Bob's ART du Jour

Hi, I'm Bob Eggleton and this is my painting and "life in general blog" but mostly paintings. Usually they're for sale. Anyway, if you like something contact me at zillabob@cox.net and ENJOY!!

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Location: New England, United States

I am a Hugo award-winning fantasy/SF artist who works on both publishing projects and film concept work(such as Jimmy Neutron and most recently, The Ant Bully) but I have a passion for landscape work, small paintings and exploring the properties of paint. This blog will mostly showcase my "painting-for-the-day" as kind of a personal voyage. I'll also be inserting sketches,photos and ideas of projects I am working on, that I can, when I can, so look for those every so often(usually as paint is drying!)

Monday, June 30, 2008

The Advice of The Dude!

People see me as mostly having a fun time with it all. Sure it gets stressful and weird but...as George Harrison said "All things must pass". It's SUMMER!!! Have fun!!! And for your musical pleasure...try two of my recent fave tunes. First is by Kid Rock and it's called "All Summer Long". How anyone manages to merge "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Werewolves of London" into one catchy-as-hell tune....check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwIGZLjugKA

Mad about gas prices? Who cares? In Europe they've been paying $10 a gallon for years!

So try Sheryl Crow Soaking Up The Sun...she even sings "I can't afford his gas" and the line I live by"It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you have"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOLcdm6wg7s

And have a drink of wine.

Art soon!

The Dude Abides...

Friday, June 27, 2008

A Craft of Love...Lovecraft pt 2

I have some art in a brand new book called A LOVECRAFT RETROSPECTIVE: THE ART OF H.P.LOVECRAFT. It's a HUGE tome, I kid you not. Anyway, I did part of an interview with the folks at io9.com and you can see my art and some of the other gorgeous stuff in there. Here I was in 1979, unable to take my eyes off the work of H.R. Giger's ALIEN designs...and now I am in the same book as him. Wow. Cool. Here's the link:

http://io9.com:80/5019979/tentacles-and-cosmic-sf-the-art-of-lovecraft

The "outtakes" of the interview are here too with a pic of the book itself:

http://io9.com:80/5019979/tentacles-and-cosmic-sf-the-art-of-lovecraft

It's funny, SFdom has a love/hate thing with horror. I'm CONSTANTLY quizzed as to why I would enjoy doing such often weird and grisly things. Hey, it's FUN!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

"If You Love Something...Set It Free...."

"....If it comes back to you...it's yours, if it doesn't it never was" An old saying. Never truer about this 30x40 piece I did in 1998 when my Dad was dying. It was done as a focus piece for me to get my mind onto something big and epic as opposed to working on a painting I hated doing while my Dad lay someplace with the life slowly draining. A few years ago, a "Big business well-moneyed" showoff type asked about buying the piece. I didn't really want to sell it. I told him the price anyway. It was not cheap-$$$$$$$$$. He bought it. I asked what I asked for it for the fact it's large and it means something to me. Sometime later, I find this person is an "art flipper"-he was trying to flip the work(like the housing market which we see what's happened there!) and make a buck on it. What that means is someone buys art not because they love it, but because it's some weird way of thinking they can invest in it. Art should never,ever ever be viewed as an "investment" but as something you buy because you like it. It's why I have the smaller $100-$300 paintings on this blog because they're something everyone can afford and they're bought mostly for the joy of them. Which I am only too happy to be the cause of.
In this case, the above painting, done out of love was stored away as a commodity. The other week, a really cool art dealer contacted me. He asked me if I wanted the painting back. He said he would trade me some other pieces-illustrations for covers specifically-for what he felt was fine art that, he couldn't effectively sell. Anyway, we did a deal and both of us are happy and, this painting, now, finds it's way back to me. Maybe it should never leave again? It's an example of what I really want to do alot more of-epic landscapes with drama and dynamism.
But a note on collecting art. It's fairly a sad fact in this country that alot of art collecting is done based upon what someone else says is "worth" or "they should have". People letting others tell them what to think instead of buying what they love. I run into alot of "Businessmen" who are like this about everything. My opinion of them, is not very high. Everything is a "bottom line". They have no passions or dreams save for the acquisition of wealth at the expense of anyone or anything that gets in their way. Mind you, not everyone is this way, and to those who are the exception rather than the rule, my hat is off to you.
And, a tribute here to George Carlin. He was one of my favorite comics ever. He sums up my opinion of the kind of " cigar smoking businessmen" I detest. WARNING-the language here is fairly coarse but man o' man is he deadly funny. GET THE KIDS OUTTA THE ROOM. Enjoy:

After The Storm....


So we had a storm of Biblical proportions. Wind, rain,hail(the size of marbles) and finally...a magnificent rainbow. I'm always fascinated by rainbows because they're what we see all the time-sunlight! But because of refractions of the rain in the air, they are broken down like a spectrum. This one was a double rainbow-you can see the vestiges in the upper picture off to the left. This one fully arced over the sky in such a way it was hopefully a portent of better things to come, at a time when things are pretty bad for alot of people. At June, it's a year you can't wait to be over.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Lovecraft City

Here's a conceptual drawing for a private commission based on H.P. Lovecraft's AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. I love working this way when I am able to and starting ideas with a whole lot of drawings. Drawings are so rare these days it seems save for movie concept work. But notice to the right, the effigy of Cthulhu which is crux of everything in Lovecraft's works.
I did this with charcoal, sepia and white on a toned paper.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

SOLSTICE!!!! Let The Sun Shine!!!

28,000 revelers at Stonehenge in the UK. I wish I coulda been there!!! Honoring the good things in this world, and casting off the bad stuff and bad ways of thinking. Happy Solstice-the longest day of the year, to all Pagans an partygoers who celebrate this day of the long sun!
Some Stonehenge inspired paintings are coming!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

From The Black Lagoon!!!

The Creature(9x12,oils SOLD)I did this one, more or less as a request from a good friend that lost out to another Creature I did back in the Fall. I'd told him I'd do a new one bigger for him, so before I even posted it, it was sold. It's also just by coincidence that I finished it on the day that Stan Winston left us. One of his big inspirations was The Creature from The Black Lagoon. Okay, hands up-who WASN'T amazed by this series of film? Anyone? Anyone? I thought so. My intention is to do more Universal monsters. Hey, it isn't just Godzilla you see.....

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

More Thoughts on Stan...

Stan Winston was an artist of the highest caliber. I ran across something he said, that I'll quote because it applies to many artists and sums up, in my own context, just how I live:

"There's nothing more important to me in my life than my family, and nothing will ever take over. I believe that's why the work shows as well as it is because my work is not a sacrifice. My work is a joy. I'm not sacrificing my family for my work. I go in and I love what I do. I love nothing more than my family, and now grand kids."-Stan Winston

This says so much. To any artists "work" should never ever be a "sacrifice" but joy. If you put "sacrifice" into something it'll look it-pained and stressed. If you put JOY into it, it will look effortless and fun. And it also says that we have to have the best of both worlds-family, friends, and the joy we create. Because all of that feeds your soul.

Stan Winston(1946-2008)

STAN WINSTON
I was stunned at the death of Stan Winston. This is the guy who brought dinosaurs to life in JURASSIC PARK. But that was only part of his world. In 1972, I saw a frightening film on TV called GARGOYLES. Little did I know the name but a young Stan Winston created the memorable make-up and suits for that film-this was in the day when "Movies of The Week" could be pretty amazing. Stan brought to life THE TERMINATOR(1984) and re-imagined the alien creatures in ALIENS(1986) and brought to the screen the final version of the monster in PREDATOR(1987). His credits are too numerous to mention only that he was part of our lives in that sense, for a very long time. He died yesterday, at his home, of Multiple Myeloma an illness he battled for 7 years and, did so quietly telling few people apparently. I had just been paging through his book(above) recently, marveling at the creations from his studio. I was completely stunned at this news-too many good people are leaving us it seems.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

The Art Corner Re-Opens!!!



On Saturday I was at The Art Corner, painting, and my wife Marianne, covered things lots better than I could, in writing, so here's her blog entry on the subject...


Thursday, June 12, 2008

Weather on my mind...

In a Fog(8x10,oils, SOLD)It Could be Bad(8x10,oils, SOLD)
I've been in a fog myself with allergies and, the weather is making alot of news lately. I did the top painting, as an exercise in cloud patterns and waves. Just sort of came out of me and I really enjoyed it-I like the hints of green. Constable painted alot of clouds all the time, and made an art of just clouds! The bottom image is again, my fascination and dreams about tornadoes. And my recent chats with John Brosio about the subject. I'm still really astonished how he emailed me, after I had a dream that night about tornadoes, and I'd admired his work for years but hadn't plucked up the guts to drop him a line.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

It's Allergy Time!

June may be wonderful and warm but...oh man do those allergies start kicking up. Sinuses are pretty tight and, worse, my ears(left one inparticular) are pretty gluggy. The problem completely disappears whilst sitting in the car with the A/C on full blast. Of course, then it's the use of gas. I'm officially in "slo-mo" this week.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Algis Budrys RIP

Just got late word that a friend and, classic SF writer Algis Budrys-"A.J." as we called him-has passed away. He had some serious health problems over the years and this all caught up to him unfortunately.

Something new....with wings!

Here's a new cover I did-it's in oil and 20x30 inches. It's for BARD'S OATH by Joanne Bertin. She finally has been writing her third book in a series started over ten years ago. I did a sketch for this, a few months ago and you can see how I changed things as it developed. I wanted to make the tree branches sort of working into the design of the castle and, the dragon, to tie it all together. The harp follows the angles of the dragon as well. I am a one for designing with alot of angles to create a sense of unease. My initial sketch had a ton of problems in it, and, Irene Gallo, who's a joy to work with, said I could ramp up the dragon a bit more. Personally, I think dragons are missing from covers these days, and we need to see more. There had to be a sense of gloom to it with maybe a ray of light to show some kind of hope. And I left room for type. Again, this goes to my mental note each time I start a cover: "K.I.S.S.-Keep It Simple Stupid". Remember it as it works.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

The Vulcan Mind-Meld?

At SF Signal- http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006741.html they did a "Mind Meld"
a bunch of artists and art directors were asked about how to best serve a book and sell it, with regards to cover art. Kind of a loaded question with alot of good responses responses from Irene Gallo, Todd Lockwood, Boris Vallejo, Bruce Jensen, Dave Seeley, John Picacio,Dan Dos Santos,Glen Orbik and, myself.

Cue cool Star Trek music from the 60's they always played when Spock was "melding".

Something visual, soon!