ad astra, day 3

Very short Blathering today...just got home from Ad Astra and am dead tired. More on the convention tomorrow.

The photo today is from the "Illustrating Tolkien" panel, with Ted Nasmith (far left), Martin Springett (with guitar), and John Howe (far right). Howe is one of the artists that Peter Jackson recruited to design Middle Earth for the Lord of the Rings movie...Howe's earlier work was especially influential in how Gandalf was portrayed in the film. Enlarged sketches and prints of Howe's work for Lord of the Rings were hung along one wall of the panel room, which was very cool.


I found Howe to be the most entertaining speaker of the trio at the panel. He spent the entire panel sketching (on paper, on a cloth napkin, etc.) and occasionally answering questions that interested him...the other questions he would wave away or reply with a "I agree."

We never did get to see what he was sketching. :-)

Martin Springett did the covers for the Fionavar Tapestry series (Guy Gavriel Kay was a Guest of Honour at Ad Astra) as well as other books (mostly children's, I think). I was surprised and quite delighted when he pulled out a guitar and played a beautiful instrumental piece ("Tears of ???" -- I can't remember the title. Arbonne? Arwen?).

I did attack Rand's registration package for a Lord of the Rings poster for Sara and Annie (he said I could), but was crestfallen to find that it was a Time Machine poster instead...I guess the convention had run out of LOTR posters. Kudos to Rand for offering, tho.

BUT! Heather Borean tracked down a poster for my nieces...thank you, Heather! Sara and Annie are going to be thrilled, I guarantee it. She also graciously agreed to let me post her lyrics to Waiting For Waiting For Frodo; I'll do that tomorrow when I am more coherent.

Blatherpics

	Tolkien artist panel on Saturday.
	Merav performing at last night's open filk.
	Heather cringing as someone performs a song with a lot of very bad puns. :-)