Major art talent Todd Lockwood, famous for his depiction of Drizzt and the worlds of Salvatore’s books, will be at a number of events over the summer so if you are in the USA over the summer or in Italy in the autumn you might want to put these dates in your diary and get to meet one of the greatest modern artists around:

Demonstone by Todd Lockwood for the R.A.Salvatore book cover

War of Angels by Todd Lockwood

Soujourn by Todd Lockwood for the Salvatore Drizzt book cover

Space art by Andrew Stewart

It is time to meet Andrew Stewart, probably the most spaced-out artist on the planet this side of Chris Foss.  With many covers for Astronomy books and magazines under his belt as well as covers for such famous authors as Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking he is certainly a quantum force to be reckoned with.

Andrew Stewart is a self taught freelance artist based in Nottingham in England.  He says he has always been into astronomy, fantasy and science fiction with influences ranging from Salvador Dali to HR Giger.  Andrew Stewart always hoped to meet Carl Sagan but sadly he died before that was possible.  Carl Sagan’s widow was however so impressed with his artwork that she asked him to do the cover for Carl Sagan’s Cosmic Connection that was only ready to be published after his death.  He works mainly with airbrush preferring to use acrylic inks and liquitex paint since this gives a better performance when working with an airbrush (usually a paasch v/vv, vjb or DeVilbliss lightweight gravity feed spray gun).  In these days of vast amounts of computer-generated images it is great to see such monolithic painting being done with an airbrush and I’m sure that you’ll agree that the result leaves a lot of computer-generated art back at the starting gate.  To take a trawl through the fabulously spaced-out world of Andrew Stewart just click here.

It wasn’t always this easy to buy fantasy and sci-fi prints and posters.  In the early 70s you could buy various fantasy posters by artists like Roger Dean in the shops and into the 80s you could buy Rodney Matthews, Chris Foss posters too.  You could buy some reprinted fantasy and sci-fi posters in the early 90s and also buy some quality art prints too but by 1994 when Artists UK started the high street shops were becoming quite conservative and mainstream in what they stocked.  You could buy pop posters and kitch easily but not buy quality fantasy and sci-fi art posters or prints in most places.  Most places were looking for quick turnover high profit stock.  They followed the trends so you could easily buy flavour of the month but not so easily buy the old classics.  We have always aimed to be different so you can buy fantasy and sci-fi prints and posters that you’ll never buy in the shops.  Yep, some stuff we have for years whilst other stuff you buy up quickly but the customer emails saying how they’ve been trying to buy that fantasy poster or sci-fi print somewhere for years makes it all worthwhile.  We are really pleased to have made it easier to buy fantasy and sci-fi prints and posters.   And if you want to do that right now then just click here.

Well given the controversy over the new film AVATAR and the alleged wholesale ripping off of Roger Dean’s ideas I guess it is only appropriate to make Roger Dean’s ‘Floating Islands’ our Picture of the Month for December.  Here it is:

This image of it is from the Roger Dean Floating Islands poster published by Pomegranate

The thing to remember is that Roger Dean was painting fantasy landscapes before most of those watching the film AVATAR were even born!  If you are under 35 years old then while you were gurgling and attempting to spray the entire room with your latest meal he was out there making amazing art like this.  Roger Dean is thought of as one of the greatest fantasy artists but he thinks of himself much more as a landscape artist and designer.  As is often the case, the works that Roger Dean is so famous for are not necessarily what he considers to be the main areas of his interest or expertise.  Whatever, his influence is tremendous and his surreal floating islands along with his waterfalls under water have captured the imagination of many people including it would now seem a film director called Cameron.