Art Self-Edited

I have been working at illustration and drawing for the majority of my life, but it took computer technology and digital photography to allow me to maximize the use of my abilities.  Let me go through a couple of case in points.

The Red-Haired Girl picture is a good example of what I can do.  I originally drew the picture to illustrate a Charlie Brown poem.   Here is the poem if you don’t remember it.  (A convenient excuse to re-post something and fill this post with words already written.)

Little Red-Haired Girl

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown

That little red-haired girl, so cute, so nice

You only looked and looked from afar

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown

You could’ve held her hand

You could’ve walked her home from school

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown

She never got your Valentine

At least, you forgot to sign your name

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown

No hope of marriage now, nor children for old age

Happily ever after has now long gone

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown

Now every love poem is a sad poem

And the world is blue and down

You never told her that you loved her…

You never told her that you loved her…

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown.

You may not see what I did without looking at the two pictures very closely.  The better, more brightly-lit photo is not the answer.  I originally created the Red-Haired Girl as a Charley-Brown-y creation complete with a bigger than natural head, a Charley-Brown head.

I have ulterior motives for my evil cartoon manipulations.  I like this image I have created very much, in fact, one might say that I have fallen in love with it just a bit…  Pygmalion-like.  I wanted to use the image to illustrate Anita Jones, a character from my book Superchicken.  Anita is the fictional re-imagining of a girl that I had a deep and abiding crush on (possibly still existing today, though she is now a grandmother in real life.)  She is literally my little red-haired girl.  So what did I do?  Look closely.  I lovingly shrank her head.  Yes, like the headhunters of old, I used the paint program on my computer to shrink it, re-attach it, and make it more human-like.  Realistic proportions, though only a very slight change by actual percentages, make a realistic difference in how real the viewer perceives her to be.

I know you probably think I am full of goofy-gas to make such claims.  If you don’t see the difference in the first example, perhaps you will see it here.  Compare these two David Copperfield pictures carefully.  Look at Little Emily’s head.

You don’t have to believe me, but it does make a difference.