Stevens, Dave - 1979 Charcoal & Watercolour Portrait

An absolutely stunning and EARLY Dave Stevens portrait of a beautiful young woman's face. At San Diego every year, there were a bunch of his friends, including myself, who would always torture Dave by bringing him printed examples of his early pre-professional work that had made its way into print. Depending upon his mood, Dave would say, "I wish you hadn't come up with THAT!" or "But I was in high school when I drew that! or "I was at summer camp and drew that on my bunk bed..." or he'd refuse to sign the printed example and say, "I'm not going to sign THAT!" However, here is a lovely piece drawn by Dave 'way back in 1979 -- three years before the advent of THE ROCKETEER -- when he was 24 that NO ONE could ever be ashamed of.
All too often we say, "the scan does no justice to the actual art." Well, believe me, the scan just could not capture the subtlties of the watercolour shading and the sense of the charcoal on the textured paper.
I bought this piece at auction on eBay and then had one of those adventures that is harrowing while going through it, but fun to look back on. This Stevens piece and a shipment of other art got mixed up by the shipper, and this lovely mixed media Stevens portrait (charcoal and watercolour) made its way to Belgium, while the Belgian's purchased art made its way to me in Canada. Then everything had to be shipped back to the seller and reshipped to its proper destination. Remember the Carly Simon song, "Anticipation"? Bought on November 26, 2008 and received on January 20, 2009!