Alan G. Brooks - Art and Illustration

Still Life Jimi Hendrix - 'Winter Still Life' - 10 x 8 inches oil on board. Pink Floyd - 68 - Syd Barrett. Acrylic and pencil on paper. 12 x 5 inches approx   Alternative York Road - Kings Heath 1967 - [ or not ] Above - so, after the previous post that got me thinking about Silver Street , York Road , Alcester Rd Sth etc and how it would be if Jimi Hendrix did do an impromptu 'concert' in Kings Heath - seeing as he was at the Ritz and not playing officially there that night. Maybe he'd spill out and over into the street somewhere? Well, anyway - it made for an interesting flight of fancy for a fleeting moment or two. Those fleeting moments have been a surreal platform for my imagination thats lingered now for over 56 years or so! Time Flies! Alan G Brooks

 True story this one.  It was 1967 and I had just been to the swimming baths. It was cold and typically English weather.  I was in Silver Street at the Fish and Chip shop. Getting some nosh to stave off the hunger that swimming had brought on. Also - fish and chips are much better after you've had a swim - and it's a bit of a ritual anyway. So, I bump into an old school friend out side the shop. He was a guitar player and getting involved in all of that. Guitars hadn't totally got me yet - but it was all around - and it was 1967 too! I wasn't prepared for the statement that unfolded next. My friend told me that Jimi Hendrix was here last week in this very road, York Rd. a few paces from where we were standing. This place had the Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Pink Floyd - you name it - all flooding through its doors since 1963. All had played there and the building itself was no bigger than the average pub to squeeze everyone into. Those really were the days appare...

 Music - Art - Illustration I have put up some more pieces on my website that are sci fi and music themed.  I am settling in to work again after settling in to the new house. I am taking commissions again in music, sci fi and fantasy related art - cover art, logo design - the works. Back in the saddle is - [I guess] - what I'm saying - so Onwards and Upwards and back to it. See you there - gallery  Alan G Brooks Design

Kings Heath and the Sixties.  Acrylic painting - Alan Brooks - "Sixties part one." - detail - 2010 I grew up in Kings Heath , Birmingham. Down the road from my house was York Road. In York Road was  a place called the Ritz Ballroom . Not long after The Beatles released their record "Please Please Me" in 1963 they were booked and played there. After that, heaven knows what happened, The Rolling Stones , The Kinks , Pink Floyd  Robert Plant and The Moody Blues all played there too! I heard that this piece of musical history burned down in 2013 - and was then demolished in 2015. I wasn't old enough to have seen any of those acts at the venue, but they had a lasting impact on me all the same. Alan G Brooks

and why not . . . ? Jimi Hendrix - "Impression 67" - Alan Brooks Oil on board "Floral Peace" - Knight Herald - Alan Brooks Acrylic on board My roots were bound in the late sixties - early seventies. Big O, Oz Magazine, Underground Comics and Posters, International Times, Mati Klarwein, Ernst Fuchs, Rick Griffin, Robert Crumb, Martin Sharp - and on and on and on. Where does the time go? Onwards and Upwards Alan G Brooks

oil painting / acrylic paintings and airbrush. . .    Alan G. Brooks - Jimi Hendrix /  - Summer '68 - detail. Oil on canvas. Alan G. Brooks - Randy California - SPIRIT - Kaptain Kopter - [Kaptain Kopter 2] - pen, inks and airbrush on paper. The pic at top is a small section from an oil painting on canvas - "Summer '68" - Jimi Hendrix - George Harrison. I was interested in 1968 as it was then that I started to appreciate - deeply appreciate - the whole bourgeoning psychedelic "scene."  Magazines like "OZ" started to appear at the local newsagents. OZ, significantly an abundance of illustrations by Martin Sharp within it's pages. I had never seen anything like that before. My picture of Randy California above is influenced by much of what I saw in Sharps work. Desraeli Gears and Wheels of Fire by Cream are still some of my favorite pieces of art. The Randy California piece - above - is an ink drawing on photo...