Pulling (another) all-nighter. Didn’t plan it, didn’t want it, but I was compelled to get in some episodes of The Wire (first appearance of Snoop!) and then all my work tasks just kept being tasky…
I was palpitating a bit too early about the whole tire-gauge thing. I momentarily forgot that Obama has about 100x the bad-assery that Kerry had, and that John McCain just can’t help compulsively screwing his campaign over. Here’s Obama with a pitch-perfect, humorous-yet-exasperated smackdown about this tire-gauge nonsense:
In other news, some really beautiful stuff at BibliOdyssey that totally tickled my fetish for ornate and lovely historical illustration — an instant bookmark favorite:
If you, my dear readers, come across this kind of thing, please please do send it along so that I may obessively collect and drool over it.
Also, I totally dig the genius that is Garfield Minus Garfield. The creator simply takes old Garfield strips and removes everything but Garfield’s owner, Jon Arbuckle, from the frame. As he puts it, “Garfield Minus Garfield is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.” Read 10 strips in succession, and you’ll start to feel the funny coming on.
Wonderful fired clay sculpture from Beth Cavener Stichter:
I Am No One
~ Beth Cavener Stitchter ~
From the artist’s statement: “There are primitive animal instincts lurking in our own depths, waiting for the chance to slide past a conscious moment. The sculptures I create focus on human psychology, stripped of context and rationalization, and articulated through animal and human forms. On the surface, these figures are simply feral and domestic individuals suspended in a moment of tension. Beneath the surface they embody the impacts of aggression, territorial desires, isolation, and pack mentality…”
Via Pixelsurgeon.
Great stuff from Mark Bodnar, who is apparently in LA hard at work on a pilot episode for the Cartoon Network. He also does commissions.
Found this on the reliably entertaining Pixelsurgeon.
Steve Ruetschle ~ Thaddeus, 5′x4′, Oil & Canvas
My friend Steve Ruetschle is many things – a musician, a senior pastor in Manila, a father of two amazing boys and husband to an amazing woman, Michelle, and yes, an artist. About a decade ago or something, he did a series of paintings of all 12 of Jesus’ disciples. “Thaddeus” has been on extended loan to us from another friend who is a bit of gypsy – seemingly always on the move. This friend is now on the move again to Portland and wants Thaddeus back. We’re sad to let it go, not only because it’s an amazing painting, but because it’s been a tangible a link across the many miles of ocean between here and Manila to Steve and Michelle. When and if our finances ever work out, I’d love to commission a piece from Steve.
Here’s a bit of background on Thaddeus for the curious:
Jude, Thaddeus, or Lebbeus, son of Alpheus or Cleophas and Mary. He was a brother of James the Younger. He was one of the very little-known Apostles and lived in Galilee. Tradition says he preached in Assyria and Persia and died a martyr in Persia.
Jerome called Jude “Trinomious” which means “a man with three names.” In Mark 3:18 he is called Thaddeus. In Matthew 10;3 he is called Lebbeus. His surname was Thaddeus. In Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13 he is called Judas the brother of James. Judas Thaddeus also was called Judas the Zealot.
By character he was an intense and violent Nationalist with the dream of world power and domination by the Chosen People. In the New Testament records (John 14:22 NIV) he asked Jesus at the Last Supper, “But Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” Judas Thaddeus was interested in making Christ known to the world. Not as a suffering Saviour, however, but as ruling King. We can see plainly from the answer Jesus gave him, that the way of power can never be substituted for the way of love.
It is said that Jude went to preach the gospel in Edessa near the Euphrates River. There he healed many and many believed in the name of the Master. Jude went from there to preach the Gospel in other places. He was killed with arrows at Ararat. The chosen symbol for him is the ship because he was a missionary thought to be a fisherman.
This extraordinary video was created by an animator named Yannick Puig for song called “I Lived On The Moon” by Kwoon. Yannick created a page full of lovely sketches and background on his work, and should you want to save a nice high-quality version of the video for enjoyment later, there’s a link to that, too.
Jewels like this that artists create are generous little gifts to humanity. I’m an artist, but for some reason I’ve only recently become really aware of what a necessary and nourishing activity art is for the human spirit – both for those who create it and those who receive it. Enjoy, and thanks, Yannick.
I’ve been pulling some long nights, but I’m making headway on my work load and doing well. This is a month for much web-wrangling, but I should be back to a more reasonable schedule by the end of March. Still not enough time for a long thoughtful post on personal topics, but here’s a grab-bag of links for your enjoyment:
- Lord Of The Rings, The Musical: I can hardly wait to see Gandalf spinning like a giddy school girl through the fields of Rohan singing “The hills are alive with the sound of orc horns”, clap my hands along with the rollicking Nazgul sing-along “The Nine Gay Blades On Weathertop”, and get a little misty-eyed at the Grishnakh/Shelob duet “Losing Frodo”.
- MOBA (Museum Of Bad Art) – Art Too Bad To Be Ignored (TM): My quick-glance-favorite is The Athlete, a stunning crayon portrait of a man in neo-classical discus-hurling posture, inexplicably wearing white socks and black shoes and sporting a pink toga.
- Amira, the font: We, the Moment family, are honored that Cyrus Highsmith, typographer extraordinaire, decided to create a font in honor of our sweet baby girl. Thanks, man. You’re the best. (I’ll have to save up the money for it for her first birthday, tho — $300 for the whole family of fonts!)
- Eric Grohe Murals: Got a big ol’ blank wall just lying around uglifying the place? Well, you need to give Eric a call. The man can work wonders with a brush, a couple of assistants, and a big big (big big) canvas. One favorite is the murals in the Miller Brewing Company brewing room. Maybe it will inspire the brewmasters to make a better low-carb beer. One can only hope… On the more serious side, his mural for the Washington State Corrections Center for Women is inspired. The quotes from the inmates brought a tear to my eye. What if all our correctional institutions had areas like this that could uplift and provide solace to inmates through art and beauty?
- sIFR 2.0 RC4: What lies behind that incomprehensible acronym is a revolution in web typography that should become a just a much a regular tool in a webmonkey’s toolbox as CSS, the W3Schools online code reference, and a good JPG compression tool. Basically, it uses Flash to dynamically replace and display regular HTML text on the fly. The result? Beautiful anti-aliased fonts, the power to create gorgeous layouts, and a web page that is still fully accessible, standards-compliant, and completely indexable by search engines. Kudos to Mike, Mark and the other geniuses responsible for it.
- WordPress turns 1.5: More awesome open source software and definitely the king of the free blog world. It amazes me how much cool stuff people give away for free on the web. WP1.5 is nice and modular now, with the display templates being completely seperate from the blog engine, and easy to build and switch out. I’ll be switching over our family of blog sites here soon. (And by soon, I mean “before summer” at the rate I’m going now.)
Thanks as always, thanks to my lovely wife for the diverting reading…
So….bright…. So….beautiful…. My…Precious!
So, granted this Wacom Cintiq 21UX tablet costs as much as a big-screen TV, but man! What a treat to be able to do digital illustration and manipulation on a tablet screen that big. I have a fairly large 18″ Wacom serial tablet that’s about 5 yrs old or so. Works great — never had any complaints. But I’ve only used it about 10 times total. I’m a pretty visual person, and a pretty busy person, and consequently I’ve never really taken the time to coordinate myself enough to use it. I never really got the hang of how to move the onscreen tools using the pen while looking someplace else entirely — it always felt strange, and not very precise. And the type of work I’ve been doing over the last years has been very adequately served by using a mouse.
But I’ve had a growing desire to do illustration for a while now, and having something like this in front of me would definitely help smooth the way and give me more of a visceral connection with the art because I could directly see it taking shape under my pen. If any of you, my dear loyal readers, felt suddenly inspired to burst out and buy me one, I’m not going to say no. (You may also accompany your tablet gift with a Painter software package from Corel. That would be lovely.)
Like gadgets? A friend sent me the link to the tablet via Gizmodo — a blog that’s all about the toys.
…that is illustrator KEITH THOMPSON, an illustrator I found (once again) via Sky’s blog by way of DeviantArt.
I’m in awe, truly. I’ve been known to sketch from time to time, but this guy takes it to a whole new level. And it’s not just the art. He creates these little scenario vignettes around each piece that make them extra icky or fantastical or bizarre. Take this for instance about the Baron — the first image above:
The serfs grow increasingly tired of the brutal and irrational treatment they are subjected to at the hands of their lord. The Baron is a feudal knight of a militant and formerly prosperous feifdom with coffers swollen by recent land grabs. During a campaign for further territory acquisition the Baron was made aware of a tomb on the outskirts of a neighboring lord’s manor. While rumored to contain the dowry and burial tributes of a wealthy aristocratic couple struck down in their prime by a virulent and pernicious illness that had wracked the local countryside, it was said that grave robbers have superstitiously avoided the loot. After the Baron had dashed their remains about the crypt, while ordering the collection of anything of value, he returned to his own estates. He began refusing to be seen outside of his armour, and a horrific stench began emanating from both his person and his quarters. He had his smithy refashion and modify his armour in seemingly illogical ways which should have rendered it unwearable by a normal person. Servant girls consistently went missing when attending him in his private chambers, and he became a rare sight outside those rooms. His lands lay in disarray and his subjects starve and flounder.
My only question is, why hasn’t this guy been given a top-drawer graphic novel project yet? Vertigo, get this guy on board NOW.
Speaking of Vertigo, we just got 4 new graphic novels today — Superman: Secret Identity, Rising Stars: Born In Fire (written by the creator of Babylon 5), and League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1 and 2. I’ll do a graphic novel review post sometime soon here…
Anyway, KEITH THOMPSON. Go to his site, buy some prints, and keep the man in business doing his thing.
Update: Anna in the comments mentioned American McGee’s “Alice” — a dark gothic video game version of the Alice In Wonderland story. Here’s a link to some art by Normal Feschle, the concept artist that worked on the game with McGee at Electronic Arts.
This made me laugh. The latest Wired Magazine has a review of a book called “Do It”, 180 do-it-yourself projects that were submitted by artists, architects, writers and scientists. It includes everything from a purposefully impractical entry by Douglas Copeland on “How To Create A Blog”, a 20-step recipe for cocaine, and, of course, this little gem about how to dress for success.
Crazy. Didn’t expect the interest in my images. Thanks all for your nice comments. I’ll toss some more in here and there as time goes by.
So, here’s another one. Even though I have my own freelance web business, have some great partners in Brookings, OR, am starting up a new company, and act as the VP of New Media for a search engine optimization company, I still like to take some free time in Photoshop to fool around every now and again. Keeps me limber and interested.
This pic was taken from an idea I had about what an actual totem figure would look like in real life. We always see these really stylized figures on totem poles or on African masks that look interesting but fairly innocuous. I got to thinking that these god figures would actually be pretty terrifying in a lot of instances — humanoid creatures blended in a primitive and primal way with animal features. So, this is my stab at an African mask come to life. I’ve also included the source pics so’s y’all can see where I started from.
This is the only one I’ve done to date — been pretty busy — but I may do more in the future if the urge takes me.
I sketch compulsively when I’m on the phone — doodles, patterns, characters, stuff exploding, etc. Teleconferences are especially productive times, with lots of other people talking and nothing to do but sit and listen unless I’m running the meeting. And even though I have a formal art education, I still find myself drawing comic book style stuff — overly muscled men with guns, metallic doodads, etc. (I’m a huge fan of graphic novels, too: The Sandman series, Lucifer, Preacher, 100 Bullets, Fables, etc.) Anyway, I thought I’d throw some of my stuff out here for visual interest. This blog is a bit on the plain side and could use an image or two that’s not a baby picture… 
I call this one “Turtle Thug and Friends”.
