Sketchblog Stretchblog

So I haven’t really been posting much and have gotten on a bit of a working spree and I really want to join the blogosphere again. To start, if you’re in New York at all, you should go to one of Bard College’s Senior Screenings. Okay, okay, maybe only if you’re in the area. But regardless, I’ve been playing (working?) a lot with Illustrator recently, and it’s been great.

I’m also in a Drawing class and I think I should post some work here – I’ve been debating on whether to open a separate sketch blog but why not just everyone share their stuff here, right?

So I’ll be posting some work I’ve done in that class VERY SOON.

(I’m also partially writing this so I’ll have incentive to FINISH some of said work… oy…)

Cussing Fantastic

I was ambivalent about Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson, a star cast, a classic children’s book, beautiful stop-motion (remember Corpse Bride?)

After squeezing into a Black Friday theater on Cape Cod this last week among a horde of moviegoers including tweenage Twilight fans, Fantastic Mr. Fox was a delightful surprise. It was like chocolate éclair after chocolate éclair of off-beat visual fantasy and dry wit.

Let’s count on our fingers:

1) FANTASTICALLY ANIMATED The movie was a visual feast. I just downloaded the HD trailer and pausing at any part is like stopping to look at a beautiful illustration. Most of all I think their palette was just spot on: rabid oranges, deep navies, glittering silver. In one shot a giant yellow moon looms two-dimensionally in the corner of a deep night sky like a hunk of cheese. The paper grass sways in the wind. The foxes’ furs bristle when they talk. A chemistry experiment gone awry exudes a mushroom cloud of cotton balls. The feel of this world is crafty and home-spun, made of cloth instead of the clay and wax of Tim Burton’s animated “epics”. In fact, the same crew that made the blip of the Corpse Bride also animated Fantastic Mr. Fox. Here’s some behind the scenes mystery magic.

2) FANTASTICALLY WITTY There is so much cussing in this film. Really. Perhaps the most cunning way they made this film adult is to shoot the adult humor right over the kiddies’ heads. Every curse word you could name is replaced with “cuss” so you get wonderful tid bits of furry woodland creatures uttering, “what the cuss?”, “cuss you,” “holy cuss!”, and “this place is a complete cluster cuss.” A rarity, the joke only gets better with repetition. Of course, our dearest foxes also drink and smoke copiously (many of their missions are based solely around acquiring hard cider), weapons are wielded, and there’s even a beatnik sewer rat on an acid trip (voiced by Willem Dafoe, who else?)

3) FANTASTICALLY “DIFFERENT” Ash, the angsty, preteen, approval-seeking son of Mr. Fox voiced by Jason Schwartzman wears a towel as a cape and a gym sock as a bandit mask. The badger lawyer dresses like a snappy Mad Men exec. They wear corduroy jackets and ride around on a vintage motorbike complete with sidecar. After civilly reading the morning paper (in which Mr. Fox tends a column), they snarl and ravage the French toast into their mouths, chunks flying left and right.

INTERESTING FACTLETTES:

Wes Anderson directed the animation crew by acting out the scenes and sending videos of them via iPhone.

The recording of the actors was done outside instead of in a studio: in a forest, a stable, an attic, even underground.

The soundtrack is awesome.

Monsieur Cabinet: Words & Type

Stumbled upon these succinct witticisms of Monsieur Cabinet, a collection called Words & Type. Monsieur Cabinet himself is David Thompson, a graduate of Kingston University in London who currently teaches Graphic Design at Leeds College of Art – and I have to say I’m on my toes wanting to take his class. Also, the fact that his About Me page lists farcical reviews from his friends is excellent and worth a glance.

These text based works have a great humor about them, something I can relate to seeing as about 50% of my own jokes involve butchering the English language.

I blame it on the ESL.

His other works are equally adoration-worthy, and there really isn’t enough room here to post all the awesome that he’s made – recommendations include his series: 1000 Awesome Things, Celluloid Satire, and Beautiful Drains.

I’ve a strong feeling I’ll post more of him in the future.

Tiny Showcase

Okay, awesome. Right when I was needing my weekly dose of really great quality art from an assortment of eclectic artists, wonderfully huge preview images, and general color play, I went back to check out Tiny Showcase – and remembered how great it is.

Tiny Showcase is a great online gallery that releases a new print every week by various artists. Their trick is that each of the prints is ‘tiny’, about 4″x6″, costs a little more than your average CD or book, and is printed on special archival ink.

Think of it like age-proof postcards with really kick ass, witty, playful art.

On top of all that they donate a percentage of the profit of each print run to the charity of the artist’s choice. One tip: they sell out fast.

I especially love these space ships by Esther Watson. For more of them go, go, go to her website.

Pomegranate whaaat?

So I’ve had this poster on my wall for the past year or so of a Dali painting called, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Waking Up – Gala and the Tigers.

That’s a mouthful. And an eyeful, if you’ve ever seen the painting.

Whenever anyone would make reference to it they would remark on a number of characteristics; whether the tigers, the antagonism of the rifle toward the woman, the iceberg elephant. But the most concise it ever got was when Brian summed it up with “pomegranate goldfish tiger tiger rifle”, like a daisy chain.

I was looking to make a website at the time and the humor of that really appealed. Absurdist humor even.

I wanted a place to post everything creative and inspiring and awesome that I found on the nets. And a place to share my own creative trips and stumbles.

And I guess I also wanted a place for others to share in too.

This is where this turns meta?