I’ve written about my mom’s tenure with the Famous Artists School several times. I found a few more of her assignments today.
This one I remember well. She used an illustration from one of my books as the model. I don’t know it it was cheating or not, but the evaluator had a few suggestions.
Mom’s assignment
She pretty much copied the pie man from this image.
Illustration from The Junior Instructor Book 2 (I always wondered why this illustration made Simon look like a girl)
The instructor, and in my opinion, rightly so, suggested that Simon look more adorable than scary. They provided the following feedback and redrew the scene to illustrate their opinions.
Make Simon smaller & lovably goofy, clearly indicating his financial predicament.
I like your dog, to which you can add other child pleasing small animals, fowl, turtles, birds and animated thistles
This is a nonsense rhyme, so have fun!
Emphasize the bakers white costume with value contrast
Unify the lively fair to avoid spottiness
Lower the horizon to make the baker larger
A vignette edge is more interesting and creates air around the figures
Note: I wrote the following a few days ago, before I made contact with his son, Jack, who confirmed that the letters were written by his father.
When I moved my blog from self-hosted to WordPress.com many of the photos were misplaced. I’ve been going through older posts and fixing any missing photos. That’s when I happened upon the Letters from Johnnie posts again. And again I wondered what ever happened to Johnnie Gannon.
I’d searched for him shortly after finding the letters and blogging about them, and again every so often when I remembered him. I was never near successful until recently.
If you recall, in the last letter I posted (I actually found more later but never got around to posting about them), Johnnie mentioned that his tour might be extended. I don’t know if that actually happened, but he ended up making a career in the Naval Medical Service Corps, retiring as a commander.
He did go back to Washington, DC where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree from The George Washington University. He then earned a Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University.
Then, believe it or not, he lived in Bethesda for a while until he retired to Beaufort, South Carolina.
He was married twice. In 1960 he married Margaret Odessa “Peggy” Pope who was born in Montgomery County, Maryland. She and Johnnie had two sons. I’m thinking he probably met her when he was working in at Bethesda Naval Hospital. (Jack confirmed that Margaret worked at the Naval hospital too, as a business analyst). Margaret died in 2001.
John then married Joyce Anna Nestle but lost her in 2003.
I searched Facebook and think I found one of his sons’ Facebook page. I just now looked again and he’s posted his parents’ graves. And they are the same graves as on Johnnie’s Find a Grave page.
John Gannon died in 2014, two years before my mom died. But he was still alive when I found and posted about the letters. I wish I could have put them in touch before they both died.
Clutch Cargo Lips 