drawing from memory

When I'm working in the world of my alien menagerie, I often draw from nostalgic inspiration in some form or other.

I was recently browsing through some older sketchbooks of aliens, and this particular one caught my eye. When I sketched this, I was working from the memory of a toy I once had.  I wasn't trying to recreate it, so much as see how it might inspire something of my own. It was a rubber finger puppet that I remember getting at checkout in a grocery store when I was five or six.  I had a pretty clear image of how it looked, but I had know idea what it was called or how to find it either. 

In the time that's past since I made that sketch the mystery of it's inspiration was resolved.

It turns out the finger puppet was a RUBBER UGLY.  RUBBER UGLIES were a spin-off of UGLY STICKERS- the rubber monster on the left was based on the sticker pictured at right. Artwork by Norm Saunders.

I wrote about UGLY STICKERS in an earlier post. They were also another memory from childhood that I couldn't quite pin down. The images were vivid, but the name of them…not so much.  

It was the publication of a book of Norm Saunders work, and the additional discovery of a website devoted to him, that connected names with the images I remembered. Two mysteries solved at one time.

~ here's alien menagerie x.30 

acrylic on Arches 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"