A
little about me and the drawings.
Welcome
everybody to the prints of the "Butterflies" that live
in my world, a world of beautiful aircraft and young men, many
of them heroes, living life to the limit flying their colourful
machines .
For many people, I'm sure, it will be strange to think of the
planes used in World War One as " Butterflies "
So, if I can, I would really like to explain to you, my own personal
connections and feelings for drawing these aircraft. For me,
they are not a glorification of war, but more a remembrance;
a glimpse of the past. The drawings contain the names of those
young men who gave their lives to flying those early fragile
machines.
Fragile as butterflies!
The simple beauty of a machine made from wood and canvas, a war
plane, but which through my eyes is also a work of art and of
history.
I was born in England in 1948. I grew up in a time when the country
was still recovering from the Second World War. I think young
boys of that period, naturally, took an interest in the aeroplanes
used in the war. I can remember, as a small boy, drawing aeroplanes
on my school note books.
Later I made plastic models of the planes, and had them dangling
by strings from the ceiling of my bedroom. At sixteen years old,
I left school and started a five year engineering apprenticeship
with the British Aircraft Corporation and had a chance to work
on making parts for the Concorde Airliner. Later my interests
in Art, led me to study Fine Art at St. Albans School of Art,
and later The Royal West of England Academy of Art.
After getting my degree in Fine Art in 1974. I left England and
worked in various countries around the world working on Arts
and Crafts projects.
Finally, I came to work in Japan as an English teacher in 1981.
In 1992, I got my first Macintosh computer and later joined a
small Mac user group. Being interested in doing Art and Design,
the group gave me a technical graphics program to get me started.
It was a lucky chance, because that software started me on my
new exciting art career. At that time, I needed a project to
practice learning how to use the software's drawing tools, and
I suppose my mind came full circle back to my childhood, and
drawing an aeroplane seemed a natural choice. That was my first
small step on a long and interesting journey into computer generated
airplane art.
I have spent the last eight years designing 1/72nd scale model
paper planes and making precision five view prints of aircraft
that you can now see at this site.
Richard
Ansell. Tokyo. 14.11.2000.
