Glory Road - Sometimes, You Just Need to Get it Out of Your Head

Star and Rufo - Censored to suit Facebook and other social media.

If you want to read the article, scroll down.

Be warned: There is an uncensored version of the picture above in the beginning of the article.

Star and Rufo, from Robert Heinlein's Book Glory Road.

I draw inspiration from many different sources, but I almost never try to directly replicate what I have seen other artists do, whether they are photographers, painters, writers, or something else.

The picture above, Glory Road, is an exception. I read Robert Heinlein's 1963 book Glory Road somewhere back in the mid to late seventies. The edition I bought had a stunning cover by Bruce Pennington, painted in 1971.

More than a year ago, I decided to try to recreate Pennington's cover painting. Then, I put it off, because just recreating a picture does not bring anything new. Pennington's painting is his visual interpretation of Robert Heinlein's story. If I tried to create a picture based on Pennington's work, it would just be a pale copy.

Recently, I have had my hands full with other things than pictures. When I finally got the time to work on a picture again, I was completely out of inspiration.

I started looking through the inspiration pictures I've got links to on Pinterest, found Pennington's still fascinating Glory Road painting and thought, "Oh, well...I might just as well get that picture out of my head!"

So, I did!

Derivative, my picture is. Art, it probably is not, but fun, it was!

Making my own version of the picture cleared my head, and got me unblocked. It also got me rereading Heinlein's book.

I am ready to do my own thing again...except, the weekend is drawing to a close, and my day job (which I like a lot), is waiting around the corner.

Oh, well...