Balloon

Circus clown and dancing dog in the big tent before the crowds arrive. An old digital composite updated for illustration friday's word "balloon."

Having been motivated by both the inspiration behind and the beautiful resulting art piece of Lisa Rivas’s Living Bridges , I thought I’d give credit where credit is due on this picture:

My 88 year old father, E.A. Autrey, at a much younger age, is the face of the clown under the white make-up (although he does not have red hair and was not quite so scary looking). Here’s a photo of him younger (in the middle).

The Circus from Toulouse-Lautrec’s lithograph portfolio (page 22 in the limited edition book I’d love to have except won’t since it costs $1,500) here was the inspiration for the circus setting. When I went to visit my friend in the Philippines a few years ago, the bedroom I stayed in had copies of these circus drawings hanging on the wall and I just loved them.

Finally, I was happy to have figured out how to make balloons using the 3D program in Illustrator and then turned them into a pattern brush in Corel Painter, which partially explains the funny outfit.