Drawings Part 1: First Drawings Since My School Years

This is the first part of my new series here in Tales from the Brazier’s Grotto. I start to show here my drawings! Do I draw? No, I don’t, but it’s hopefully my new hobby. I hope to start producing some new drawings, but I have decided to show in this series my old school works, too. I start with three drawings that I published in my article earlier this month.

These three drawings are the reason for this series, the reason for my desire to start drawing. They are all of a late Japanese musician called Hideto Matsumoto (1964–1998), known by his stage name ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒. You can check the article, for which I drew them, here. There were no public domain/Creative Commons images of him available, so I decided to create the illustrations myself. I haven’t drawn since my school days, and that means that there was about forty years gap between this day and the last time I have drawn something. I was worried if I can create anything. And I have never actually made drawings of people. In my archives there were only a couple of efforts. So, after all these years I had to create pictures of a human – and not just of anyone but of a certain person.

First I had to think what kind of images I want to have. I have on my computer a file full of all kind of pictures of ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 and I also have photo books about him. But I didn’t want to do a straightforward copy. So I decided to use video material. I kept my eyes open for footages that I could use as a model.

I am a big fan of ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒’s song ‘Rocket Dive’ and I am watching very often a recording from a television show called ポップジャム (POP JAM) that was aired on NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). I usually watch this good quality video, but one day in April I bumped on Facebook into a video where there was a sort of introduction and a talk with ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 before the performance (not so good quality version of it can also seen on YouTube) and from that I got an idea for my very first drawing after forty years or so. It’s the only one of these three drawings that is basically a copy of a certain screenshot. Below you can see this screenshot and a detail of it (please click the image to see the whole picture; you come back to this page by clicking the small x on the top right corner):

The date of this POP JAM show was 7 February 1998. In the beginning there was a talk with ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 before the performance of the song ‘Rocket Dive’. Below is my effort to capture this very short moment, when he is puckering up his lips:

My first drawing after my school years shows ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 in February 1998. Illustration © Katriina Etholén.

After finishing this very first drawing after all these years, I was kind of relieved: the drawing might not be a world class masterpiece, but at least I could make some kind of portrait. And what’s most important, I noticed that I loved to draw. I graduated in 1981 and on that same year I started photographing. So photography has been since then my means to create art, document what I see. I never even thought about something else. Until April 2021.

I was happy that drawing felt good. In fact it felt extremely good, it felt good that I could create something of my own. Of course you do that with photography, too, but as I am photographing in a documentary way, I don’t actually feel that I am creating art. Maybe my drawings are not works of art, but at least I can create something that is not necessary tied with the reality. I can use my imagination if I want. I was ready to draw more after the first picture was born.

ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 was a man of many faces, so to speak and I had three versions of him in my mind. I don’t know if I have any favourite ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 look, but I love his long, red hair, so of course I wanted to try to make a drawing of him with that look. And not just with that lovely hair, I wanted him to wear a green hat, too. Unlike my first drawing, for my second one I used screenshots from two different videos, both from 1994. This first one was the main source for his face:

Screenshot from a live performance of X Japan, 31 December 1994.

That screenshot above is from a video that you can see here. 𝐻𝐼𝐷𝐸 is here with his band X Japan (his name was written with capital letters with X Japan related things, otherwise it was written as “ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒”) and the song is ‘Joker’, one of the few songs that he wrote for X Japan. But what I wanted to do was to draw him in one of the outfits he used on his 𝐻𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑂𝑢𝑟 𝑃𝑠𝑦𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 solo tour in the spring of 1994. So I needed a bit of help from the footages from those performances. This is another main “source” for my second drawing:

A screenshot from a video of ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 playing his song ‘50% & 50%’ during 𝐻𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑂𝑢𝑟 𝑃𝑠𝑦𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 tour.

The screenshot is from this video, around on min. 2.06. And below is the result:

ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒’s look in 1994. Illustration © Katriina Etholén.

The result is definitely a sort of hybrid. I was wondering if I put too much lipstick on him, but in the end, it really doesn’t matter. I like my creation anyway.

My last ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 picture ended up being something else than I had planned, so I am not giving the screenshot that was supposed to be my model. I am too embarrassed, as the result has nothing to with the original one, and to be honest, it has nothing to do with anything. But in my defense I can say that I have seen that expression on his face, too. You can see here the video from where I took my inspiration. It’s from 1990.

 Illustration © Katriina Etholén.

ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 had a charming smile and I wanted to capture that, but it was not yet the right time for that. I adore his face, I adore his smile. And I want to continue drawing him. So whenever I have time to produce some new drawings, they will be about him, maybe made for ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 related articles or just for pleasure. I am quite pleased about these very first efforts, but I will continue drawing him until one day I have created a picture that I can frame and hang on my wall. It might take some time, but I love his face and that’s why I will enjoy drawing him. And it’s anyway him, who made me drawing and made me realize how much fun it is.

Besides new ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 drawings I will start sharing on my blog my old school works. I am glad that I have them all here with me. Some are terrible, some are odd, but they are part of my life. I remember some of them, some are totally strange, even though they have my name written on the corner, but I guess they all will get now some new stories around them.

And maybe one day I will draw some new, non-ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 related things, too. We’ll see… 

Text and drawings © Katriina Etholén