A Christmas week with Michael Whelan day four

2010: A Space Odyssey courtesy of Michael Whelan. Click to EMBIGGEN

By today's standards, this cover for Arthur C. Clarke's iconic 2010: A Space Odyssey is nothing special because we have PhotoShop. But in 1982 when Michael painted it, it was the thing that really made me notice the power of an acrylics air brush. I still think it's beautiful.Michael did 10 separate proofs for the publisher before selecting this one. The spaceship Discovery is positioned to kind of seem like a baby's rattle. It's more of the symbolism that Whelan always includes in his paintings. And of course, showing the baby against the backdrop of our solar system's largest planet, Jupiter, is a hint that Jupiter will become the origin of life for its own solar system when the monolith causes the gas giant to experience nuclear fusion and ignite.FACT: Michael doesn't like using an airbrush. But he does do a lot of painting on masonite. I asked Stephen Hayes about masonite and he gave me the rundown on it which was QUITE extensive.Well folks, that's my last post in this mini-series. I hope I got you to be a fan of Michael Whelan and will check out his website to see his other works. Not so much because you could ever get him to do your books or anything like that. But because he's gotten old, and I want you to feel sad one day when he dies. I want you to know INSTANTLY that someone great has left the human race.Oh and his signature is on this painting. It's embedded in the details of the Discovery spaceship. I searched forever to find it.Tomorrow is my last post for the year. My book tour for Oculus starts on Monday, so I'll be posting on other blogs. I have a giveaway announcement tomorrow for a $50 Amazon gift card to encourage you to support me on my book tour (and it's super easy). Just one tweet a day and a comment on tomorrow's post to let me know you tweeted. Sounds great, right? You don't even need to visit my book tour posts (yeah you heard that right)! That's like one minute of your time per day.More details to come tomorrow. Have a great Thursday.

moreless