Art & Story Blog

A caricature of PJ Harvey based on a photo in today’s LA Times (Oct. 26, 2007).

Another caricature. If you’re in the U.S. (or anywhere else Late Night with Conan O’Brien is syndicated) and if you ever stay up past your bedtime, this will probably need little explanation.

I get the sense that Conan is always in the midst of an existential crisis while doing his show. No doubt, the self-deprecating is an intentional aspect of the comedy, but there may also be some authenticity to it.

Caricature of Noah Kalina, the guy who took a picture of himself everyday for six years. Well, almost everyday. Close enough. It looks like he’s missed a total of about 35 days in the last seven and a half years, actually. Though I’m a little confused about some of his absences. Like on September 8th, 2001, in place of his photo for that day, there’s a message stating, "Crossed International Dateline," but the photo on September 7th and the photo on September 9th are in the same location. Did he fly to Japan and then get right back on the plane and return to New York? Also, the photos for August 20th, 2003 and August 27th, 2003 appear to have been taken on the same day, because his hair is exactly the same in both. Plus, in the second of these two photos, I think he has the biggest smile of the entire series. Maybe the joke’s on us?

Noah gained net-celebrity status with his YouTube video of 6 years worth of self portraits edited together. It generated copy-cats, spoofs, praise, and criticism. A simple and clever idea, though perhaps a sign of the rampant narcissism that seems to be flourishing on the net, this has been his gimmick — his schtick — and it’s garnered a lot of attention. He appears to be using this attention to promote his professional photography, which he happens to be pretty talented at.

I just completed this T-shirt design for musician-singer-songwriter and friend Shannon McNally. The design on the left is for printing on light-colored shirts and the one on the right is for dark shirts. Click the image for a larger view. Also, here’s a detail image:

This image came about while sketching on the concept of a chimp among mushrooms and Shannon liked it enough that we decided to go with it, even though her original idea had the chimp playing drums on some mushrooms. It’s another image I really like and maybe can pursue at some other point, maybe for another shirt design? She told me on the phone that the idea relates to a sort of theory she has on the origin of religion involving a drumming chimp and perhaps some mushrooms. You put the pieces together on that one, but just consider the possibility of non- or pre-human primates having vividly (there’s that word again, vivid! I think it’s the word of the week or something.) spiritual and creative experiences. I think it’s not so far fetched.

My mom recently sent me this email about my last blog post, The Dark Thoughts Approaching:

"The Dark Thoughts look a *lot* like the bad dreams in the Babar book that  scared you when you were little. I couldn’t possibly put this on your blog—everyone would know your MOTHER was doing it. But it really struck me.—Love, Mom"

Thanks, Mom!

Above is the illustration from the book, Babar the King (Le Roi Babar) by Jean de Brunhoff.

Apparently I was about three or four years old when this frightened me. I don’t really remember being afraid of it, but just looking at it as an adult, I can see how it might have disturbed me as a child. Brunhoff’s creatures are truly demonic looking. There’s a primal and vivid wickedness in these, however kind of obsurd or cartoony. And though they’re supposedly being driven back, perhaps to some underworld, I’m afraid they may be driven right off the page and into our world. But I’m able to revel in these images now. The embodying of the respective concepts (fear, despair, spinelessness, etc.) is genius and done with such beautiful simplicity. Wild imagination really gets to shine here (even if it does scare little kids).

A new tool arrived on my doorstep Saturday: the Kuretake brush pen. It’s essentially a fountain pen with a brush tip. I’m so impressed with the elegance and quality of this pen! Thanks to John Sanford for the tip. I’m delighting in the smooth flowing thick and thin and just experimenting with the various qualities of line it’s capable of. The above drawing was done with the Kuretake, as were the drawings in my previous two posts (”OMG LOL” and “Sad Toad Man”).

This one, as is the case with a lot of my drawings, is largely the result of just experimenting with line. I happened to draw a character on the right and began playing with abstract line on the left. As the abstracts evolved, I began to see a relationship between the two. I imagined that the abstract stuff was something this character was seeing. A drug-induced hallucination, perhaps? Or maybe the result of sheer psychosis or a hyperactive imagination? Or perhaps it isn’t so literal. Maybe we are seeing a representation of his emotional state. The odd thing is the disparity between the wild quality of the abstracts and the extremely sedate expression on the guy’s face. I imagined he’s trying to stay cool in the face of all this really crazy stuff he is either seeing or thinking or feeling. “Don’ trip,” he tells himself. Don’t trip.

This video I saw last week of Oliver Sacks in 1986 is still resonating with me and the above drawing/painting brings to mind, yet again, the quote which turned up in one of my doodles:

“One way or another, people want to live creatively and they want to live vividly.”

A big round of applause to the entire cast and crew of Pixar’s Ratatouille! It was a true delight! Superbe! Genial! Credit must be given to Jan Pinkava as originator of the film, but accolades to Brad Bird’s script and his unbeatable skills of direction, omission, and selection. The timing of the action sequences was just spot-on. I loved all the little touches. All the characters were a joy to watch (and superbly voiced — I couldn’t believe that was Janeane Garofolo doing a french accent), and I loved the designs of the rats. I could go on and on. Little rats are dancing in my head.

See story artist Jenny Lerew’s post on Ratatouille for much more thoughtful and eloquently stated observations, of which I wish I could plagiarize word for word.

I almost forgot to post this. This is a style experiment I whipped up a few months ago when a friend contacted me about doing a print ad design/illustration for Gemini Mixers. I didn’t have any samples that quite matched the style they were going for, so I came up with one. The job ended up not materializing, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

Loteria Mexican Restaurant, Los Angeles Farmer’s Market

An illustration I completed Sunday of Django Reinhart. Ink and brush on Bristol.

This was my first and very spontaneous sketch for the design of Holiday Lights. After a couple of failed attempts to improve upon the composition, I ultimately just decided to follow it exactly. Sometimes the first ideas are the best.