Saturday, January 9, 2010

So This Is The New Year...



Fruit-Lettered Greetings. Good Tidings & Good Eatings. Let's see what the New Year has in store.

Videos/Songs:


The New Year - Death Cab For Cutie

Fruit Machine - The Ting Tings

New Ways of Living - Lavender Diamond (HypeMachine)

P.S. Finished reading, now time for drawing for Illustration Month.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Caricatures and Non-Traditional Portraiture

Does anyone remember a couple of summers back, when the Simpsons Movie was doing a promotion where you could create a Simpsons style character of yourself? Or really, anytime there are celebrities featured on cartoon programs? Or even seeing different styles of animation mashed together?

I love the idea of drawing people I know, not just making up characters. I am used to traditional portraiture, drawing and photographing from observation, but I'm about to try creating caricatures and cartoonizing portraits. My new plan is to draw people I know in a caricatured fashion. Not so much about exaggerated physical features, but with personality traits, interests, (and how I see them).

Leaving you with a fantastic illustrator, Ed Wexler, who has done several drawings for The Hollywood Reporter, and has a pretty exciting portfolio of portraiture.

Songs:

Best Imitation of Myself - Ben Folds

Who Are You? - The Who

Express Yourself - Charles Wright and The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band (Mocean Worker Remix)

P.S. Illustration Month Starts January 1st!

P.P.S. Thanks to Stereogum/Pitchfork/MTVNews for the image, and Matt Groening for the awesome.)

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Gjon Mili, Stroboscopy, and Light Painting


Gene Kelly's Grand Jeté, Picasso Drawing With Light, by Gjon Mili.

Gjon Mili's one of my photography heroes. He photographed for LIFE magazine, and did a lot of work with stroboscopy, showing whole series of movements on a single frame instead of one movement on a freeze frame. This breathed new energy into formerly still portrait photography. It also utilized long-term-exposures, one of my favorite techniques in photography. His work was the inspiration for several of my light paintings (I like the neon-esque effects).



Video: Gene Kelly Dancing with Stewie and Jerry

Bonus Video: Lightpaint Piano Player - Ryan Cashman (Thanks to the folks at Drawn! for this.)


Saturday, November 28, 2009

Have You Heard? Earplug Earrings!

I love kitschy things and found-object earrings. Whether decorating your ears with zippers, Legos, Rubix Cubes, or bacon, there's no end to what can adorn your earlobes.

Recently, I've gone to several concerts where the sound systems were rather deafening. How convenient would it be to have your earplugs handy at a time like that?

Videos:

No Diggity - Blackstreet

I Can Hear Music
- The Beach Boys

I Heard It Through The Grapevine
- Marvin Gaye

Heard Them Stirring - Fleet Foxes

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The Reading List of Phenomenal Art Books



I love artbooks. And now, I'd like to present my favorites in...

A Reading List of Phenomenal Art Books:

An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers - Danny Gregory

Over and Over: A Catalog of Hand-Drawn Patterns - Michael Perry

Hand Job: A Catalog of Type - Michael Perry

National Geographic Image Collection - National Geographic, Michelle Anne Delaney, and Maura Mulvihill

Through the Lens:
National Geographic Greatest Photographs - National Geographic and Leah Bendavid-Val

Design for Obama - Posters for Change: A Grassroots Anthology - Steven Heller, Aaron Perry-Zucker, and Spike Lee

The Art Book - Phaidon Press

The Photo Book - Phaidon Press

The Arrival - Shaun Tan

1000 Record Covers - Michael Ochs

And anything published by Taschen or Phaidon.

Video:

Wrapped Up In Books - Belle and Sebastian