Courtney Love

17″x13″ watercolor on 140lb Arches paper

This piece is AVAILABLE through Just Looking Gallery at http://justlookinggallery.com/

“An artist, by nature of the joy he finds in his work and by constant excitement over everything he sees, keeps him young…forever. “  -Bill Nelson, Artist/Illustrator

This is another of my newspaper illustrations from the 90s. It is Courtney Love, widow of grunge rocker Kurt Cobain. I did the piece for an article in the newspaper about her life after Cobain’s death. She has apparently lived a life so on the edge that most of us can’t comprehend. Mostly sad, mostly tragic. It’s hard as an illustrator sometimes, particularly those of us who do “loaded portraits”, as the Brits once called them, caricatures, as they are referred to in America (a limiting term in my opinion), to portray someone so tortured. Our job is to try and look deeper, maybe pull out more of the personality, or maybe another side of the personality, always probing deeper. It’s a fine line to walk and one that is both exciting and at times perilous and downright strange.

This past weekend I found several of my illustration “heroes” on facebook and was thrilled to “friend” many of them. The above quote was by one of them, Bill Nelson. Bill was a star illustrator in the 70s when I began my career, doing cover work for the likes of  The New Yorker, Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly. He was one of many that I looked up to. Still do. He took the time to write me a long, thoughtful and encouraging message on facebook. Today, he is still very much a vital and productive artist reaching beyond the limits of the struggling publishing industry to produce some of the best work of his life. Check out his website, you won’t be sorry. Thank you, Bill.  Enjoy!

http://www.billnelsonstudios.com/