No. 252: The Record Holder

"The Record Holder" by Tom Wills, June 2014

What the hell was I thinking?
Well, lately it's that I'm very excited about this drawing, No. 252, "The Record Holder" -- and it's not because she has 45 rpm records balanced on her boobs.
(One's clearly a Capitol swirl label, mid-1960s; the big 33 1/3 record she's studying is a Columbia six-eye, late 1950s. In case you don't think I'm serious about record collecting.)
http://tomwillsproductions.blogspot.com/2014/03/in-rainbows.html
http://tomwillsproductions.blogspot.com/2010/03/candle-wax-and-seagrams-vo.html

She stretches out.

It's an exciting project for me because it fulfills a specific artistic vision. This large drawing of a lovely lady is now the centerpiece of my music room, where I also love to play my many records, and study them.
I wanted a vintage look to go with my old turntables, tuners and tape machines. She replaces a comic book-styled watercolor of Eddie Van Halen http://tomwillsproductions.blogspot.com/2012/01/on-fire.html that just did not fit the room's vibe.
This project did not go perfectly and entailed much more work than I'd envisioned. And though reaction will be mixed, I'm very happy with the end result.

Columbia "Six Eye"

I posted a few sneak peeks of this drawing on Facebook and the reaction was interesting. Only one person said it was "naughty," and I think she was half-kidding. The majority of people who liked the image were women.
And why not?
It captures an unguarded moment. She's comfortable and relaxed and clearly doing something she likes.  She's not hiding behind anything, and good for her.
She looks good and she's covered, mostly.
Another of my artsy female pals wrote me: "I don't see the big deal on the naked record lady. So what. Americans think nothing of violence on TV etc. but freak out over boobs. Big deal."
Yet another lady artist friend wrote: "Love this!"
Someone else, predictably a guy my age, wrote: "LOL, she's got records on her tits." 
So there we have the view through the periscope of America.

Matted but not yet framed

Women are hard to draw because they are smooth, unlike some of the rough-hewn and hairy guys I've drawn, such as Henry Rollins http://tomwillsproductions.blogspot.com/2014/02/no-236-hello-henry.html or Lou Reed.  http://tomwillsproductions.blogspot.com/2013/11/no-223-shades-of-gray-lou-reed.html
She required a lot of subtlety, in the going from dark to light. Three weeks of subtlety.

Feet, start of a pillow. Rounded record and head of hair.

The project started out with my finding an antique frame at a garage sale.  It seemed perfect -- wood grains like zebra stripes, antique wood and construction, very heavy.  No glass, $2.
But it was an unusual size, too big for a piece of poster board and too small for any sort of mat.   Weird.  Closer inspection revealed it had once been a mirror frame, on a stand that had allowed it to tilt.

With the fade at right, which I eliminated

By this point I had drawn her head, hands and most of the big record. I worked from head to toe, having the most difficulty with the feet. The rest of the anatomy was, well, not a problem, although it took a few days to get right the shading of her legs. I had done sexy legs one time previously: http://tomwillsproductions.blogspot.com/2013/07/no-207-sitting-pretty.html

No feet

Eventually I came across another antique frame, $35, this one with a nice and heavy double mat. The frame had been handmade, stained and varnished -- probably the same vintage as the records she's holding. It was gorgeous but also flawed.
First, the drawing wasn't long enough. I had planned to fade out the big record and back of her head because they were missing from the original photograph, but in such a big frame that would look ridiculous.
I called upon my youngest, artist daughter to help figure out the rest of the image.
The record was easy enough. She found another photo of a different women reclining on a sofa, and we stole her hair.

We can see where this is going.

The drawing fit the mat horizontally with room to spare, but came up one-eighth-inch short on each side vertically. My solution was to cut thin white paper strips and use clear tape to fill them in from behind, and then to use masking tape to hold the entire picture flat.
It worked like a charm and you'd never notice if I hadn't said so.
The other problem was the bottom left corner of the frame had split apart and would not easily go back together. I didn't want to remove the giant pane of glass -- I've broken them doing this before -- so had to come up with a fix-it.

Working from head to toe, of course.

I put the frame face down on the basement tile floor and filled the seam with Elmer's Glue-all, then used the weight of a chair leg to squeeze the frame tight against a baseboard. This closed the crack considerably and was dried hard by the next morning.
Unfortunately I could still see the damage. So I used more glue and some caulk to fill in the seam even more and then mixed up three colors of craft paint to match the wood color. After the paint dried I rubbed over it with a brown crayon and then rubbed off the excess.  Imitation wood grain!

Things get ugly before they get pretty.

The entire presentation is insulated with cardboard and sealed from behind with staples and silicone caulk. She's permanent.
I removed eight pictures from the wall over my drawing table to make room for her. Filled in the old holes, painted the entire wall and tapped in two heavy hanging nails just for her.
She dominates the room but is unconcerned with what's going on, what else is being drawn, what music is playing or what's on any given record sleeve.
She is absorbed in her own thing. And she doesn't care what anyone thinks about that.

Original photograph. I would welcome information on this.