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Acolyte, v. 1, issue 4, Summer 1943
Page 23
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[[underline]]LOVECRAFT AS AN ILLUSTRATOR[[end underline]]. ...I feel tremendously and undeservedly flattered by your kindly mention of the crude and casual sketch in my letter to Rimel. I've always wished I could draw, but have no natural aptitude for it--so that despite infinite pains my best efforts in that direction are rather ludicrous and pathetic. Odd too, for my grandmother, great-aunt, and late elder aunt were all accomplished artists--while my father's sketch books attests his very passable skill with the pencil. It makes me green with envy when I see certain naturally gifted persons effortly translate a visual impression to paper. When I try the same thing, the result is an awkward mess of forced pen-scratches. Whether I could ever learn how to draw decently with patient special instruction, I really don't know. My poor results in school discouraged me--although perhaps some of the completeness of the failure was due to the fact that I was confined to certain simple objects and problems, and not allowed to have my own way and choose my own methods. It is my weakness that I can't conform to rules and restrictions very well. I have to learn and do things in my own way--as dictated by my especial interests and aptitudes--or not at all. That was probably what turned me against music in childhood--I was confined to the simple drudgery and repeated exercises of orthodox instruction. In drawing it was the same way. All that ever really interested me were landscape and architectural effects--rural vistas, pictures of houses, and street scenes--but school instruction was very slow in getting to those. Instead, I was chained to vases and cubes and spheres and flowers and all that, and filled full of rules for making lines and handling light and shade. Well, that was all very valuable--but what I wanted were rules of perspective for landscapes and panoramas. The smaller objects did not interest me, and I had no incentive to help me master my natural crudeness of pen and pencil manipulation. The few landscapes I was allowed to do were assigned without basic perspective files- why, I don't know. So I gave up serious drawing as a bad job. In the ensuing years I have often crudely scratched diagrams of things as primitive illustrations, but have realized that pictorial art is not for me. As for a view of the "blasted heath"--that's rather a hard proposition, since my idea was simply a region where all the vegetation had disintegrated to a greyish powder! However, I suppose a view of the [[underline]]edge[[end underline]] of it would (if I could only really draw it) convey some idea of what I had in mind. Stunted trees, dead prostrate trunks, and all that--and a suggestion of the abandoned road and perhaps a farmhouse ruin. But I doubt if I could formulate any pictorial conception that a fastidious editor would care to bring! The problems of wide perspective are too complex for an ignorant layman to do more than fumble around with--and then again, I am dolefully weak on the sort of pen-strokes needed to represent light and shade and various surfaces properly. But here goes--as an experiment: (The sketch, far better than Lovecraft's derogatory remarks would lead one to expect, was drawn in the body of the letter, and as mentioned before was absolutely untraceable. FTL) Not so hot...not so hot! It takes more than I've got to put across the picture of desolation inherent in the orginal idea of the blasted heath! And this reminds me that I feel tremendously flattered by your suggestion that I attempt a frontispiece for [[underline]]The Colour Out Of Space[[end underline]]! A, me--would that I could! I have always envied authors who can illustrate their own tales--putting into visibility exactlyw hat they have in mind instead of depending on the routine work (often carless, uncomprehending, and unsympathetic) of magazine illustrators--- but I have scarcely hoped to be able to produce anything suitable myself. ...I'm under no illusions as to the inaptitude of my unschooled pictorial blunderings. H.P. LOVECRAFT -- 23 --
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[[underline]]LOVECRAFT AS AN ILLUSTRATOR[[end underline]]. ...I feel tremendously and undeservedly flattered by your kindly mention of the crude and casual sketch in my letter to Rimel. I've always wished I could draw, but have no natural aptitude for it--so that despite infinite pains my best efforts in that direction are rather ludicrous and pathetic. Odd too, for my grandmother, great-aunt, and late elder aunt were all accomplished artists--while my father's sketch books attests his very passable skill with the pencil. It makes me green with envy when I see certain naturally gifted persons effortly translate a visual impression to paper. When I try the same thing, the result is an awkward mess of forced pen-scratches. Whether I could ever learn how to draw decently with patient special instruction, I really don't know. My poor results in school discouraged me--although perhaps some of the completeness of the failure was due to the fact that I was confined to certain simple objects and problems, and not allowed to have my own way and choose my own methods. It is my weakness that I can't conform to rules and restrictions very well. I have to learn and do things in my own way--as dictated by my especial interests and aptitudes--or not at all. That was probably what turned me against music in childhood--I was confined to the simple drudgery and repeated exercises of orthodox instruction. In drawing it was the same way. All that ever really interested me were landscape and architectural effects--rural vistas, pictures of houses, and street scenes--but school instruction was very slow in getting to those. Instead, I was chained to vases and cubes and spheres and flowers and all that, and filled full of rules for making lines and handling light and shade. Well, that was all very valuable--but what I wanted were rules of perspective for landscapes and panoramas. The smaller objects did not interest me, and I had no incentive to help me master my natural crudeness of pen and pencil manipulation. The few landscapes I was allowed to do were assigned without basic perspective files- why, I don't know. So I gave up serious drawing as a bad job. In the ensuing years I have often crudely scratched diagrams of things as primitive illustrations, but have realized that pictorial art is not for me. As for a view of the "blasted heath"--that's rather a hard proposition, since my idea was simply a region where all the vegetation had disintegrated to a greyish powder! However, I suppose a view of the [[underline]]edge[[end underline]] of it would (if I could only really draw it) convey some idea of what I had in mind. Stunted trees, dead prostrate trunks, and all that--and a suggestion of the abandoned road and perhaps a farmhouse ruin. But I doubt if I could formulate any pictorial conception that a fastidious editor would care to bring! The problems of wide perspective are too complex for an ignorant layman to do more than fumble around with--and then again, I am dolefully weak on the sort of pen-strokes needed to represent light and shade and various surfaces properly. But here goes--as an experiment: (The sketch, far better than Lovecraft's derogatory remarks would lead one to expect, was drawn in the body of the letter, and as mentioned before was absolutely untraceable. FTL) Not so hot...not so hot! It takes more than I've got to put across the picture of desolation inherent in the orginal idea of the blasted heath! And this reminds me that I feel tremendously flattered by your suggestion that I attempt a frontispiece for [[underline]]The Colour Out Of Space[[end underline]]! A, me--would that I could! I have always envied authors who can illustrate their own tales--putting into visibility exactlyw hat they have in mind instead of depending on the routine work (often carless, uncomprehending, and unsympathetic) of magazine illustrators--- but I have scarcely hoped to be able to produce anything suitable myself. ...I'm under no illusions as to the inaptitude of my unschooled pictorial blunderings. H.P. LOVECRAFT -- 23 --
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