Stamps

My poor, beat-up Moleskine’s been getting neglected a lot lately, which is probably not a huge loss to western civilization, but it’s still a pretty lame state of affairs for someone pretending to be an art person. Like, way back in 20th century college, we used to get shamed by Authority Figures on a regular basis if we weren’t always, always scribbling junk in notebooks and whatever. Not that any of those scratchy doodles ever amounted to much…I mean, that one drawing I did for a 90-story monument to the Apollo-Soyuz mission, well, it never got built. Which is a shame, ’cause I really bad wanted to be in the mega-building business. Instead, it completely looks like I wasted millions of kid-hours fooling around with Tonka trucks and tottering stacks of Britannicas. Meanwhile, what I should’ve been doing was, I should’ve been studying Algebra every single day since about age two, ’cause if I could test out of it now, then my spring semester would be 100% math free, which is how every semester oughta be. Anyway, all I have to report at the moment is, I’m working on various end-of-the-year type of projects, including a mystery project that sort of looks like a mess, but will eventually look slightly like art. Or so I hope, in a sort of forlorn way. Just have to carve about 8000 more rubber stamps, then we’ll see.

Yes!

Although it turns out we live on a purple street, judging from the blend of Obama signs and signs for the other guy, our neighborhood is a fairly blue one in a city that’s blue as grape Nehi. So that’s heartening, even if, otherwise, the state where we currently live is a pretty embarrassing shade of sunburn red on all the various news maps. Still, despite the backwardness of the cave-dwellers, the majority of U.S. voters finally did the right thing yesterday and elected the absolute best candidate for what will be the most challenging presidential term in a long time. What a relief after losing so much ground since the theft of the 2000 election. What a relief to know the Oval Office will at long last be occupied by someone who will use it for good and amazing things. I mean, won’t it be swell to have a president who tells the truth for a change? Like, when was the last time that happened?

So, I expect we’ll solve global warming by February, the financial crisis by March, end war forever by April, and have colonies on the Moon and Mars by early summer, 2009. And, if President Obama could persuade George Lucas to stop making any more Star Wars movies and shows and toys and games, that would be a nice bonus (I mean, just think of the carbon footprint of all the various immersive narratives we’re supposed to keep track of – virtual worlds still generate too much tangible crap…but I digress, as usual).

In any case, now we can really get to work.

P.S. It was our wedding anniversary yesterday, and watching the election returns with my wife was the best celebration ever. Although I got really steamed hearing the ugly-sounding crowd during the GOP candidate’s concession speech (those people who booed the new president should be ashamed of themselves forever). On the other hand, we had some tasty Democracy/Anniversary cake, so that was pretty dang exciting.

A General History of Quadrupeds

I guess this is the final version of the Bewick book, or the Quadrupeds project, or whatever it’s called (pictures of the insides are somewhere way down below). In any case, the whole thing was a massive misdirection of time and energy (100% my fault), but at least now I know what kind of work not to bother with in the future. Instead, I’m just gonna work on cootie catchers and origami dinosaurs. And, also, my graphic novel about Bazooka Joe.

Illustration Friday – Vacant

So this is my drawing this week. And, no, I have no idea if it’s a cocoon or a seed pod or what it is, exactly. I do know that the floating girl was born with a dress on because, without a dress, the pod was too heavy an element of the so-called composition, and so she needed a dress to balance things out. Which is stuff I know you need to know, the reasons why this stuff is never logical the way it’s supposed to be. Which is why my art teachers always used to wash their hands of teaching me. Or maybe they just had OCD.