Digging through my old stacks of sketches and designs, I came upon these musculature studies from 96 and 97.
I was in my early 30s at the time, and had been divorced for a few years from my Japanese wife. She was educated in Tokyo at a rather prestigious university - do not know the name - but when she'd tell people which college she attended and gained her BA in business other Japanese people didn't believe her right away... always pissed her off too.
After our split, I was involved with a few young women through the 1990s.
These sketches are of, or are inspired by them.
SHERRY ANN CONTRERAS
I met Sherry a year or so after my divorce in 1993.
Sherry had a history that wasn't conducive to a life of stability. An incredibly sweet person, but conflicted.
After we broke up for the final time a few years later, I felt the urge to do this drawing of her as a sad angel.
The profile is pretty good, it captures her heritage and likeness.
I did not know she would be dead from an overdose of cocaine not long after. When she was with me, she was clean. She said she wanted to stay with me because I was a good influence on her. We would go to Narcotics Anonymous meetings for her, and it really helped.
Sherry asked me once when (we were not seeing each other) to impregnate her; told me if she had a baby she would have "a reason to live" and without, she was afraid she'd not live long. I didn't, and she didn't.
I was also involved with an absolutely gorgeous mixed race woman, Michel Martin.
We were together on and off for a few years. This was inspired by her.
Thoughts of Michel always became sexual if they weren't to begin with, which might explain the daisy dukes being opened.
The next images are just imaginary women.
Studies in muscles, compressed lower back muscles mainly.
And this was originally intended to be a girl showering, but I never finished it.
At one point I was planning to create a sculpture and cast it in a clear urethane plastic. Inside would be hundreds if not thousands of fiber optics strung up through the toes and spread throughout the body. The idea was to fill the internal space with light . The idea came from the work done on the extraterrestrial creature from James Cameron's movie The Abyss.
This was to be a fairy with butterfly wings (also illuminated with fiber optics) and on the tip of her finger would be a butterfly.
Whether it were to be sculpted free form, or start out from a life cast, it would require having a mold made from it.
Below is my separation plan... its fairly self explanatory.
The project was an ambitious plan, and would've eaten up more than a year worth of work, and probably cost into the several thousands ... I never saw it through.
I do have even earlier sketch art, from the eighties. Subject matter differs a bit.
Not all nude women as it became later {:^D
Hope you enjoyed the work!
~DM