Illustration Friday: Star Gazing

When I was a kid I did a lot of star gazing- old movie stars that is. This was before specialty cable channels like TCM- most that I saw were checked out from the library. Judy and Mickey were my favorite, but I also loved the comedy teams like The Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, and Laurel and Hardy.

I've been wanting to do some kind of Laurel and Hardy drawing for a while now, and when I saw the topic for this week I had an idea. Drawing caricatures is something I find challenging and haven't taken time to do many of them, but if there ever were a pair of people who would be fun and interesting to caricature, it's these guys. And they have been, by many artists- including several from the master of caricature Al Hirschfeld. Even in one of my favorite books by Maurice Sendak, In the Night Kitchen, the three chefs are all Oliver Hardy. I was delighted by that when I would read it as a kid.

I looked up both of their bios and listened to an interview that Stan Laurel gave in the 50's. He said that he loved to be out on his boat fishing whenever he was not in the studio, which gave me the idea for him to be catching his stars with a fishing pole. He also said that he was so thankful for his fans, and he responded to every single piece of fan mail personally throughout his entire career. I love hearing things like that- a wonderful, talented human being. Both of them were, and this was a fun little drawing to pay homage to a couple of stars that I've enjoyed gazing (and laughing) at since I was a kid.

If you'd like to see a little more of the detail just click on the image to enlarge it!