August Is Artist Appreciation Month
Recently, I was informed by the folks at
Patience Brewster about a project called 'Artist Appreciation
Month,' in which artists are invited to talk about an artist(s) who has
inspired them to create. Patience is an artist as well and designs
ornaments and unique gifts for Christmas and year round décor. I knew straight away this would be the perfect opportunity to
share with you a FANTASTIC artist and hopefully shed light on my early
days of struggling to find my ‘way of painting’ - notice I didn’t say
‘style’.
John Howe
My first major inspiration, and
the man who made me aware of illustration as a career, was John Howe.
Everybody, whether they know it or not, has at some point seen his
artwork, either on book covers, board games or in every single Peter
Jackson Tolkien film.
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| Make-up artists working on the Fellowship Of The Ring, stuck this image
on the mirror opposite Sir Ian McKellen as they turned him into Gandalf |
I’m not going to do a great big biography or go into any detail about
John Howe (
you can find that on his website) in this post, instead, I’m
going to concentrate on one single publication featuring his artwork -
the 2001 Tolkien Calendar, published by Harper Collins.
I have
been a big fan of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth since I was 9, when I read the
Hobbit for the first time. Not surprisingly at such a young age I didn’t
know anything about the huge wealth of Tolkien inspired artwork in the
world, so there was a big gap between reading the stories and finding
visuals. That happened at the age of 14, when I Christmas shopping in a
local independent book shop (remember those!) and I stumbled across John
Howe’s calendar. My world suddenly expanded as I bought it, got home
and started to flick through the 13 wonderful pages (13!? - there was a
pull out poster).
In my eyes, John Howe, had depicted the aged and menacing atmosphere of
the Lord Of The Rings perfectly. Even the painting of the Black Riders
in the Shire had a wonderful subtle creepiness and the gorgeous trees
and environments just topped the whole thing off.
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| Black Riders In The Shire |
Throughout all of the year 2001 (a Tolkien odyssey) I lovingly marvelled
at each month’s artwork and I even scrawled on the days, which is
something I had never done before or since. These days I just keep a
diary - not as exciting but easier to fit in a rucksack.
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| This poster of Sauron's forces attacking Minas Tirith remained on my wall until I left home for University. |
So how did this calendar inspire me? Well, for me it was the ‘Big Bang’.
Quickly following the calendar I found books (and websites) about John
Howe and other related artists. I started to use watercolour and I began
copying John’s paintings (no I won’t be posting those!), and even when,
during my foundation year, I had a hiatus from watercolour in favour of
oils (because w/c is just so hard), it was John Howe who brought me
back into the light and I picked up watercolour again determined to
crack it.
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| Gollum Flees The Elves Of Mirkwood |
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| The Argonath |
Since that first year of discovery, I have found other wonderful artists
and maybe I will post about some of those in the future. But because
John Howe was the first BIG inspiration, and the man who inspired me to
paint and attempt a career from my own artwork, he will always be at the
top of the pile. I’ve been fortunate enough to see his originals in a
small show at the
Illustration Cupboard, London, but unfortunately I
just missed meeting the man himself that day. Hopefully in the future
our paths will cross and I’ll get to be the awkward geeky fanboy I know I
really am.
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| Legolas And Gimli At Helms Deep |
To think about how I paint now, my first concern when beginning a
new illustration is ‘atmosphere’, be it based on temperature, weather
or emotion, I always want to convey some kind of atmosphere before the
viewer notices what the main character is doing. For that major
prerequisite you can thank that flipping calendar (it did actually flip
over you know)!
Below are more illustrations from the calendar.
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| Horsemen In The Night |
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| Zirak-zigil |
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| Gwaihir Rescues Gandalf From Orthanc |
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| Shelob About To Leap On Frodo |
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| The End Of All Things |
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| The Grey Havens |
