{"id":186,"date":"2003-06-13T15:06:49","date_gmt":"2003-06-13T15:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/?p=186"},"modified":"2020-09-25T08:40:03","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T07:40:03","slug":"stepping-right-off-the-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/stepping-right-off-the-page\/","title":{"rendered":"Stepping Right Off The Page"},"content":{"rendered":"

STEPPING RIGHT OFF THE PAGE<\/h2>\n

Or Where I\u2019m Allowed One Wish\u2026<\/p>\n

It seems like ages ago that the original of Gandalf the Grey was stolen from an exhibition.
\nhttp:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/forum\/smf\/index.php?topic=1905.0
\nI\u2019ve often been asked if I could paint it again, but you can only go once to places like that.
\nHowever, Gandalf is on his way back.
\nI\u2019ve put in an order.
\nOne Gandalf, please.
\n(And hold the onions.)
\nLet me start again; several months ago I saw a most exquisite one-third scale figure of a pirate who looked like he had just boarded an enemy ship and was really looking forward to business at hand. Not only was the detailing astounding, but the movement and personality were incredibly well captured.
\nAmazing, I thought, but I\u2019m not THAT fond of pirates\u2026
\nLuckily for me though, the artist sculptor Oscar Nilsson does accept crazy commissions, so while I may never get the Gandalf painting back, I\u2019ll have something perhaps even better.
\nOscar lives in Stockholm, and has been sculpting professionally for museums and collectors for over a decade. He habitually works in one-quarter or one-third scale as well as full size. I won\u2019t pile on the compliments ad infinitum, his work speaks very persuasively for itself. He has a new web site under construction, but you can visit the present one at [url=http:\/\/www.odnilsson.com]http:\/\/www.odnilsson.com<\/a>[\/url]
\nBest of all, he has granted me permission to post images of the Gandalf-in-progress and has promised to keep me well supplied in jpegs. If all goes well, they will also be published in a book on model-making, but more on that later.
\nI don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019ve been practicing holding my breath lately. Can\u2019t wait.
\nMore next time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\n<\/center><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Top left and centre: Rough sculpts of Gandalf\u2019s face. The face, from occiput to chin, (not including the beard) is about 7.5 cm.
\nTop right: Stick Gandalf (I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s not finished yet\u2026)
\nBottom left: Pirate, one-third scale (photo: Lars Heydecke)
\nBottom right: A 17th century gentleman (photo: Lars Heydecke)
\nAll images \u00a9 Oscar Nilsson<\/p>\n

Blast From the Past:<\/p>\n

I recently received a copy of THE STUDIO, which was more or less the book I dropped off to sleep with for most of my art school years. The book, published by Dragon\u2019s Dream (remember them?) was a kind of New Yorker\u2019s Neo-Pre-Raphaelite collection of four artists\u2019 work: Jeff Jones, Michael Kaluta, Barry Windsor-Smith and Berni Wrightson, who had all assumed demi-god status in my eyes. Then several years later, I lent the book to a friend and of course never saw it again\u2026 until last week. Now, if I can just track down the guy I lent the other one to\u2026
\nFestival Fare:<\/p>\n

The NIFFF is fast approaching. No, it\u2019s not some deadly new contagious disease, but the Neuch\u00e2tel International Fantastic Film Festival*, from July 1st to 7th. I love this festival for many reasons, firstly because it\u2019s not often that Neuch\u00e2tel has festivals, but mostly \u2018cause I can attend on my bike. (Neuch\u00e2tel doesn\u2019t have a lot of parking either.) This year\u2019s NIFFF has two incredible astounding amazing international guests – Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop and Lord of the Rings fame, and Ray Harryhausen, who is the king of frame-by-frame animation and still pretty spry at 80 or so years of age. (I\u2019ll be there too, once I get my bike parked.) There\u2019s also an exceptional selection of films and enough caf\u00e9 terraces along the lake to last the whole week.
\nMy gallery show will be the whole week in Neuch\u00e2tel, at the Th\u00e9atre du Passage, cocktail Friday July 4th at 7 p.m. if you want to come and chew the fat. (Yuck, where did an expression like THAT come from, eh?) More info to come.
\n(* I love that title. Does it mean that the festival is fabulous or that the films are great? It does, though,\u00a0 aptly bear witness to the near-impossibility of translating some terms and genres from one culture\/language to another. Nothing crosses the Atlantic – either way – unchanged. Ooooh, now there\u2019s a good subject in whose deep, murky and well-stocked waters it would be good to trawl. Where\u2019s my windbreaker?)<\/p>\n

Reading glasses:<\/p>\n

Felt like I needed them after struggling though Kant and the Platypus by Umberto Eco. I hope I understand a bit more of it when I try it again. Luckily I picked up Serendipities (alphabetical order by author\u2019s name to the rescue once again!) which is more my style (i.e. slimmer volume, short chapters, easier to read, does not require latin studies).
\nOn the drawing board:<\/p>\n

A huge castle. If I could only figure out some painless way to do all those tiny little bricks\u2026
\nRe-enacting Up:<\/p>\n

The Companie of Saynt George is participating in a big event in Bern, Switzerland in mid-August. (Too far for me to go by bike, but a great chance to get away from the drawing table\u2026) More on that in a month or so. In the meantime: http:\/\/www.companie-of-st-george.ch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STEPPING RIGHT OFF THE PAGE Or Where I\u2019m Allowed One Wish\u2026 It seems like ages ago that the original of Gandalf the Grey was stolen from an exhibition. http:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/forum\/smf\/index.php?topic=1905.0 I\u2019ve often been asked if I could paint it again, but you can only go once to places like that. However, Gandalf is on his way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,22,53,18],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles","tag-companie-of-saynt-george","tag-gandalf","tag-oscar-nilsson","tag-tolkien"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1PY8Y-30","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}