2013 Literary Pin-up Calendar: Patricia BriggsMy early summer trip took me through Washington’s Tri-Cities to northern Montana on the way to Glacier National Park: werewolf territory according to Patricia Briggs‘ Mercy Thompson series. This pin-up of Mercy was inspired by the idea of strength and competence with beauty, brains, and a whole lot of muscle – “a modern ‘Rosie the Riveter’” in Briggs’ words. This is a girl who can take care of herself, and you’d be lucky to have her working on your car. It was a delight to paint her. And moreover to create an old-school garage calendar. Not only matching the format of those classic pieces as best I could, but riffing on the style of Pin-up great George Petty. I grew up never knowing about Petty, but I admired the work of his less-expensive replacement Alberto Vargas. For all his skill, Vargas never surpassed the man he’d been hired to emulate. Petty was so famous in his day that Hollywood made a film called “The Petty Girl”. His style often involved the use of contours painted as vermillion watercolor outlines – even when they overlaid or interacted with a fully-painted figure. The discovery of Petty’s work was one of the reasons I wanted to reconsider the Pin Up, and the satisfaction of those red lines cannot be understated.
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