Terraplane Blues

 Another nice day today, almost 70 degrees and sunny.   Good day to head up to the Studio.  Stopped for gas on the way up, and got there around 11 am.  Didn't want to work on the Blood Draw block quite yet (more time needed to let the ink dry, and to look at it to see if anything more needs to be cut before the next proof is taken), so instead I started drawing the image area of the next Robert Johnson block- my take on his song, "Terraplane Blues."  The most obvious question I expect from viewers is exactly what is a Terraplane? I did a little research so you don't have to. I knew it was a car, but learned that it had been made by the Hudson Motor Company for most of the decade of the 1930's, and was known for being both inexpensive and powerful.  From what I have found, not bad to look at either, but it looks like a car from the 30's, and while that makes sense for a Robert Johnson song, it's not the look I go for with my art.  I'm sure I've written on this blog about my preference for cars from the 1960's and early 1970's, which is the last time I think cars looked like cars.  After that came the gas shortages and inflation, and cars reflected an interest in economy, and cars were sold based on gas milage or looking like they got good gas milage.  Maybe these are just the cars I saw on the roads and in parking lots back then as I grew up.  In any case, unless I have a reason to show something specific, I tend to go for those leaded gas 8 cylinder cars of my youth when I need something for art.  

Of course, there are no Terraplanes around now.  The Hudson company lasted until the 1950's, when it merged with other companies to form the American Motors Corporation.  That produced cars such as the Rambler, the Gremlin, the Pacer, and all the Jeeps, until it was absorbed by Chrysler in the 1980's.  I'd prefer to work with something in its automotive lineage, and I have a lot of choices.  

Over the weekend I got started at home by putting in the lyrics at the bottom, as I have done for all these Johnson prints, even though I don't need it for the Nashville show.  I did include that in one of the prints for the current Ocean Grove show.  Like most blues songs, and a lot of Johnson's, the main theme seems to be about sex, and though on the surface, the song seems to be about a car, there are many double-entendres related to car repairs.  The line heard most in the song is "Who been driving my Terraplane, for you since I been gone?"  And he didn't mean it about his car.  The lyric that I decided to work with was, "Got a short in this connection, hoo well, babe, it's way down below."  My backwards lettering can be seen in a photo of the block below:

I doubt that these letters are the final versions, but they are place holders for now.  It's the same number of characters as the last one, but I guess due to differences in word lengths, this time I needed three lines for the text.

Today I started working on the image area.  I roughed in two figures, basing them on photos in a reference book I had in the Studio, plus my own artistic training.  There are also parts of a car, based on sketches made from the internet, though I will wait until the drawing is done to tell you about what I chose.  And as is my custom, you'll have to wait until the drawing is done before I post it here.  But it has been begun.  Of course there was music, as Molly wasn't there, so I brought some old ones I burned myself- my copy of Generation Terrorists from the Manic Street Preachers (if you want to know how this guy from New Jersey ended up with a double vinyl album not released in this country, go to a blog post found in June 2022.  No ink to clean up, but I felt like drawing some more, so when that disc ended, I put on my copy of Ash's album 1977, which you can read about back in July of 2020.   The two albums seem to go together.