Sketchbook:
The Summer Before The War
Digital paintings by Bruce Brown
The Summer Before the War #2
In 2010, eight years after the original series, I returned and reworked the poignant image of the little American boy at the beach, accentuating a darker sense of complexity than the original.
Artist's Note: I created "The Summer Before The War" series during the summer of 2002, when it became apparent that George W. Bush was "hell bent" on war with Iraq.
As I travelled through America that summer and fall, I was frequently struck by the almost etherial, out-of-time beauty that I encountered from the shores of the Pacific to the high mountains of the West. It was as if there was a rare, quivering poignancy in the air as America's mass media and its dumb-think President were beating the drums of war up to a frenzied pitch. (On the eve of the American invasion of Iraq, supposedly independent, non-corporate NPR actually claimed Saddam Hussein drank human blood.)
At the time, it made me think of stories I'd heard from my parents of the summer of 1942 -- and seen depicted in the film The Summer of '42 -- a halcyon, almost innocent time before the world changed forever. So here's a look back at America as it was in the summer of 2002, "The Summer Before The War."
The images in this series began as photographs, were rendered with a combination of artistic brushes in Photoshop 5, and finally hand painted with a Wacom Intuos stylus.
-- Bruce Brown
July 4, 2008
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Lost Lake (thanks to Terri Bumford)
September 23, 2002
The Big Rock
September 22, 2002
The Valley Below (thanks to Terri Bumford)
September 12, 2002
Thunderhead Over The Corn
September 8, 2002
Hydrangeas (on the 10th anniversary of my mother's death)
August 26, 2002
August
August 13, 2002
Fireweed (thanks to Rena Becker)
August 10, 2002
Off The Coast Of Tomorrow (thanks to Dale Johnson)
July 15, 2002
Outward Bound at Sunset (thanks to Marilyn Lewis)
July 8, 2002
The Summer Before The War
June 8, 2002
The Promise of America (In The Distance)
June 4, 2002
"The Summer Before The War" © Copyright 2002 by Bruce Brown
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