February 9, 2009
Had lunch today with Lew Jones of Mineshaft fame. Lew and Tara had the infamous Cave Creek bar where The Jones & Boze Show broadcast from in 1998 and 1999. Lew retired to Mogollon, New Mexico but he and Tara kept a cabin in a sweet canyon north of Cave Creek.

We went to Tonto Bar & Grill. I paid ($50, includes tip, business account).

Worked most of the weekend on developing the excellent reference scenes I poached from the 1959 Western The Wonderful Country. As I mentioned, I did a record 41 sketches. Here are a few:

These sketches led directly to here:

And to here:

The movie is based on a book of the same name by Tom Lea, who was a Texas writer and artist who I believe did work for True West. Tom tells a funny story about the movie. They shopped the book to Henry Fonda who wasn't interested, then someone else, who passed. When they showed it to Mitchum, he "had a really good lawyer", in Lea's parlance and Mitchum ended up controlling the entire project. Lea has a small part in the movie as the barber, and, according to Lea, the only money he got for the movie was for the acting he did. He never saw a dime for the rights to the story.

Ah, Hollywood.

Anyway, one of the heavy's in the movie has a great scar and a frightening look. He's not very developed, although his scenes may have been cut from the movie. Here's a sketch of him:

Last night I sat down and watched it just as a movie (except when I clicked over to the Grammys to watch Paul McCartney rock out on "I Saw Her Standing There"). Wonderful scenes of Mitchum riding up through crooked, adobe streets:

I'm marrying some of these vaquero sketches to the storm sketches from these weekend. Art to follow.

"No one ever listened themself out of a job."
—Calvin Coolidge