Me and Ben, Acrylic on wood, 27.75″ x 12″
Something you don’t need to know about me: I can’t keep toothpaste in my mouth.
Something you don’t need to know about Ben: He has Wolverine hair after showering, and a stern face when brushing.
Also, I hate pastes that contain baking soda and we, therefore, cannot use the same tube. If you’re reading this Alex Moase, I owe you some toothpaste.
For those of you that don’t know, Copic Sketch markers are just about the best thing that, if you let them, will ever happen to you. As a drawer/painter/maker-of-things, I thought Prismacolor markers were pretty life-altering (and they are), but they aren’t nearly as handy as one of these bad boys:
They’re a permanent fixture in my, heretofore questionably wittily titled “ARTsenal”. I’m hoping for a stockingful of special blacks this holiday season. Only 87 days to go! Let’s make it happen, Santa.
Oh hi, Internet. I’m real sorry for being such a rotten pen pal, but here’s a thing for you to look at with your eyeballs:
Shhh: I Found the Secret Garden, painted book cover in acrylic
Many moons ago I found it in my sweet angel heart to rescue this beat down ‘n battered hardcover edition of the Secret Garden from the damaged bin at work. I took it home, taped up the spine, and painted on my own cover. And I didn’t like it. So I let it sit. For months. Then, yesterday, I decided to give it another crack and I’m happier with these results, though the faint flower background is a little TOO faint in this scan, unfortunately. In person (in the FLESH) I think it’s nice ‘n subtle, though. I’ve got a comic strip back cover summary in mind for it as well, but I’m contemplating going digital for that.
One of the first things I did upon moving to the fine city of Chicago was to meet with a few of the very lovely, very talented, and ridiculously long-hour working people at Sideshow Theater. I got to read their latest play, Ekphrasis: From Cave Walls to Soup Cans, which is a smart, funny, warp-speed art history lesson written by E. Warren Perry Jr. and THEN I got to make a poster for it. Lucky me! But MORE importantly (at this moment, anyway), they also asked me to curate an art show to coincide with the play’s run. That means I needa find stuff to hang. And fast. So if you make art, or you know people who make art or who know people who know people who make art and would like to show it to lots of people and potentially sell it and make moola, you should tell them to READ THIS and E-MAIL ME. And if you don’t have any of that going for you, maybe you should just see this play.
Here’s the poster, the info, and my very heartfelt CALL FOR ARTISTS!
( click here for closer viewin’ )
Sideshow Theater is looking to showcase the work of LOCAL VISUAL ARTISTS, to hang in a gallery in conjunction with their latest play, “Ekphrais: From Cave Walls to Soup Cans” at the Viaduct Theater in Chicago. All artwork must be 2D, ready to hang, and shoud fit the theme of “art about art”, that is, art that plays with notions of art history, references known works, or somehow plays with the idea of genre. All interpretations, styles, genres and 2D mediums welcome! For more information about the play, visit ekphrasisplay.com.
Sideshow Theater is a nonprofit organization, and all profit from art sold goes directly to the artist. All of it. 100%. Artwork will be on display for the play’s entire run: August 9 – September 20, 2009. Shows are Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 PM, and Sunday at 3 PM. The Viaduct Theater hosts more than these performances, though, which means your work will be on display during live musical performances and the many other events hosted there. While this ensures your work reaches a larger audience (!), it also puts it at greater risk. Please submit with this in mind as neither Sideshow nor Viaduct claim responsibility for your work, should you choose to have it included in the gallery.
Artists must be able to transport their work to (and from, if not sold) the ViaDuct theater. Art submissions must be received by August 1, and those selected must be able to deliver their art work by August 4th. To submit contact Nicole at nicoleslaw@gmail.com. In your e-mail include the following information:
WE WANT YO’ ART! REPOSTING IS APPRECIATED!
I’ve been kept busy these past few weeks. Trips to exotic and far off places, like… Detroit. Eating angel wings to the point of nausea. And, oh, working on a poster for a local theater. So I’ll have that to show/promote soon. In the meantime, it’s just a quick ‘un, but here’s my submission for this week’s Illustration Friday theme: Hollow.
Pretty much reads like a diary entry from my 9-5 life this past month. If a diary were worth keeping. But it’s not. Which is the point.
Just a quick post to share my Illustration Friday submission for this week, before another Friday is upon us. The topic was “unfold”:
I have trouble envisioning myself with a tattoo, but if I were to get one, I’d want it to be something badass. Or, er, floral. One or the other. Keeping with the badass, though, and with Pippi Longstocking still on the brain, I designed a silhouette that I’d sport if I were sure I was the tattoo sportin’ type. I also made a redesign of the Pippi braid logo, which I’m way more likely to get. But where? Hmmmmm. Thoughts?
Dido Twite (heroine of much of Joan Aiken’s Wolves Chronicles series) is, in my opion, even cooler, though lacking in upper body strength by comparison. The Edward Gorey emblem artwork from the cover of one of Aiken’s books is something I’ve been considering getting for awhile, The Stolen Lake being my favorite book, but Dido and Pa having the better artwork. Quandry, right? So I made a composite image with pieces from three of Gorey’s covers that I’ll most likely never do anything other than dream about:
Dido (right) by herself would be nice. Or a Quentin Blake illustration. Matilda or Mortimer from Arabel’s Raven…
Another Illustration Friday submission. This week’s theme is “craving”. I think the silhouette I had in mind originally would’ve conveyed the zombie’s sense of hunger better, but I wanted to challenge myself with a collage. I haven’t made one in ever such a long time. Plus, when I start thinking zombies I get very selfish and vain and need to be personally involved. So this illustrates another sort of craving as well: TO KILL AND BE KILLED.
Well, not really. But I would for sure like to wield a chainsaw like a badass. In a movie. Not so much in my actual existence.
In real life it’d be an axe.
As for the be-a-zombie desire, it’s already been fulfilled, but you probably already knew that, Zombies of Beaver Lake Part II being as popular as it is ‘n all.
Despite being nearly crippled with pain (someone please talk to my uterus and ask it what my shoulders, neck, and back have got to do, got to do with it), I made my way down to Printers Row for the second and final day of Lit Fest. It was pretty snazzy, but I didn’t walk away with any books (I only like to own novels I know I’ll reread, so I tend to borrow them, read them, then buy them. Just FYI.), but I did spend a lot of time skimming poetry zines at the Dancing Girl Press table, and riffling through prints and movable type. Here’s what I walked away with:
Wooden movable type, letters J, N, and M for my sisters and I. I’m thinking necklaces, ladies! I’d have spent approximately forever digging through these regardless, but they were feeling particularly special to me after having finished Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge this morning. It’s all about book burning and a secret, radical printing press and It’s wonderful and I’m in love with it. The image of Mosca Mye, the main character, wedged inside of a press, and then later running through the streets, covered in illegal, seditious text, has been sitting happily in my head every since I read it.
And a paper doll from Good Housekeeping, circa mid 1920’s:
I guess in some really roundabout way this could work for this week’s Illustration Friday topic (“adapt”), but it seems like a stretch. Forgive me. Really, when I think about the word “adapt” I picture a human with wings, Darwin and Nicholas Cage. All separately. Maybe Darwin or Nicholas Cage with wings? I don’t think it’s worth my while to illustrate the later, in particular, though. ANYWAY, WHO LIKES PIPPI? OH, RIGHT. EVERYONE.
So this is my proposed Pippi Longstocking cover. Wouldn’t that be lovely? There is a very nice version illustrated by my dream girl, Lauren Child (of Charlie & Lola fame), that you should look into if you haven’t seen it and don’t find it worth your while to employ me to create one JUST FOR YOU (though really you should).
Anyway, here’s what I was aiming to illustrate to begin with before I realized I was makin’ a “P” (and also before I realized that the text read “shoe” not “toe”… despite having read over it at least three times. WTF, brain?)
From Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, Chapter 7, Pippi Goes to the Circus:
In the meantime, the next act had started. It was Miss Elvira, who was going to walk the tightrope. SHe wore a pink tulle dress, and she had a pink parasol in her hand. Taking dainty little steps, she ran along the tightrope. She swung her legs and did all sorts of acrobatics. It looked so sweet. She even showed that she could walk backward on the slender rope. But when she came back to the small platform at one end of the tightrope and turned around, there stood Pippi.
“Quite a surprise, isn’t it?” said Pippi with delight when she saw Miss Elvira’s astonished expression.
Miss Elvira didn’t say a word. Instead she jumped down from the tightrope and threw her arms around the neck of the ringmaster, who happened to be her father. And the ringmaster once again sent his attendants to throw Pippi out. This time he sent five of them.
But then all the spectators in the circus started shouting, “Leave her alone! We want to see the red-headed girl!”
And they all stmamped their feet and clapped their hands. Pippi leaped onto the tightrope. And Miss Elvira’s acrobatics were nothing compared to what Pippi could do. When she reached the middle of the tightrope, she stretched one leg high in the air, and her big shoe spread out like a roof over her head. She bent her foot forward slightly so that she could tickle herself behind on ear.
P.S. Wouldn’t the Adventures of Pippi Longstocking logo make a sweet tattoo? I mean, if you knew nobody would mistake it for a Wendy’s icon?
Visit my online portfolio at killmargot.com.
