The Cave in the Forest - 2
37. THE CAVE IN THE FOREST 2 - A black ink and black color pencil drawing on an 11 x 14 size coquille board. It appears in the book, "THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD," by Jack Vance, published by Underwood-Miller in 1977.
Most of the time when I draw or paint, I listen to music coming from my radio or CD player, and I try to select something I think will be appropriate for the kind of artwork I am working on. When I was working on this fantasy story I remember selecting "Scheherazade" by Rimsky Korsakov to listen to because it has a wonderful fantasy aura to it and I like to combine favorites, and Vance is one of my favorite fantasy writers. But the music of Scheherazade is so beautiful and inspiring that I often stopped working just to listen, and so it took me a lot longer to do these drawings than I usually take.
But sometimes the music I select doesn't quite work out, as when I began working on a drawing for a story titled, "The Old Ways are Best" for Dragon Magazine (see drawing 306.). A note from the editor said "this is the funniest story ever written," so I decided to listen to the crazy music of Spike Jones to put me in a light mood hoping it would carry over into the drawing. But just a minute into it, I jumped out of my chair and stopped the music, it was too mind-jarring, especially when the singer shouted, "Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Right in the Furer's face!" The blaring sound effects were too intrusive, it wasn't going to work. After just a minute of listening to Spike Jones it was a pleasure to work for a while in silence.
Most of the time when I draw or paint, I listen to music coming from my radio or CD player, and I try to select something I think will be appropriate for the kind of artwork I am working on. When I was working on this fantasy story I remember selecting "Scheherazade" by Rimsky Korsakov to listen to because it has a wonderful fantasy aura to it and I like to combine favorites, and Vance is one of my favorite fantasy writers. But the music of Scheherazade is so beautiful and inspiring that I often stopped working just to listen, and so it took me a lot longer to do these drawings than I usually take.
But sometimes the music I select doesn't quite work out, as when I began working on a drawing for a story titled, "The Old Ways are Best" for Dragon Magazine (see drawing 306.). A note from the editor said "this is the funniest story ever written," so I decided to listen to the crazy music of Spike Jones to put me in a light mood hoping it would carry over into the drawing. But just a minute into it, I jumped out of my chair and stopped the music, it was too mind-jarring, especially when the singer shouted, "Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Right in the Furer's face!" The blaring sound effects were too intrusive, it wasn't going to work. After just a minute of listening to Spike Jones it was a pleasure to work for a while in silence.
