1961-62: Of the 76 pencil drawings on 8-1/2″ x 11″ bond paper that date from my last two years in high school, over 20 of them feature single figures drawn in profile as seen at left.
These drawings of pretty women dressed in clothes, either contemporary fashions or costumes inspired by variety shows and movies seen on television, are all drawn in monotone with no color added. They feature full-length figures, often daintily walking in painfully high heels, as shown in the top set of drawings featuring knee-length dresses. In the second set however the feet are missing. So what happened? It looks like I ran out of room; apparently with time and experimentation, I started drawing larger heads which dictated drawing larger figures, which sometimes meant that there was no room left for the feet. Poor planning possibly; or possibly I found feet more difficult to draw, and I just wanted to take a break…
At left and below, more fashion and costume designs seen in profile, these featuring long dresses, which gave me the option to pass on drawing feet altogether.
Beauty Queens on Parade:
Egypt
Greece
Spain
Another set of three, with the first based on Queen Elizabeth I of England, plus two imaginative amalgams of ancient and modern. Was Hollywood influencing me much? I’m not sure if the inspiration for the Queen Elizabeth drawing came from reproductions of painted portraits or the Bette Davis movie which I probably saw on TV in my early teens. If the movie, I obviously didn’t try to copy Bette’s face too closely.
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