Thoughts on Illustration

Thoughts On Illustration is an animation side project made with the Housatonic Community College Illustrators.



To create this font arrangement we hit up a technique called the Letter Lottery which is a process i developed for creating slightly unpredictable collaborative drawing results. Its a terrific generator of ideas by which to jump start metaphorical thinking because is located on the intersection of form and content.

In this film you’re witness to a group of people who don’t yet know one another but fairly open-mindedly took on the font design for the title to their composition notebooks. Committing to the project entailed twenty patient souls and several weeks and multiple consecutive all nighters learning Photoshop and iMovie.

We took on the project as part of an idea of participating in parallel or virtual Factory. The virtual factory being a response to the exhibition currently on display in The Housatonic Museum of Art entitled: In the Company of... Andy Warhol.

To plan a visit or learn more check out follow this link= http://www.hctc.commnet.edu/gen/news/press/2010/0805_warhol.asp

An added shout out goes to The Bird and The Bee whose song, 'Love Letter to Japan' provides an aural compliment to the visual composing. You can find out more 'bout them here= http://www.thebirdandthebee.com/main.aspx

Drivin' jPad

Sweet Home Chicago...  drivin' with my cousins and sis. Can you tell we're hungry? We're just about to stop for some Gino's Chicago Style Pizza because Bry drives just so damn fast. For those of you out East, Chicago style is sauce on top, go figure. Despite being backwards, it was tasty.  Drawing took about 45 minutes along hi-ways just shy of O'Hare on Tuesday, September 27th, 2010.

Whence upon a Burchfield...

Din Rumination

Din-Din Contemplation

KiKi goes Abstract

Smokin'

Elena captures the culprits

KiKi's Fishnets

Dial-a-laugh

M&K Contemplate their Move

Knight-kicker

Last weekend I went into the city to peep the Burchfields at the Whitney and hobnob with my homies. Burchfield was outta sight. A ton of watercolors are hanging, most of which are giant, many of which... gi-normous. 

Wholeheartily recommend you make your way there for a delightful show which includes everything from B's Yahtzee doodles and wall paper designs to his despondent, subconscious symbolism and poetic reflections. He really must of got under my skin as I began drawing immediately afterward and continued pretty much straight through dinner, conversation and cocktails afterward. Others got the bug too and the sketch eventually made its way into other hands and around the room. Above were some highlights... 

MLB, eat your heart out!

Check it out... a Wailing Wren. It came to me this morning. I awoke with it, (perhaps slept-wake is more apt) with the image both in profile and from afront. The pen gave me the more frontal image, inspired by preDisney black and white animations and a confused audience last night. When describing my fantasy baseball team to a friend, she misheard Whalley as Waily and it conjured such a powerful idea, it was hard to shake. I'm gonna color it soon, smooth it out a bit more and maybe even put it to a ball cap. Sick, huh? P.S. I don't play fantasy sports. I don't. Really.

Heads Up

While looking for images of Joseph Albers I came across a most unsual portrait of him.


















After digging slightly deeper I unearthed a whole array of portraits or as Andrew Taggart calls them, Head Studies. They're a terrific grouping and still being added too since 2006. Drawing with photographs can be difficult. The mediums have differing speeds and familiarity. To combine the two and get the medium to read well is a difficult feat. Taggart pulls it off well, not just getting the mediums to work in concert but also doing a fine interpreatation of his subject.

Check out this one of the Dalai Lama. He's got the responsibilities of Tibet and weight of China on his mind...
















Here's a pondering Albert Camus always on the scent on an existensial idea and a sneaky James Dean...




































I've always thought of Hemmingway as kinda a thug:






















And the Surrealist, Joan Miro. What's the rope for? He's certainly up to no good...






















You can tell Taggart likes the Dutchess of Windsor!





















Stravinsky, Mark Twain, maybe not so much...




































George Bernard Shaw is a headache























Georgia O'keefe is sorta out on her own, perhaps the New Mexican dessert making her feel a little isolated?
























Walter Benjamin, ever the blockhead.
























but Gertrude Stein, a dapper lady!


















Grace Kelly still has some edge to her:



















And Krishnamurti has a mountain in his lap.





















Taggart, the painter of these photographs, is Canadian but he's living in Norway. You can peep more of Taggart's work here. There are some intriguing installations as well as a set digital books which you can page through.


Lets leave on a Margaret Thatcher note

Hold On To Your Horses

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

In so far as appropriation, it doesn't get much better than this music video for the song 70 Million. A big shout out to a Quinnipiac AR101 student for hitting me on to this stunner so absolutely terrific I needed to break my blogaitus.