Influence FASHION MODEL ICONOGRAPHY
/There was an inspiration in the 70’s fashion movies. I suppose I should explain further, since they are.. dubious. I tend to absorb stimuli from the things that come into my life and evaluate which things I should hone in on that will help me, whether for enjoyment, to learn a lesson and that will be useful in order to do my best work as a young boy discovering my artistic gift, these movies had a good stimuli to work with. When painting beautiful woman, they have to look clean polished and there’s hair and cloth and tree sometimes beads or fur or flowers. And they taught me how to work with models.
In 1976 I was12, living in a small superb nestled between Napa and an Air force base since my stepfather was a officer and a pilot. I remember Diana Ross was already a huge power way back then, when a diva was still an opera singer! Mahogany was an event. I remember a friend of my mother’s telling me the movie play by play! The song was#1 forever! It has crazy with crazy clothes but you look at her clothes and the clothes in 5th element and you just know Gaultier was taking notes! And the big message of is her larger but shallow fashion job more important that his much smaller but more important political one. Fashion is art so there you go! I think one reason there are not more female artists is that so many creative woman use it their day to day styling, make up and hair to express their creativity, that doesn’t work as well with men. After Mahogany , Lipstick came out, about a model getting raped and then eventually shooting him in a red sequin gown in a parking lot with a hunting rifle. Margaux Hemingway( the’ Babe’ model) was one of the first wave of supermodels along with Gia, Cheryl Tiegs, and Beverly Johnson! She was the first Portrait did,, on typing paper. She had such strong features she was easy to capture so it was encouraging. I even used the opening sequence billboard design ( in which it’s just the features and no hairline or jawline.) to do a portrait of My sister Donna but with an iris covering one eye in mine. I drew Maurgaux many times in many ways. A couple of year later Eyes of Laura Mars came out and I was gone I was doing pastureland pencil work (see yesterday’s post) and tubed watercolors all on board. I really liked the one model Lulu, she had a long nose and piercing eyes. the above painting is one of my earliest acrylic on canvas. It’s a commentary on violence in art. Playboy ( remember this is 70’s suburbia/ air force culture, Playboy was very important) ran a feature on the photos used in the movie by Helmut Newton and Rebecca Blake. So I had the faces to work with, also Mad magazine also did a spoof of it so I used that as well. The features on the painting above is from that Mad Magazine. This is way before even Beta or VCR’s.. There was early Showtime so I could try to watch it whenever I could frantically sketching away, pages filled with random eyes and lips. I remember feeling really stressed even though I could have put down the pencil anytime. The last on my list came out 1980, Looker with Susan Dey and being that The Partridge Family was the second Album I ever bought after ABC by the Jackson Five I was in. It also had Terri Welles, a beautiful Playboy playmate of the year. It has a great beach scene where Susan has to repeatedly fall onto the sand. I used this pose once for an Eve painting making it grass. and an apple. It’s focus’s on how computer’s had to perfect commercial’s since the actresses weren’t perfect. One final asset I’ve come to find out is that these fashion sequences go amazingly well with Lady Gaga’s songs. I plan to Yout ube them so I’ll keep you posted. The opening to Mahogany syncs well with” Nothing else I can say” the Orange Dragon dress scene goes well with “So Happy I Could Die” Lipstick’s opening sequence goes well with “I Like it Rough” Laura Mars’ studio fashion shoot ( with the Ah Ah Eh Eh song) goes well with “Bad Romance” and the Looker beach scene goes well with “Summerboy”