Larry Lowe

I know, it has been a long time since I have uploaded anything here.  I have still been drawing and working on artwork during this three-month gap, but I have not produced much which I would or could upload here.  In many cases, what I have worked on either 1.) is not something I can probably release yet, 2.) Photoshop drawings I have not exactly finished, or 3.) simply pencil sketches, which take a short amount of time but are probably nothing compared to my colored work.  I may take a post soon to show off some of my sketches, since they are at least some content, but I would like to return to drawing more and talking about them here.

Today, I present probably the best work I have made in the past three months: a tribute to a man close to me, Larry Lowe.

Larry Lowe was my drama teacher in high school, as well as the director of the school's Drama Club.  I did not join the Drama Club until midway through my freshmen year, so I missed on the first play he performed that year.  Once I did join, though, it was possibly my favorite club in high school.  Under his direction, I portrayed several characters: a Supreme Court judge in Of Thee I Sing, a pastry chef who longed to be a poet and looked up to Cyrano de Bergerac, and a chief petty officer who loves to drink (unlike me in real life; the "champagne" on stage was ginger ale) and shatters the high-and-mighty delusions of those at The Wedding Reception.


 

Plays like those were only one of two shows Mr. Lowe would direct for the school every year, with those plays occurring in the autumn on Thanksgiving weekend.  In the spring (usually Mother's Day weekend), he set up a revue, where we would sing to various songs from plays he liked.  I do not do much research on old plays on my own, so this was how I learned about songs such as "Little Tin Box", "Cabaret", and "Bali Hai" (for better or for worse).  Mr. Lowe used to do themes to his revues, such as New York-related songs or songs from around the world, depending on the show.  My favorite performance during a revue actually came - oddly - during my sophomore year, when he asked me to sing "Mr. Cellophane" from Chicago.  At that point, I had not watched Chicago yet, so I rented the movie for research (I like the show, now).  As sad as the song can be, and despite how it applies to a relatively minor character in the story, it was an absolute joy to perform, and people still talk about how I did it when I revisit the school.

I am also grateful to Mr. Lowe for opening his theater to my two little sisters.  Unlike me, my sisters did not perform much on stage (yet), though I do recall one or two songs the older one (whom I will refer to as "M" for the rest of this post) did, and the younger (whom I shall call "L") joined in some of the chorus numbers in the most recent revue.  My sisters, however, were more focused on stage crew, with M eventually taking charge as a stage manager.  M was especially fortunate because she was going through a dark time with a bad friend, so focusing her efforts on the Drama Club helped her a lot.  Now, M is approaching her senior year at college with a heavy drama focus, and her future looks bright.  L, on the other hand, only started high school last year, meaning she will be a sophomore in a month.  She had been stressed about high school at first, but she then joined Drama Club and reunited with some old friends.  While L still stresses sometimes, she has something she can look toward for fun.  I hope to see her on stage more often in the future (L is actually a damn good singer).

In case any of you reading this think I am getting sentimental because he died, no, Larry Lowe is still alive.  However, 2014 was his last year as a teacher.  He had worked with my high school for 27 years and was involved with theater even longer than that.  He had a big heart, a big voice when we would not cooperate, and a big impact on many of our lives, especially my family.  That was why I thought it was time to do something my mother had suggested a couple years ago: draw Mr. Lowe.

Mr. Lowe was a big fan of older theater, or at least stuff from the 20s to 60s (my grandmother knew pretty much every song we performed), so I did not want to draw this picture in my usual anime style.  Instead, I used a recent photo of him as a reference and tried to draw inspiration from WWII-era drawings (by which I mean concept art of Team Fortress 2).  Usually, I simply draw line art and fill the colors and shading.  Since I wanted it to look more realistic than usual, though, I only used my initial outline as a guide for the colors.  Any trace of outline you see in this version is a result of my shading layers (which were brown to make the picture look aged).

Though I have not said much about the picture here, I would say I have learned quite a bit while making it.  I may start using more portions of my pictures without full outlines (though I will probably keep that to backgrounds until I do something like this again).  It just goes to show my favorite style does not have to be my only style.

One last bit of trivia for this picture: I brought this to the Drama Club's annual Pasta Dinner and Auction to be auctioned off.  I had originally intended for somebody to buy this picture and then present the picture to Mr. Lowe later that week in a better frame.  I did not think Mr. Lowe would be the one who would buy this picture at the auction, but he did.  Also, all five of the drawings I brought to the auction sold for about half of what my mom sent with M: a piece of floorboard from the original stage at the high school.