The challenge word on Monday Artday this week is “artist“. That certainly is a challenge……
“Art is a lie that helps us to realize the truth.” - Pablo Picasso
“Art is the most beautiful of all lies.” - Claude Debussy
“An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks would be a good idea to give them.” -Andy Warhol
“Believe it or not, I can actually draw.” - Jean Michel Basquiat
“It’s all bullshit, kid.” - Marlon Brando, to a 17-year old Laurence Fishburne, on the set of “Apocalypse Now”
This week’s word at illustrationfriday.com is “camouflage“.
I love Stan Ridgway! He is one of the most talented and underrated singer-songwriters in modern music. One-time leader of L.A. new-wave band Wall of Voodoo, Stan’s solo career has spanned twenty years and still continues. In 1986, he released his first solo album, The Big Heat. This album featured the song “Camouflage“, a story of a soldier stuck, alone, in a Vietnamese jungle. When the situation looks hopeless, a mysterious marine enters the scene and the fights off Charlie with ease. The story is a re-telling of the urban legend, “The Vanishing Hitchiker“. “Camouflage” went to the top 5 on the British charts, but went relatively unnoticed here in the US. Stan continues to release great albums as a solo artist and with his side project, Drywall. His music is worth seeking out.
Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
Jeff, the guy who maintains the sugar frosted goodness blog asked contributors to draw him.
Here is my drawing…
Here’s Jeff so you can compare.
The weekly challenge word on Monday Artday is “glass”
um……… oops.
This week’s word on illustrationfriday.com is “rejection”
As inspired by Charles Laughton (from Spartacus), the ancient Roman emperor shows his disapproval.
Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
In 1999, a group of friends from the southern California goth community gathered at Disneyland on the third Sunday in August, for an unofficial Disney event called “Bats Day in the Fun Park“. The next year, more people got wind of the gathering. Year after year, the attendees grew, until 2006, when Bats Day 8 drew approximately 3000! For the past three years, my family and I have been part of this annual event at Disneyland, travelling all the way from Philadelphia.
I still can’t decide which is cooler…. Seeing all the goths at Disneyland or seeing all of the “regular” guests seeing all the goths at Disneyland. Bats Day in the Fun Park 2007 is August 17-19. Hope to see you there!
This week’s challenge at Monday Artday is “mystical“.
Max Schreck, as movie legend tells it, was mystical. He was a German actor. He supposedly kept to himself and not much was known about his life outside of acting. His most famous role was Count Orlock in the 1922 silent film “Nosferatu“, notoriously based on (although unauthorized) the novel Dracula. The story is, that during the filming of “Nosferatu“, Max stayed in character, would only shoot his scenes at night and came to the set in full theatrical make-up. There were rumors that Max was actually a vampire. In the movie Shadow of the Vampire, that is exactly how Willem Dafoe played him.
However, these stories are total fabrication. Max was just an actor on stage and screen, appearing in 51 movies in sixteen years. He died in 1936 of a heart attack. No wooden stakes were involved.
The weekly challenge at illustrationfriday.com is “suit”
I have been working as a professional artist, in one capacity or another, for almost 25 years. In that time, at every job I have ever had, there are guys in suits. They are very far removed from the end result of what the business produces. Yet, as far as they are from the day-to-day work process, they always have the perfect solution for making things work better. Mostly, their suggestions (or demands) are so insignificant, that it seems they are merely justifing their presence. It is the employees doing the actual work that keep a business running. It is the job of the “suits” to fuck things up.
This is dedicated to the people who actually work. You know who you are. Um…. no…. not you.
Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
I pass this guy, in the train station tunnel between 15th and 16th Streets, on my way to work. He is there most mornings, in his tux, playing an unusual assortment of songs on his flute. The one he plays most often… “Hava Nagila“.
He has no trouble getting coffee. I also pass four Dunkin Donuts, in the underground train tunnel, in a block and a half.
The weekly challenge word over at Monday Artday is “warrior“.
Here’s how I arrived at this:
I searched warrior at wikipedia, and I came up with a general description of war and battles and the people who love them. Then I came to a section about women warriors, specifically a character named Vishpala.
Vishpala was a woman in the Rigveda, a collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns dedicated to Rigvedic deities. It is counted among the four Hindu sacred texts known as the Vedas.
Vishpala is helped in battle by the Ashvins (the doctors of gods). She lost her leg in Khela’s battle and they gave her a “leg of iron” so that she could keep fighting. Cool!
This immediately brought to mind Rose McGowan’s character in the “Planet Terror” segment of “Grindhouse“.
Many, many years ago, when I was in art school, I was taught to always look for reference material (or ’scrap’) before doing an illustration. I searched Yahoo and Google for Female Warriors. This resulted in page after page of predominantly two things: scantily-clad Frazetta amazons wielding giant broadswords and pictures of Xena. I thought, “If these women are headed for battle, wouldn’t they be covered in armor?”
So, no femme fatale military bimbos for me. My Vishpala is using her new, god-given iron leg to kick some enemy ass!
Let me know what you think.
