This post came from my second Kickstarter Campaign — and I’m giving it a permanent home here — enjoy!
Most likely like many of you, I first started learning to draw by recreating favorite characters — the Pink Panther, Uncle Scrooge, the Ninja Turtles and also (it was the 80s so of course!) My Little Ponies. I'd carefully recreate them in poses that I found in books, comic books, magazines, etc. And now, drawings from Hollow Knight, Minecraft and often Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon tend to find their way all over our house. It's always fun to see things come full circle!
And, ditto with music. I was taught how to play piano and cello — but then as a teenager picked up guitar on my own. When I taught myself how to play, I mostly just listened to things that I loved and then worked to recreate it. Obviously, my guitar rendition was never as fancy as what the original artist intended, but listening carefully, dissecting things apart and then trying to piece them back together with my own fingers and voice really helped me learn.
While creating a straight up reproduction of someone's work is a great way to get the nuts and bolts down, one of the things that I find helpful when looking to learn what I can from another artist's work is to study a volume of it. What patterns emerge? How do they deal with composition? Working backwards, what do I think their approach to creating is? Then I like to think about those key attributes and work them into something that is really inspired by them but not copied from them (like Lulu here) as a tribute.
Today, Lulu and I are celebrating Peter Max's birthday with a new self-portrait! It's worth your time to check out his stuff if you're unfamiliar. He has a huge body of work that started with pop art and psychedelic art in the 60s and then morphed into more expressionistic (but still vibrant and pop-arty) paintings in the 80s and beyond.
So I hope the next time a drawing of a new favorite character crosses your path — that you'll think of Lulu — and both celebrate what's been drawn but also nudge that little one to draw up a new friend for that character and tell you all about them!
Thanks so much for sharing about Lulu and supporting the project — all of you are amazing! Lulu and I can't do this without you!
