February 16, 2012

Another Kind of Likeness

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.

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February 15, 2011

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.

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yet another closed eye drawing

This is the point in Freeman’s story where the doctor is taken hostage by the mental patient (please note hospital gown open in back.)

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more closed eye drawings

I did a series of closed eye drawings to illustrate a short story Freeman wrote entirely in Haiku.

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February 14, 2011

Carnival Kings

the spirit of carnival is the ultimate alternate text

This is one my favorite messy, unfunny cartoons. I drew it as a note to remember something I read in Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World.  I won’t tell you what it refers to, either you read the book and you know or you should read the book.  It is a great book!

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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.

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January 29, 2011

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.

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January 23, 2011

Playing Catchup: black and white samples (8)

I just sent Freeman a bunch of black and white images for the dummy of the Haiku Diem book. Mostly stuff from my sketchbooks. I figured I’d share some here to make up for my total lack of posts this week. 

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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.

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Ketchup with Black and White sprinkles(3)

This one is from a sketchbook. It was originally captioned like a cartoon.  The caption was: “Maybe I threw it out by accident?”

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