I sketch with all the skill of a five-year-old drawing a box house with two crooked windows cross braced into four panes, a door only a cubist could love, and stick mommy, stick daddy, and the stick children behind a skewed picket fence in the front yard. And, oh yeah, a big ball of the sun high in the upper right corner. If I could only get the clouds not to look like alien objects in an otherwise sufficient sky, I would be happy as a clam. If I knew, how happy a clam was.
Poor as I am at this sketching ability, I persist. I recently purchased an iPadPro just to get my hands on the new Apple pencil and the two or so magical apps that allow me to waste paper no more and more importantly delete, so I am not tempted to revisit my works of art. Alas, the pencil and the pad and the apps do not contain enough magic to further my efforts. Lucky for the world and me, others who are talented pack museums with emotion filled dabs of paint and simple lines that somehow manage to reveal the inner workings of mind and the universe.
And there are magazine covers.
I learned some time ago the proper way to appreciate a painting is to live with it. I cannot afford the view of the Bridge at Arles painted by Van Gogh, but prints are available. One of which was on my wall for years. Not framed. Unrolled and pinned. My appreciation grew each day as I worked, slept and gazed at the scene. New discoveries, new visions, new depth.
When I first saw the Leo Morey cover, Amazing Stories Volume Seven Number Four March 1932, it was a city I wanted not only to live in but to explore. Since no large prints were available, I decided to, with one grande sized piece of pulpy paper, paint my interpretation. I know what you are thinking. The result was not nearly so devastating. I did hang in on the wall. Not with Van Gogh, but in the basement next to the table I fashioned as my work desk.
I learned in my re-creation, exploration was possible. I became intimate with the folks in those marvelous egg shaped suspended vehicles. I lived for a time in the big shadowy building off to the left. For a reason only known in the depth of my soul, I did not create one written story. Was content to let them stream through my consciousness.
There are a wealth of covers of science fiction pulp magazines available on the internet. Just a short search away. Available for your wonder and your appreciation. And your dreaming.