I did this drawing partly as a reaction to all of the
clipped hair and waxed bodies that I saw dominating the gay landscape.
I wanted to show that guys with hair, and lots of it, could still be
considered hot. Once I had the "hairy" ideal resolved, I thought it
would be fun to further the theme by placing the boys on a bearskin
rug. The guys are having fun and the bear is ferociously glassy-eyed.
I like the curves and lines of this picture and thought the
composition worked perfectly for the two-page horizontal format that
my editor was forcing on me at the time. Normally, the "meat" of a
drawing is in the center, but because it would fall into the magazine
page "gutter," these extra-wides proved to be both challenging and
against all of the rules I had become familiar with.
— Michael Kirwan
Grin and Bear It — 2001
— 16¼" x 6¼" on paper 16¾" x 9¼"
Originally published in
Inches magazine October, 2001.
The art is signed and
dated by the
artist.
Below is a close-up section of
the illustration to show some of the great details that make up this
image. |
