Wing Walker

John Hare July 15, 2015

Here is another illustration for Truman State University Press book on Notable Missourian Maria Meyer Fower (Written by Christine Montgomery). Here she is shown climbing out onto the wing of her JN-4 Jenny. A common thing for her, but this time was different. They were flying through downtown St Louis on a particularly gusty day while attempting to whip up crowds for a show. The intense wind made it harrowing enough that the pilot cut it short and returned to the open air in short order.

Barnstormstress

John Hare July 10, 2015

I made that word up. Its kind of a cool word methinks, but I suspect anything made feminine by adding "stress" to the end is understandably pejorative. I mean you're adding the word stress to something to a title to denote its a woman! Sheesh. All that said, if there's one word I think could easily have stress woven in to it its barnstormer. Hmmm Is that one word or two? Anyways, ironically I don't think stress was part of Marie Meyer Fowers vocabulary when it came to anything flight related, it was her love and she was incredible at it. Here is an illustration of her after jumping from another JN-4 Jenny while impressing a gathered crowd.

This illustration is for the Notable Missourian book on Marie Meyer Fower written by Christine Montgomery and published by Truman State University Press.

Marie Meyer Fower Learns to Fly

John Hare June 29, 2015

This illustration for Chapter 2 of the Notable Missourian book on Marie Meyer Fower (written by Christine Montgomery and published by Truman State University Press) shows Marie being instructed on how to fly the famous and at the time ubiquitous Curtiss JN-4 Jenny. The Jenny was designed as a trainer aircraft during WWI. After the war thousands were sold as surplus for next-to-nothing prices. All these easy easy to fly aircraft were suddenly in the hands of civilians brave enough to fly them in an almost completely unregulated environment. Thus began the barnstorming era! That period really helped put the plane into the public consciousness....although not always for the good. In the daredevil world of Barnstorming, dramatic accidents were not uncommon.

Marie Meyer Fower, a Missouri Barnstormer

John Hare June 23, 2015

This Notable Missourian book (written by Christine Montgomery and published by Truman State University Press) is about Marie Meyer Fower. Not only was she one of the rare women pilots in the early days of flight, she was also a barnstormer, wing walker, and all around daredevil with a true love of aviation. This first illustration shows Marie playing with the other kids in St Louis and noticing an early airplane flying in the distance.

Colors roughly blocked in by hand in acrylic