Cherry Picking.

image above:
Reprinted with kind permission
© S. Hnizdovsky, 1985
www.hnizdovsky.com

I give you a cabbage from Jacques Hnizdovsky, current illustration boyfriend. Look at this thing...blacks and whites singing together. And yes, its a "spot". What a way to start a rainy day. The way we got going was to take Kitty and Alex at 6 a.m. to meet with Peter Hoover. They were all going off to pick sour and sweet cherries by the gallon and then bring them back t mash up for Peter's cherry homebrew. There was a bit of trepidation as I forced this on them, but as Peter and Peggy are so wonderful and kind, interesting and sharing, I saw my two griffins unfurl their wings, pat their dog and begin to sparkle and smile. Yes, this was going to be just fine...! They are going to be with Peter through the day (despite the rain)--and they should learn quite a bit!

We close on our refinancing of the house (much lower interest rate) later today. And because its that time of the season (the day before a holiday) I expect we will have the phone ringing with immediate needs and requirements that have to happen right now before the individual goes on break. Coffee awaits.

Thanks Peg!




all images above:
Reprinted with kind permission.
© S. Hnizdovsky, 1985
www.hnizdovsky.com

Peg Nocciolino, colleague from Hartford, amazing illustrator and all round go to gal, when seeing my foray into the pen with the sheep prompted me to look at the work of Jacques Hnizdovsky. Wow. Love this stuff. The site I posted has a wonderful collection of his works from lino cuts, woodcuts and prints to paintings and drawings. This black and white work is very much in a hand I would like to develop. Perhaps Mr. Hnizdovsky and the late Leonard Baskin, along with Evelyn Ness can spur me on. This is all a sidebar to the portraits I want to launch into. Its great to have quite a few things to prompt thinking and research.

baaaaa


Am fiddling around with texture and sheep. Yesterday was round one. The other completed last night is doing some things that are amusing. Am planning on more experimentation with sheep and rooster heads. Kitty told me that the background cannot be as textured as seen in this noodle. More graphic... not sure. Insane patterning is fine by me. This lamb can be married with a lion (for a holiday card). Well, and speaking to Holiday cards, they are back on the plate again for one of my clients.

Remember--
• no red no green
• no blue, no silver
• no candles, no wreaths
• no trees
• no snowflakes
• no obvious "holiday stuff"
• no SANTAS, RUDOLFS, STARS
• no doves (we have overused them)
• but keep it professional and personal
• just typography is too boring
• no new year orientation
Yikes.

Alex is playing golf in the rain. Kitty is making jewelry and watching tennis. I am getting them hitched up with a friend who needs cherry pickers for his cherry cordials that he brews with his still. Tall highschoolers are perfect for this thing. I am getting the company in the right spot (payroll etc.) prior to going to Hartford. Need to finish my Barnum picture.

More later>>

Am trying to figure out how to make the slide show from last year's class of 2010 presentation work in a non glitchy way. The new powerpoint and keynote on my new flashy big presentation...makes things easier to work with. Another day of rain here.

Al baby




Been thinking and looking at caricature work recently. You all know of my love of Pablo Lopato's work and that of Steve Brodner. However, the Aubrey Beardsley of caricature work is Al Hirschfield. His penmanship is exquisite, flowing and perfectly brief. He is calligraphic but spare in his linear decisions. His work is predominantly black and white, but when he leans into color, it adds to the illustration but with the linear bones being so strong--color becomes a detail and not a driver of the picture. I have been looking at these and other guys to see how they abstract a face and yet maintain a likeness that the viewer says "hey, that's...". Granted, many of Hirschfield's and Lopato's imagery are of pop stars and celebrities. Brodner takes on political characters in addition to the star studded icons we all know and identify with. All of these illustrators have created a series of character shorthand marks and treatments. This is my first step with Gary Kelley and CF Payne during their week of "work on your own project or work on a fictional character portrait". I want to learn the clues and start distilling and developing that same personal character shorthand to begin to attempt to develop images like these artists. I think I am closer to where Lopato is...but the fluid line works for me too. Maybe a merger of spirit?

I have been exhausted and slept all afternoon yesterday. Surprisingly, I am thinking clearer and not feeling as scrambled as I had been previously. I need to stop running myself down as much...and take the time, go to bed early and push for sleep. Sleep seems to make straight all those tangled ends, and permit day dreaming and thought that fatigue seems to surpress.

Shady is learning to be a frisbee dog. She is vigilant by the chipmunk hole--waiting, hoping and sniffing for their emergence. Alex is asleep on the porch. Kitty is off making things. Birdfeeders are full and the annuals are blooming.

Whoa.


Working on a sketch for Barnum. Quick and dirty vector/ not for the final...just more blocking. I hope to output this and work on top of output...putting in a poster, maybe some drapery. I will do a second version with some of his people/ creatures in the background...FeeGee Mermaid? Jumbo? The freaks are confusing...the quesiton is how to make them work as they are so odd that they might compete with the strength of the man.

Closing of school/starting of summer stress is happening. It is scheduled out through til end of August with too much overlap and frankly, not much of a break. The weeks I am going, we are going to have 4 guests on top of it all with random visits and different comings and goings with pick ups at airports etc. I am doing a courtesy week of someone sitting in with us...with a small project for her do do. I have moms around here calling me asking very vehemently to hire their kids as they cant get "real" jobs with their summer schedules...so I have become the fallback employer. Also, I we are having a closing on a real estate refinance before I go to Hartford. And appointments, checkups, doctors are wedged in between... Sorry to vent...It's just nutty.

The college thing is making me quietly crazy. Our scores and grades are just this side of totally being in the middle. Plus, my teen has no interest in getting materials, doing research etc. and when approaching the campus reacts to whether the kids are cool or not...forget everything else. I tell you, for the fortune and stress of paying for that fortune, community college looks like a viable option to get the student to engage in this stuff.

Gotta go. The shuttling of kids to graduation related events begins. Need to pick up the thesis...
and get that resolved. R. is off to Seattle on Sunday. I feel like we are grinding out one week to the weekend. Maybe we can see the Sufferjets tomorrow night just for us.

quick now!


New logo for the Stonecat Cafe...now calling themselves outside the cafe as Stonecat.
Am working on some inexpensive labelling (designed specifically for black and white printer home technology with khaki/kraft paper as an accent. They are coming out with some very original sausages created by genius Scott Signori along with some very imaginative other food carry out, take home or give to...from the region. Scott and Jess were very brave to ask me to help them with the sausages...and I took the ball a bit further than they had brought to me...and they are kindly letting me pursue this creative approach. Its looking very good and fresh...Now, I need to slug away on their website layout.

Kubb: The local game of champions
Kubb (pronounced /kʉb/ in Swedish or /kub/ in Gutnish) is a lawn game where the object is to knock over wooden blocks by throwing wooden sticks at them.

Kubb can be simply described as a combination of bowling and horseshoes. Today's version originated on Gotland island, Sweden.

Rules vary from country to country and from region to region, but the ultimate object of the game is to knock the "King" over, before your opponent does. This, combined with the fact that there is a certain level of strategy that can be used by players, has led some players and kubb fans to nickname the game "Viking Chess." However, unlike chess, if a player or team knocks over the king before achieving their objectives, that player/team immediately loses the game. Some games have been known to last for hours.

The game can be played on a variety of surfaces such as sand, concrete, grass, or even ice.

Kubb is a good game for children (under supervision), although in such cases, the 8-meter pitch length (specified in some instructions), ought to be shortened.

Also, Just did the Kubb Collective mark. Here it is on a bunch of things at Zazzle. The Kubb Collective is a group of fun people here in the Tburg area that gather regardless of weather to play competitive Kubb--with people paying in per game and the proceeds given to charity.

I am a bit frustrated (but without frustration, growth will not happen) with my portrait project at Hartford. I am not going to get into it...but as soon as something is finalized, I will post. Urg.

The thesis is at Staples today for binding. Done.

We are getting amazing rain (looks like hail!) with lightening and a downpour. Should disconnect. More later.


Sent out a ton of loose ends...and with the fed ex packages went cds of data for these folks I am giving the work to...to send to their vendors to get done. I am tired of the late night "wha...wha...what....?!" Now, its tag, your are it. Two down. One more to go. Have rescheduled all the mobile dates in early July to August where we have a bit more time to stretch out and relax versus two trips to Corning in one day before Hartford was happening. So..the last two weeks are not glutted with doctor appointments, in office surgeries and plans. Too much. August is relaxed compared to the beginning of a schedule we are roughing in...which is this side of paralyzing.

Its midnight and I need to sleep. I am a dull person.

Solstice.






Slow going today. Yesterday we were in Ithaca doing what Kitty and Alex and I adore...shopping for toilets. It is wonderful comedy...from the flushing of buckets of golf balls, to more "technical" aspects of the toilet (ie bowl shape to height). The amazing thing about toilets as objects is that they are slip cast ceramic units (3, the tank, the bottom and the tank top)....kind of a big sculpture...that in itself is impressive. Sad part is that they could be so much more fun with decals etc. etc. but it must be a tiny cost bump that people are not willing to pay for...or at least at Home Depot. We also shopped at the local craft store (bursting with scrapbooking stuff for Father's Day and Graduation (from Kindergarten, HS and College) for paper for me and findings for K as she is hot on wire jewelry theses days. We rolled back into Tburg and I spent the better half of printing and assembling my thesis paper copies (which I am just this close to completing). A few more hours and a trip to Staples for binding and I will be done. The prints came Friday and they are great! Big, bold, high saturation. As good or better than anticipated.

I am working on a sketch of PT Barnum in a very inspired by Circus posters manner. Barnum is being portrayed in my picture as being a whiteface clown--with circus inspired lettering for his name...as if its a poster promoting him. All taken from clues from the research. What I like about this is that a midtone grey or greyblue can draw the face, the creases and shaping, and then having the opportunity to go in with a color (using my new and exclusive filter, multiply) to sock in the red/ face paint so the man still reads through the decoration. He will have a ruff...either tight or loose (the Barnum Posters show loose)--I would really like to do the work just with the computer as it would be faster...But I will puzzle over it with trace and see what happens. This is due Wednesday and I have a good chance of making this deadline.

I would like to do this project in three ways...one line and tone, one calligraphic> just black, red and tan...and the third, really simplified down (much like the Czech clowns). But, I have time for one...so one it is.

We are chez lake. It has decided to give us a bit of a respite from the rain...though we are wearing jackets and layers as it is decidedly cool. All the pruning is adding up--as the trees and vines in their newly tamed state are nice and shapey. The deer do not eat the hosta here (unlike at the Headquarters...where I am going to get out the great guns (read, Irish Spring Soap) and go after those buggers. The work done to the back of the house where we had frozen pipe tragedies is wrapping up...So, onward. It is nice being here as this is the signal that summer has begun. Tonight is the Summer Solstice. Hopefully, the clouds will clear and we will be able to enjoy the longest day --admiring the sun. One can hope?

Kitty is busy making an origami menagerie. Alex and Rob are visiting and I am writing you and thinking about my picture...I just finished figuring out how to put a password on our wireless network to shut off the wireless hogs that encroach on our hospitality in the summer. Remember last summer and my rage/rants. (and more)Problem> solution...And maybe they will not be sitting in our yard with their notebooks doing their email. If they want a signal, they can buy it themselves...or surf off of someone else....You know, just re reading the raging from last summer really is whipping me up. But, nothing to get whipped up about...the giant firewall has been erected...and the antics of the handwringing when we unplugged the airport before we left the house everyday or the sheer in your face about our network being down has been eliminated. If there had been a conversation about paying for parts of the month, there may have been another solution. But hey....Our smart other neighbors did the same thing... Password please!

Reallly should wrap it up. Any suggestions on summer reading. Somehow I need to think about "literature" and all I can imagine is mental candy.

Weekend opener


Paris in Paris. From 7:30 a.m- 8:30 a.m. Paris was a request from Alex. I like asking for assignments from the home team for this portrait exercise. I like this fast work. Makes me think. Not that I think too much, but think to weed and edit. Its funny, despite the fact that Ms. Hilton is a bit of a dope (when we were in NYC, Paris and her sister had a PR rep to position them at the right parties etc. prior to Paris' propulsion into the tabloids)--she is quite pretty and delicate which this picture really shows...You would hardly know she is a bit of flaky, shakey, flooze. Working on finalizing the thesis. Am going to retweak the coloration of Double Happiness. Its getting a bit more elegant with the color refinement. It works blue on blue, but seems to be given another life with the new color/ palette. Need to take a look at the quantity of paper I ordered from Staples to get enough for 10 copies. I think Harford needs 4 or 5. I want 2-3 and then one for my mother and one for the portfolio.

Worked until midnight last night. Up at 5. So, this pace is keeping me in my chair...working. When not working, I am driving kids around, cooling a lot of one off lunches and dinners. Tonight we have the Hangar Theatre and maybe sushi. We may be moving for our summer to the lake this weekend...when the deadlines and life gets a bit easier...turning the evenings and down time to being on vacation.

Need to get rolling. Its nine...and the clock is on. More later .

a jewel


This is a likeness of Boston based artist,Eilen Jewell, a wonderful musician who we in Trumansburg love as she comes regularly to the Rongo and Grassroots Festival. I started with the highlights...cutting them out of a form for the head and found as I started layering more tone on top of the original-that I was losing the monumental aspect of this person. So, I figured in my less than 2 hour requirement, that this would be the way to go with this image. I may take it further to see what happens. Maybe.

We have gotten a ton of rain today. Everything has gone from crispy to green...and lush. Kitty and Alex are not having exams today, so maybe a movie in the afternoon. R. is working late--so correcting the thesis will be in order. I am a bit anxious about the output getting here...and making sure it looks right. Want to get this thesis work out of the way--and done. These shortie portraits are a goad to keep moving. Also,looking forward to my work with Jean and Nancy. Would like a minute to get that sketched and figured out. Maybe this weekend.

Gotta go.

You might catch flies!


Not a homerun, but a picture a day I committed to--so a picture a day you get. This is from a shot I took of Chad C. singing with the Chokers at Felicias. Not a great shot..and anyone with their mouth open like this may look silly. But...moving forward. Start with a good image.

Am running the shuttlebus for K and A. Exams and parties is what is doing here. I am wishing for rain. Am looking forward to an evening open (tomorrow) to finalize my thesis. Then on to the work for Jean and Nancy due later this week...

Got a pair of my shoes in from Keds. Kay Yute. Totally. The black looks more like indigo (which isnt too bad as indigo is a remarkable color). Am forging ahead with finality. Need to get Doug Andersen some type for the show....

need to work now...whoa. Its piling up....I may not be able to breathe.

royalty


Portrait a day. The guy is Jeb Puryear, musical royalty in the Ithaca/Tburg area.Jeb is one of the moving forces behind the Trumansburg Grassroots Festival and one of the leads for the band, Donna the Buffalo. Rob and I were talking this morning about who he would like to see me work on as this portrait a day(if I can keep up with it) project progresses. Liza from last night needs some tweaks (Rob had opinions I do not disagree with--to move that illo further). This is an interesting process as it takes 2 hrs. to do versus the fancier, more in depth portraits that take around 25 hrs. to do (far more detail, far more granular). Faster, more shorthand in these images may be the trick to learn. Faster I need to work, the quicker I can get to the final.

Hartford schedules and information came last night to my delight. Wow. Too soon. I will need to spend some time in the next few days on the printed thesis. Peter Hoover did a magnificent job of editing. I am so lucky.

Kitty is taking exams. Alex is prepping. Rob has 8 at the lake for an offsite that Barbara Bold catered. I have work and a pot of stock on the stove. My shoes are coming this week as are the biggie outputs!.

More later when I have time.

promises...of rain.


Little Richard for you today. Instead of buying baby music for my children, I bought them tapes of Little Richard....and they loved it. So, I guess this picture could be a bow to a childhood delight! I really enjoyed the doing of this...editing the shadows to do different things, taking the cues from Little Richard's eyes and making them little sharp suns. I was going to do more on the mouth/teeth/tongue but you know, with his hair and signature pencil moustache, thats all you need to identify him. So...lesson, Get the signature stuff and be selective about the other details. Focus on that. The squiggles of color was fun...need to be more deliberate about that.

Yesterday was a quiet day with many of the hometeam catching up on sleep and syncing with the rest of the world. I potted up some annuals, bought a hanging basket from Brownies and made some lunch/dinner. Chatted with R. about my octopus picture which I just dont seem to be getting much energy to finish. He has given me permission (I guess I needed it) to move forward with the knowledge that I can redo it...but that my heart is somewhere else...(read these quicky portraits I am doing). Peter Hoover got me my paper finalized...So, I need to tweak and print this week.

Chet the lawnmower man is here getting the lawn taken care of before our next downpour. We need the rain as everything was verging on brown/burn out...so a big dose of rain to plump everything up before July would be great. It has been unseasonably cool (down comforters in the night)--so the spring has lasted a bit longer with the peonies and iris being weeks instead of the days in the hot weather.

Put a face on it.

Well. I have totally gone of the tracks. The train is still moving, god knows where, how and when--but I am in a portrait automatic writing moment. And, with Rob gone, I have an hour or two to knock these babies out. Quick is the theme...not over articulating things (like the portrait of Kitty or the black and whites of the glass artists I have done)--but quick, deliberate and yet not abstracted. Yet. That's the next step. I need to eat and drink portraits--which is what the two weeks at The Hartford Art School promises with one week on a digital project with Jean Tuttle and Nancy Stahl, the other with Gary Kelley and CF Payne. My teachers from the web, from books and from the current world of illustration include the wonderful and inspiring Pablo Lopado from Argentina; Philip Burke--neighborly from Buffalo; The remarkable portraits of Holbein; the same from Hirschfield and Steve Brodner. This is just the front of the work. I want to start stretching the drawing...the color, the simplicity. Who knows where this path will take me. I am hoping to do one portrait a day to push the speed, the brevity, and making it a more natural experience. Somehow I am loving glamourpus gals...Diana Ross, Twiggy...maybe Jean Shrimpton and Sophia Loren. They are all eyes and teeth. And, lets not forget about the hair.
Moving.

Kitty and I had a time in the Trader K basement getting some sundresses...amazingly pretty things for pocket change. Alex and she are going to a party tonight..."come dressed as someone from Fiction. Kitty is going as the Great Gatsby's Daisy. We bought Alex a remarkable double breasted suit that fits him to the tee...cuffs, length--whole shot from Petrune, a vintage store on the Ithaca Commons that Dominica Brockman and her totally smart and stylish husband run, buy for, inspire. Dominica liked Kitty's ripped tee (with a heart ripped on the back)--and was interested in carrying Kitty's work. She also loved Kitty's necklace. I don't know how to kick K in the behind...cause its fashion, its creative and her work. I would be SO charged. She is pretty nonplussed. Oy.

Alex is set. He is going as Gatsby. We saw new Cole Haan loafers (his size, NEW, and black) at Trader Ks ($18.), they fit...and he POOHpoohed them. Bring on the flip flops or the ripped converse sneakers.

We sat outside and had a very grown up sushi lunch (which K and A adored) after picking Kitty up from the ACT test. This was very positive for K after two shots at the SATS. We will see.

Rob is busy being a leader of the Glass conference in Corning. Too bad the weather is not cooperating (rainy now).

More later.