Ken Kelly Original Art - Under the guidance of Frazetta, Ken was able to fine-tune his skill even further. Frazetta stressed how important it was to put feeling into creating a painting and to let the action on the canvas come from the imagination. Ken took those words to heart and has lived by them ever since. Later that same year, Ken received his first professional assignment. Before he turned the painting in, he took it to Frazetta to get his approval. Well, Frazetta did not think that the woman in the painting had a terrified enough expression on her face, so he painted over her old face, with a new one of his own, which he felt worked better. Now it was ready to be turned in. That painting was done for Warren’s Vampirella Magazine and is titled, “The Lurking Terror”. For the rest of that year, Ken worked for Warren and Skywald magazine. Then in 1969, he entered the book cover field and has since worked for just about every major publishing house. Ken has done work for some of the best selling authors in the field, including an outstanding series for Robert E. Howard, and the complete series of Robert Adam’s famous Horseclan novels. Outside the bookcover field, Ken has worked for nearly all of the large toy manufacturers. He has also done many album covers, including two paintings for KISS, for which he was rewarded with gold albums. Over the years, Ken’s artwork has continued to have the unique ability to evoke the imagination to travel to faraway places and primal battlefields. You will see that same imaginative ability in both his pen and ink drawings and his full color paintings. His work quite literally explodes with energy and throbs with life. His paintings are done exclusively in oil and are relatively large in size. Most of the paintings average 30”X40”, and many are much larger. In fact, “Kingdom of the Knights” measures a fantastic 40”X60”! – Paraphrased from Ken Kelly’s Book “The Art of Ken Kelly” by Michael J. Friedlander – July, 1990. |
