European Memories - The trip to Morocco

Spain, 1970, on the way to Morocco with Steve Lewis and two friends.  Steve shipped his Maroon colored VW bug with surf board over to Spain from Southern California to go surfing in Morocco, and picked me up in Madrid on the way.  I invited two other girls to come.  I was a brat.  Here I'm wearing Steve's cashmere sweater.  I probably would have been kidnapped and put into white slavery in Morocco if not for Steve.  Amazing I survived this, among many other adventures.  I've always wondered what happened to Steve Lewis.  I wanted to apologize for my behavior.  He was a great guy.

Fantasy Interior in Indiana

 On a trip to Indiana with my 93 year old father in 2013, there wasn't much to do, with no computer, TV or cell phone, so I drew.  This is one of the rooms in the house where we were staying.  Most of it is made up.

Hydrangea Melody

It seems I've taken a lot of photos of Hydrangea over the years.  So I put them together and threw in some old family photos and oil painted butterflies to create a little fantasy.  Original music included.

Learning Anatomy Because of a Broken Ankle

Top is a watercolor painting of my left leg with the two broken malleolus and the surgical implants recently added to fix them.  While painting, I was drinking coffee out of one of my favorite Mushroom mugs when I noticed the Fly agaric mushroom's stem looked remarkable like my Tibia.  So, I added a Mushroom cap to the image.  The reference used to visualize my own leg and broken bits is from the invaluable "Atlas of Human Anatomy" by Frank H. Netter, M.D.

Doodle Art

 Having fun doodling with watercolor and Adobe Illustrator line art.  Maybe a new fabric design, although I do not need any more fabric!

The Star Wars Album That Never Was

 Since I can't walk much until my broken ankle heals, I've been listening to a lot of music.  Some old favorites include Pink Floyd "Comfortably Numb," and The Who "See Me, Feel Me," from their Tommy album.  This got me to thinking about when I tried to create a CD of rock and roll music as a soundtrack to one of Lucasfilm's Computer Games.  My idea of expanding the Star Wars universe with books that told new stories had worked out better than I could have imagined, and I thought maybe I could do something similar with music.

In the mid 1990s, the Publishing dept. had coordinated with the Games group and the Toy group on a "movie without the movie" called Shadows of the Empire.   I licensed, and worked on, the novel and an original music soundtrack.  Around the same time, I was looking for other ways to create new music products that might be associated with the Star Wars expanded universe.  So, Virgin Records in the UK put together a compilation as a possible soundtrack for the Dark Forces Game.  This idea didn't make it much further.  Although George Lucas was OK with my dept. developing new stories, it soon became clear that any new Star Wars music would have to be originated by John Williams.

The best result of this failed effort is the great CD compilation soundtrack Virgin Records put together for me, which I've posted above.  The individual tunes can be found on YouTube.  

Relatives in all their Glory!

 

So lucky to have these unique individuals in my life!