When I was a kid, I had this cool game called “Instant Replay.” Basically, it was a bunch of little 3 inch records that you popped into this little mini record player and it played an announcer announcing a great play of a particular sports hero. You know, a Willie Mays home run or an OJ Simpson touchdown or whatever.
OK, kinda corny, but most everything in the 1970’s was.
I loved these little records and especially the paintings of each sports hero on each disc.
Recently, just for the hell of it, I made a counterfeit disk featuring a player that hadn’t actually been on one of the discs.
Use your eagle eye and see if you can figure out which is the FAKE one…
…have you ever tried to intentionally paint an image so it looks like an illustration from your childhood? You know, totally adopt the style of art that you grew up with?
Whether the 60's, 70's, 80's, or 90's, each decade had certain looks and even ways that paint was applied. I grew up in the late 60's/early 70's, when illustration was starting to break away from the conservative 'advertising agency' approach of the 1950's and becoming more colorful and a bit more wild. Of course, this was Madison Avenue's attempt to co-opt what "the kid's" were wearing and eating and talking about.
For me, each decade is pretty easy to pinpoint, there's a fairly clear difference in the look(s) of an illustration or product design from the 1940's to the 1950's. The same holds true for the 60's and 70's. It's when we get to the 1980's and 90's that things become a little less clearly defined and distinguishable (to me, at least).
Anyhoo, above is my entry: an illustration of football Hall of Famer Don Maynard (who, by the way, was the first player ever signed by the NY Titans, who a few years later, changed their name to the NY Jets).
Can't you just see it on the box cover to a kid's game or football card from 1971?
