Drawn and read from right to left, lower row to upper row. Process: On a blackboard above a flower I saw it said “Yulija loves Hector.” I encircled the words in a word balloon, a talking flower. Next to it, delighting in love, a bee says “Hooray.” At the other end of the bee a stinger too close to a Jersey frog. I note an observation: “Frogs are practically balloons.” I wonder at this and remember a frog’s inflated throat, very like a balloon. I draw a frog so. Next to it another not tied to a string but stuck on a pole. I write, “Frog on a tadpole.” I note another likeness, the frogs on their sides look like pigs with long legs. “Pig with long legs.” I write. Midfebruary 2012 at the Intrinsic Cafe, Newark, New Jersey.
the classic haiku close(d eye drawing)
My final offering for the evening, again for Freeman Ng’s Haiku Story. I like this one a lot. It reminds me of this.
Carnival cartoons
This is a follow up to my previous post about Bakhtin’s book Rabelais and His World here Puck is applying love potion to a fortunate dreamer. Below is an image of the play within the play, which I always associate with Puck’s secret visits, probably because both shapes occur in MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. Both these cartoons were on the same page with the one in the next post, a truly classic carnival image.
dejected swan
Still unearthing a bunch of old work as a result of producing the dummy haiku book with Freeman. This started life as a diner placemat drawing in brown crayon. The full picture was of a large angry looking woman standing over the swan with her fists curled. I copied the swan part and finished it as a pastel and then swiftly taped it into one of my style books. You can see the cellophane tape clearly crossing the image in a few places.
The drawing got a second treatment, again in pastel, this time all grey, which ended up in the haiku dummy. Now the the place where the woman was is empty amorphousness and the swan has become a portrait of a man with a fur lined parka. It’s being printed on it’s side but here it is properly oriented. If you can see the contour of the swan as the fur lining, the man’s face should jump out at you. It can be your a-ha moment for this ten minute segment.
Ketchup or Catsup: preference in Black and White (5)
Again, I just sent Freeman a bunch of black and white samples of my work for a print dummy. I’m illustrating his haiku and we’re seeing what some different styles look like in print. I’m posting a few I sent to make up for a week without posts. None of the ones I’ve chosen so far are striking me as very haikuey right now.