Floating In Shallow Water

The inside cover of Floating In Shallow Water by the Legion of Green Men, by the late great Scott Harder and the still very much alive Seth Rowanwood. (In the interest of full disclosure, my name appears in the credits.)

Artspiration – Scott Harder

I’ve mentioned Scott on here before. 

http://www.scottharder.ca/ 

I don’t know who is responsible for this site, but I hope some more of his terrific art goes up in addition to the images that are already there. There was a lot more to him than the paltry 11 images that are there. But I’m glad something is up. He deserves to be recognized for the exceptional talent that he was.

I have exceptionally fond memories of hanging out with Scott, his pencils and pens moving effortlessly across paper, his lines rendering magical imagery, listening to all sorts of music, where he would often express amazingly deep ideas about it, to talking about art, discussing everything from Syd Meads’ set designs to whether Peter Saville was worth the hype. He was paradoxically an innocent mennonite lad on one hand, and an amazingly sophisticated and worldly guy on the other. He would come to visit me and hang out for hours, doodling and sketching, looking through my library of books, uttering zingers that had me in stitches. He was a very analogue illustrator, but he would often sit and watch me work on the computer and ask questions that demonstrated he probably already had a very good grasp on them and that once he got on one and got the hang of it, he would go far – very far.

Sadly this wasn’t to be.

Tragically, on Dec.6, 2000 his fiancé found him dead. What made it even sadder was that they were due to be married a few weeks later. There was no sign of violence or accident, certainly no sign of drug use or suicide. It was a mystery to all concerned. Later an autopsy revealed that Scott had died of cardiomyopathy, scarring on his heart. The doctor asked if Scott had been an invalid. No! He was incredibly active, and had played sports all his life. The doctor said that given the damage to his heart, it was amazing he could even climb a set of stairs let alone ride a bike across town to play ball hockey and then ride back. Given his vitality and his age, no one thought to check him for any abnormalities. It snuck up on him and likely took him completely unawares.

The tenth image on the link above was a poster he did for Brawd clothing.

When I came back to London after the funeral, I was walking home and saw the poster hanging up in a clothing store that I shopped in occasionally. I had passed that poster a bunch of times, saw Scott working on it, liked it a lot, but now it had a whole other significance. I went in.

“This may seem like a weird question, but how much do you want for that poster? The illustrator of that was a really good friend and I just came back from his funeral yesterday. It would mean a whole lot to me to have it and if you....
“Oh you can have it. We’re about to take it down anyway. You can have it right now actually.”
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to cry or kiss the guy. I offered to pay him for it, but he declined. So I bought a bunch of shirts and a wad of stickers from them instead. And then also gave him something nice a week later. :-)

It was late on a Sunday afternoon, so I raced down to the art supply store up the block before they closed and bought a tube to put the poster in. The next day I took it down to a framer to mount it. It still hangs on my wall to this day, amd it will hang on my wall forever.

I miss you Scott.

You were a fine human being and I feel richer and blessed for the chance to have known you.

Live Action Blog Header

A few years back I was up in the French River area with Jay and I had a sudden thought. I was wearing an orange shirt, green pants, and I had a boreal background behind me. I no longer had crazy hair and instead had on a hat and no monstrously big rucksack, but....I had the idea to get him to take some photos so I could play around with the imagery I had been using for years as my forum avatar.

That image was created by the late great Scott Harder.

So, years later, I finally got around to playing around with the photo in PhotoShop, to try and cartoonize it a little.

I keep meaning to create a similar image with Lego, and also one with Playmobil. One of these days. I figure it’ll be a fun thing to do with my nephew, show him a little about photography and then compositing it all together in PhotoShop.

Colour By Numbers – Scott Harder

I inked these two illustrations by Scott Harder. They were just pencil sketches and I inked them in PhotoShop. Used for a club night posters and flyers. Scott was still inking everything with tech pens and markers, but wanted to learn how to do it in a computer, so I showed him how.

Some of you might recognize a similarity between those two drawings and the image I use as my header and avatar. You would be correct. It was done by Scott.

Christmas of 95, he came over, and was profusely apologetic as he gave me a gift.
“It’s kind of lame, but it’s all I could afford.”

I opened what still remains one of the most amazing gifts I’ve ever received. He had done portraits of a bunch of his friends and family, each one astutely observant and utterly poignant. Each portrait had been copied onto mylar, with nothing more elaborate than tin foil behind it, and framed in black cardboard. (Also included was a simple photcopied booklet that showed what everyone else had gotten.) Really simple and it left me speechless. It was anything but lame. Despite the fact that he was easily one of the most talented illustrators I’ve ever known, he had no money to buy gifts, so he did these instead. It was a thousand times cooler than any gift that he could have purchased with money.

The portrait he did of me in his inimitable style, showed me with an appropriate background, cargo pants, pockets stuffed with all sorts of treats and useful doodads, belt with accoutrements and gadgets affixed to it, shirt with a cool graphic on it, freaky hair, tattoos, ring through my septum, rings in my ears, big pack on my back. Oh, and he got the upward perspective bang on too.

On December 6th 2000 I received one of the biggest shocks of my life. Three weeks before they were due to be married, his fiancé found him dead on the floor of their house.  At the autopsy they discovered that he had Cardiomyopathy, scarring on his heart, probably from an illness or disease early in his life. What made it even more shocking is that the doctor stated it was a miracle he had lived as long as he had and that he hadn’t been an invalid. Given that he was passionate about riding his bike, played baseball and road hockey regularly for years, this was indeed surprising.

Scott was truly one of the finest people I’ve had the privilege of knowing. Besides being an awesome illustrator who inspired me to no end, he was hysterically funny, could charm a room full of people, loyal, honest and incredibly generous. He was a great friend and I remember him often and fondly.