Tall Tuesday: There was a crooked man

What is this man doing?
a) the latest pilates moves
b) contemporary dance
c) having a Quaker epiphany
d) using an airplane toilet

Yes, the correct answer is (d). Being a 6'7" male makes using most airplane bathrooms a feat of contorsionism and balance, especially if turbulence is involved, so as to not create a mess of things. To add yet another element of difficulty is to prop a seat that will not stay up.

Sitting on one can be no joy either. For those with long legs that touch the door you have to decide whether to splay or hold the knees together and twisting to the side.

Darcy Villere (6'7") has a photo on his Facebook page that he took hunched over looking into an airplane bathroom mirror. I originally found it on his blog, The Tall Blog. He is dressed and it is safe for viewing.

About the art:
Below is the watercolor quick sketch thinking it would be more abstract and arty.

Next came this one made in ArtRage3 Studio Pro with its watercolor tool. A bit more exaggerated but too much shading to give it mass and still not very funny.


Finally I digitally inked over the watercolor in ArtRage3 to create a pure silhouette, which I think is a bit more comic.

Tall Tuesday: Airplane Seats

I was just able to fit this in before Tuesday is over! I had to finish an illustration job first.

Airplane seats are the bane of the extra tall everywhere. I had to fly for work recently and was able to enjoy one again. This sketch is from a couple years ago when I had to fly to Spain for an assembly line run off. It's pretty self explanatory.

About the art:

This is a scan from my one time experiment with a Moleskine sketchbook. They are attractive and solid, but I didn't care for the cream color paper and thought the texture was too smooth. It also took me time to use it feeling it was too precious to mess up a page. I don't sketch much from life due to time and lack of inspiration, but the facing page has some Montserrat.

Tall Tuesday: Idi Amin

On the opposite end of the political spectrum from Peter Garrett was Idi Amin, the military dictator and President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Based on this webpage he was between 6'3" and 6'4". The man was ruthless and brutal and responsible for untold thousands of deaths.

Forest Whitaker (6'2") did an amazing job portraying this man in "The Last King of Scotland."

I did a little research on him afterwards and noticed Amin's fixation with medals. I think I was trying to show how he cut the hand off of the puppeteer that thought he could control him in running Uganda. Tragically wrong.

Tall Tuesday: Peter Garrett

The 6'6" Peter Garrett is former lead singer of Midnight Oil and now Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts in Australia. He is probably best known in the States from the "Beds Are Burning" music video back in the mid 1980's. With his bald head, rugged features and spasmodic dancing, he makes for a memorable figure. I still have VCR recording of "Blackfella Whitefella" documentary that featured some great songs and showed how active the band was politically. They were big on environmental and Aboriginal issues. All these years later he's an elected member of Australia's Labor Party and appears to be having mixed results of trying to change the system from within rather than shouting from without. Not an easy thing to do, but I give him credit for trying and wish him well.

Although his voice, both singing and speaking, is probably what's got him to where he is today, if you think his height had nothing to do with his political influence, take a look at this!

Learn more about him at Wikipedia and his own website.

About the art:
For some reason I felt a compulsion to sketch Peter Garrett and try to capture the power of his voice and physical energy of his unique "dancing". I don't remember using a reference photo. I think it was my mental impression of him: bald head, large frame, flailing limbs and screaming mouth. I added the orange overlay in Photoshop to capture the heat of the Australian desert and the passion in his voice.

On a side note ...
While browsing the Illustration Friday postings I discovered the work of Ann Raff and this fun watercolor she made. Revel in the tall trees with the birds!