay secret, but George was able to stay in the country
for 6 weeks-- eighteen months before the far more famous trip the Fab Four made to Rishikesh.
I have never been
a huge fan of George’s Indian influenced Beatles songs, but it obviously meant the world to him, and this was a profound
influence that stayed with him till the day he died.
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Tuesday, October 5, 2010
It’s Johnny’s Birthday!John Lennon was the leader of the Beatles, at least at first; it was never “Long Paul
& the Silver Beatles”, of course. Since these guys met as teens, John never stopped being the “older brother”
of the band, even if he stopped being interested in leading the band toward the last few records, while Paul tried gamely
to fill the vacuum of both Lennon and the late Brian Epstein.
And while the Beatles would never have been
the success they were without the strong melodic approach and groundbreaking bass of Paul McCartney, nor the junior varsity
writing of George Harrison, it was the hungry need of John Lennon that drove their early days. “Look At Me”
was an early John solo song, and I think he was saying that in his drive to succeed: “Look at me, Mum and Dad, look
at me Auntie, I do have talent and some people like me”. His pain and unfixable sorrow was the early fire in their boiler;
when he topped out and became more than he dared hope, it wasn’t enough. And Yoko eventually provided a better balm
for his pain than did the band and worldly fame.
John Lennon would have been 70 years old this Saturday. I have
chosen to do him at a point when he was fully engaged in the band: the Sgt. Pepper debut. Here he is as one of the Psychedelic
Lords of Swinging London. Thanks for the music; Jai guru deva!
A note about this blog: this is the final portrait
of individual band members (done in acrylic gouache), and Lennon’s birthday marks the ninth full month of this year
long project, which started on February 9th, 2010. I have seen through my analytics that I have readers on 6 continents, but
get little actual feedback in comments. So if you like the work, drop me a comment. If you don’t, maintain radio silence;-)
War is over, if you want it! |  |
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