Munakata, Cornell

Went to the Art Institute of Chicago today in search of Japanese prints and Cornell boxes. Found both thanks to a very helpful docent. Restored my faith in humanity, in fact. The docent, I mean. The prints and boxes were good, too, but the unexpectedly nice docent made a bigger impression. That’s all I know for now.

Illustration Friday – Time

This is an old drawing from a series of things I tried to do once about life in a kind of weird imaginary city. The whole thing was inspired by Ben Katchor’s amazing Knipl stories, which all take place in a crazy dream-like version of New York. The series didn’t work out, for various reasons, but I held onto a few of the drawings, although I didn’t remember holding onto ‘em until I ran across ‘em the other day. Anyway, this particular sketch was also inspired by the peepshow scene in Paris, Texas, which is of course a sad and famous scene in which Travis Henderson tells his ex a story through a one-way window. Basically, beyond all that, I guess the main idea when I drew this thing was, there’s this guy in this weird town who goes to visit this strange little joint where you pay for time to talk to people as they do pretty mundane stuff. Like, there wasn’t supposed to be anything remotely dirty about it, instead it was just supposed to be odd and a little bleak. Which sort of sounds like a half-baked idea now, but maybe I could develop it later on. So, anyhow, there oughta be a clock in the picture, to show how there’s a meter running on the conversation, but maybe just imagine I put one there. Meanwhile, I really don’t have time to do new stuff until maybe, at the earliest, a hundred years from now. Oh, and yeah, all my perspective’s pretty much always totally Egyptian.

Bawdy House

Right now I’m working on a bunch of linocuts for a book project, which is one of the reasons I don’t have as much drawing time as I’d like. ‘Cause I for sure need to draw about 700 more drawings before I can get close to where I wanna get, wherever that is. But, it’ll be worth it if the book thing turns out halfway decent, which, of course, it may or may not do. Anyway, all I’ve got for today is a scan of the most recent block. I’ll maybe start printing everything a coupla weeks from now, or so I gigantically hope. Meanwhile, gotta go work on redoing my lame old website (the goal for that project is: fewer images, easier navigation, more consistent design, way simpler everything).

Secret Robot Man

So, this is like a four-million-year-old piece of animation, from back when I barely knew how to even turn on a computer, not that I’m all that much farther along now. The timing’s all off and the ideas, such as they are, aren’t really resolved. I think mostly I was trying to do an opening sequence for a really, really bad cartoon, since bad cartoons were always my favorite kind. About all I like now is the jumpy title card, ’cause of the triangular border. Anyway, I guess this is kind of a sketchblog, and although I wanna draw new stuff pretty bad, time’s just not cooperating at the moment, so I’m throwing out old stuff as I run across it while doing Other Work. I figure that, even if it’s not that great, maybe it’ll give me an idea for something in the future, which is usually how it works. Building sort of acceptable work out of the wreckage of old failed projects, that is. Many, many old failed projects.

done

Proof

Kind of extremely busy all of a sudden, but I did sort of manage to get around to cutting some lino, for whatever it’s worth. Anyway, I guess this is a really crummy proof, but you can sort of see what’s going on, although the final version of this thing I’m making won’t have a lot of readable text on it, ’cause of how I’m gonna layer and collage together a whole bunch of disparate prints. We’ll see if it looks like anything when it’s done. (Even if the whole idea of “done” seems like a pretty relative concept in art, not that I know much about such things.) I think I used to be better at cutting letters, but I can’t really remember now. Not that it matters…these linos are based on hand-painted signs that used to be all over my old neighborhood, so it’s probably okay if the words are all crooked and whatever. Plus, who has time to cut stuff nice? Maybe someday down the road I’ll be a pro linocutter, able to render shadows and light and everything, but for now I’ve just gotta get this stuff done, since my project’s gotta be finished in a few short weeks, and the point of the project in any case is it’s supposed to be sort of cruddy around the edges and stuff. Meanwhile, maybe I can get back to drawing in maybe a couple of weeks.

Fish Rocket

No time for a new drawing today, ’cause of Various Fascinating Tasks that I’m working on, and also ’cause I had to do a lot of research about how to deal with neighborhood issues. But, when I was hunting around in old folders for old junk that might give me new ideas, I found this sketch, which I’m pretty sure I did back when computers still needed to get wound up by a crank, like how old movie telephones work. Anyway, I think it’s a rocket of some sort, but who knows for sure. Could also be a dirigible, which is actually more likely. The composition’s not great, and I still wish all my stuff wasn’t so dang simple, but, whatever, I like the red stripe. Also, as a bonus, here’s an even older sketch of a jump rope girl, from before the paint in painting software actually looked like paint. Not that it’s the software’s fault it looks so primitive.

The Rock and the Whirlpool

The sea-monster Charybdis, which I guess I’m picturing as a kind of angry anemone, and the rocky island where Scylla lives. The inspiration was red-figure pottery and 60’s children’s book art. From a book-like object I’m making about Odysseus, who, it turns out, was pretty much a really big jerk. Needs a lot of work, as usual. Meanwhile, I think maybe I’m pretty close to being done with the 4th draft of my artist’s statement, although who knows – I have the talent with words that Nixon had with improv comedy. Which is to say, of course, zilch.