The current Illustration Friday challenge word is “sweater”.
“Hey Grandma, how’s that sweater coming along?”
Monday Artday: horse with hands riding a bike
This week’s Monday Artday challenge is an unusual (and specific) suggestion. It’s a “horse with hands riding a bike”. Supposedly, horses are difficult to draw, hands are difficult to draw and bicycles are difficult to draw. So, putting them all together presents a particularly difficult challenge. And artists seem to always be looking for a challenge.
Well, here is a horse and some hands and a bicycle each with its own easy-to-follow dotted line for cutting.
Put ’em together yourself.
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from my sketchbook: stanley fafara and sue randall
Poor Beaver Cleaver. He was a pretty nice kid, if only he didn’t give in to the misguided persuasion of idiotic Larry Mondello and two-faced liar Gilbert Bates. The antics got Beaver into a certain amount of trouble, though he usually walked away with nothing worse than a torn pair of pants or some lost lunch money. After a stern talking to from Dad (or sometimes a sentence of no dessert and a couple of hours in his room), Beaver forgave his pals and moved on. Lucky for The Beav he never followed in the real-life footsteps of Stanley Fafara who portrayed classmate Whitey Whitney.
After the cancellation of Leave It to Beaver in 1963, teenage Stanley began drinking and dabbling in drugs. By 22, he was dealing drugs regularly. In the early 1980s, Stanley was breaking into pharmacies until he was arrested. He served a year in jail for burglary and, upon his release, began dealing drugs again. In the 90s, he spiraled into heavier drug addiction, living on Portland, Oregon’s Skid Row and survivng on a small Social Security check. In 2003, during routine hernia surgery, Stanley lapsed into a coma due the the weakened state of his body from years of drug abuse. He was removed from life support and died on his 54th birthday.
Beaver was enamoured with his elementary school teacher, the pretty Miss Landers, played by Sue Randall. After a supporting role in the 1957 film The Desk Set with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Sue focused on episodic television. She was regularly cast in a host of Westerns and dramas before landing her twenty-nine episode run in the later seasons of Leave It to Beaver. She continued in various guest spots through 1967 until she left Hollywood and returned to her native Philadelphia. Sue became very active in many charitable causes like the Multiple Sclerosis Telethon, Reading for the Blind and Project Headstart. Sue was a heavy smoker for most her life and a 1982 cancer diagnosis forced the removal of her larynx. Her health declined from the effects of lung cancer and Sue passed away at the age of 49. Her body was donated to the Humanity Gifts Registry at the University of Pennsylvania.
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IF: reverse
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “reverse”.
“I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”
J. D. Salinger
In early 2010, the longtime reclusive author passed away at his home in New Hampshire. He was 91.
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Monday Artday: strange food
The new illustration challenge on the Monday Artday website is “strange food”.
To break up the monotony between shots of sun-tanned tourists on cruise ships and Anthony Bourdain’s smoke-filled excursions to out-of-the-way gourmet eateries, the Travel Channel debuted Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern in 2007. Andrew is a chef, a food critic and, most important, a daring gourmand. He’s a likable and entertaining guy and, for a time, I enjoyed watching the show.
The premise of the show is simple. Andrew travels to a specific country, meets some locals, gets them to cook up a batch of native specialties and Andrew eats ’em no questions asked. And let me tell you, Andrew has eaten some pretty weird shit in the show’s five seasons. In early episodes of the show, Andrew happily scarfed down balut (a fertilized duck egg with a duck embryo inside), a still-beating frog’s heart, fermented whale blubber, lamb’s tongue and eye, assorted insects and various internal and external parts of chickens that are usually dropped down a garbage disposal. As the seasons rolled on, a pattern seemed to develop. I became very aware of Andrew’s affinity for the reproductive organs of masculine members of the edible animal kingdom. It was very obvious that Andrew loved a good pair of cojones at chow-time. On outings to local marketplaces, Andrew always questioned butchers about the availability of Rocky Mountain oysters or, as they were called in the episode filmed in Spain – criadillas. Extended segments of subsequent shows featured a smiling and anxious Andrew stuffing bollocks into his maw like movie popcorn. Happy waitresses or humble farmers would present platters overflowing with steamed and deep-fried delicacies like calf’s brains or jellied moose nose but Andrew, although grateful, would eye the kitchen, hopeful for a big bowl of balls. Soon, Bizarre Foods got boring.
The novelty of Bizarre Foods eventually wore off and I started looking elsewhere for entertainment from my cable television provider. Frankly, if I wanted to watch a guy visit Taiwan and gobble testicles for an hour, I’d watch gay Asian porn.
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from my sketchbook: rachel roberts
Welsh actress Rachel Roberts appeared predominantly in British cinema, earning critical acclaim opposite Albert Finney in the 1960 British New Wave film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Her role in The Sporting Life, with Richard Harris, was recognized with an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Rachel was regularly cast as women of questionable character, as in the black comedy O Lucky Man. Director Peter Weir cast her against type as a teacher in his mysterious Picnic at Hanging Rock. Through the 60s and 70s, Rachel acted in television movies and guest roles in several series, including two seasons as Tony Randall’s irreverent housekeeper in The Tony Randall Show.
Rachel married fellow actor Rex Harrison in 1962. The marriage lasted ten years and ended in divorce in 1971. Devastated over the divorce, Rachel became depressed and turned to alcohol. She moved to Hollywood in an effort to forget her time with Harrison. Her alcohol consumption grew, especially after an unsuccessful attempt to win back Harrison in early 1980. Overcome by insecurity and depression, Rachel overdosed on barbiturates on November 26, 1980. She ingested an unidentified caustic substance in addition to the drugs. The acidic reaction propelled her body through a decorative glass screen. She was found by her gardener, in a negligee on her kitchen floor – her body cut to ribbons among the shards of shattered glass. Rachel was 53.
In 1948, actress Carole Landis took her own life over an ill-fated affair with Rex Harrison. What was it about Rex Harrison that drove two women to suicide?
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IF: surrender
The Illustration Friday challenge word this week is “surrender”.
“This next one is the first song on our new album. It just came out this week and the song is called ‘Surrender’.”
Robin Zander of Cheap Trick, Live at Budokan 1978
This illustration was done on inspiration from my son. He reminded me of the single dumbest introduction of a song in live album history.
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Monday Artday: fitness
After a lengthy hiatus, the Monday Artday illustration website returns with its first challenge word since September 2010.
And that word is “fitness”.
“And we’ll go lifting weights, twelve ounces at a time.”
Antifreeze by Wammo, as recorded by The Asylum Street Spankers.
Listen to the whole song right here
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IF: dusty
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “dusty”.
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien performed with her brother and a friend as a singing trio. They first practiced in a field in springtime, so they settled on the name “The Springfields” for their group. Ever the tomboy, Mary earned the nickname “Dusty” from her rough style of playing football with the boys. After moderate success as part of the group, young Mary broke out on her own using the name Dusty Springfield.
She was the first public figure to introduce American soul music to England. Her affinity for evening gowns and unique style of make-up caused a sensation with young women in the 1960s. They copied her so-called “panda eye” mascara, a look that rivaled the “Beatle haircut” among their male counterparts.
Because of her love and respect of American pop music, she implored her studio musicians to imitate the sound heard on Motown soul recordings. She was a perfectionist in the studio and produced many of her own recordings without taking official credit. After making a huge name for herself as part of the British Invasion, Dusty switched gears and recorded a more “rootsy”-oriented album. The result was the acclaimed ground-breaking 1969 release Dusty in Memphis. It was nominated for a Grammy and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1987, she recorded a duet with new wave popsters Pet Shop Boys. In 1994, director Quentin Tarantino featured her recording of “Son of a Preacher Man” in his film Pulp Fiction. Renewed interest in Dusty’s music surged.
Dusty was diagnosed and battled breast cancer for five years until her death in 1999. She passed away on the day she was scheduled to go to Buckingham Palace to receive her award of Officer, Order of the British Empire.
When Dusty was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame in 1999, her friend, singer Elton John, said, “I think she is the greatest white singer that there ever has been.”
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from my sketchbook: victor kilian
At the age of eighteen, Victor Kilian began performing in vaudeville. In the 1920s, he moved on to Broadway and by the 1930s, he began a career in motion pictures as a character actor. He played minor roles but he was in demand for three decades. In 1942, playing a villain in Reap the Wild Wind, Victor lost an eye while staging a fight scene with John Wayne.
In 1950, Victor was blacklisted for his political beliefs. He was able to return to Broadway when the Actors’ Equity Association refused to acknowledge Hollywood’s ban. When the blacklisting was finally lifted, Victor appeared in many guest roles on television in the 60s and 70s. In 1976, he was cast in the role for which he is most remembered Grandpa Larkin AKA “The Fernwood Flasher” on the soap opera spoof Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
Since his wife of forty-six years passed away in 1961, Victor lived alone in Hollywood. In March 1979, 88 year-old Victor was beaten to death by robbers burglarizing his apartment. The crime remains unsolved.