Fluffy!


Working on a bunch of abstract feathers like look like iron. Not fluffy. Beautiful day today. No clouds. No humidity. Working with A. on plans for his 13th b'day. A little like pulling teeth, but we have gotten some place. Sent some images out for big giclees...for a show.

Had to think about an "ARTISTS STATEMENT"...What is that? I just do this stuff...and whatever pops out...it pops out. No big thinking, unfortunately. I wish I could get my head into thinking more broadly and philosophically citing Aristotle or Susan Sontag or the groovemeister of the day...-- but it really is a series of ideas that arise, are masticated and come out either visual or not so visual and then I move to the next one. No grand plan. No clients. Just lots of ideas that make sense to me.

This aesthetics thing about inspiration has me floored because everything is inspiring. The day, the smells, the news, the pictures, words, word combinations, colors, shapes, my mood, my friends and my kids,perfect coffee. It isn't one thing, it's the entire melange of all...nothing to point at distinctly, but the symphony of all of them together.

bright skies, new opportunities


On my return from travel, I was roused to a consideration of subjects which I had previously never dreamed of, or thought about, connected with self; and I had such ideas that, had I spoken of them openly, I must, if answered in the world's fashion, have been told I was unreasonable. I concealed, of course, these secret admonitions. I knew not whence they came, although I could not question their propriety, nor could I separate myself from what appeared my fate. My religious opinions varied and do vary from the vulgar; I was inclined to fall in with the views of the ancients, and to regard the substitution of modern ideas thereon as not for the better. These and the like, coupled with an idea of a descent from the Egyptian god Osiris..." (quoted in Allderidge, pp22-3).

Richard Dadd

_____________

We worked late on thises and thats for our client. R. did some really lovely designs --my favorite being a streetscape with a sort of David McCauley cut-away of the interworkings. I am going to visit the same client to review the sunface and roses that we have been workin on--actually rendered in their final material. Should be interesting.

Feet Down

Yesterday was a solid landing back into reality. Made reservations for November's meeting in NYC and discovered that the ole tried and true hotel is still the best price (if you split with someone else). It's in a great NYC neighborhood with H&H Bagel, Zabars,Fairway just around the corner--and each room has a mini kitchen to make the eating out thing less expensive and important as great take-out is everywhere. Looked into flights to London. Talked to my clients. Checked in with the fabulous staff. Getting ready to send out for some big prints of my chicken head and the loon for a show at a local community college.

Going to Pittsburgh to help my mom move. Looked into having a trailer hitch put on the car and there is so much mystery and suspense to the whole thing that there must be a lot of money to be made at relatively low effort that it's kind of a quest for excalibur in getting the right information, timing etc. Urg. The simple things are never simple.

More work on the decanters tonight. Found out the client wants more stuff (plasticine models, different views etc)--so we will see what we can do.

Am developing some print quotes, design quotes, and financial information for a line of credit. Also have the ambiguous December holiday card to revisit. I think the holiday card is a bit overwhelming that the best thing to do is to jump in and start cranking. Thinking about it only gets you to the cement wall that is too high to jump and too thick to crash through. So forward movement may move the needle--and perhaps spin a little inspiration around the work. It should be fun. All I have to do is make it so.

Am musing a lot about the papers and the pictures. I figure I can knock off the book jacket cover first. Will take a picture of the intrepid Mandy so as to be able to render her in oil paints as my second try on the jacket. The papers are clarifying themselves, but with that clarification, somehow it gets deeper and scarier. Head up...move forward!

Sam Taylor-Wood, Self-Portraits Suspended

Let Your Freak Flag Fly!

Our wonderful upperclassmen "walked"(i.e. graduated) on Friday to our sadness in the end of our educational journey with them, but with happiness as it was a positive conclusion of a ton of work, travel and thought. Educators, professional illustrators (and children's book illustrators), individuals and art directors comprised the group--they all grew and changed and evolved to another place they may not have anticipated at the beginning of this process. We wish them well and hope to see and hear from them in the future.

Our class lost one person but gained 2 returns from previous years to complete their degree. We will gather again in November in NYC and then in March in London! We have a business plan, 2 pictures, and 2 papers on aesthetic issues. The papers shouldn't be a problem, but I may have to think (god forefend!). One picture is a book jacket cover for Greg Manchess. I plan to do it on the computer but also paint it in a second iteration. The other picture illustrates "opposites". I have 4 going right now (in sketch phase)--so it could be fun.

My tribe came to pick me up from school. It was totally fun. They had just gone to see an antique baseball game at the Genessee Country Museum in Mumford, NY. And then, a night game in Syracuse with the Skychiefs (to their great delight!--) complete with hats and a play by play description. They loved the field, the baseball buzz, the shouting fans, the game itself. It was a picture perfect, clear evening that was the right setting for an evening game. The weekend continued with warm lake water against cool and breezy weather--with all of us bobbing in the waves.

Worked on a series of decanter designs for a new client. I hope the client will like them. They are pretty fun.

Back to normal again. Getting back to the office should be monumental.

Week Two: Day Four: Look Out Risko!





Meet Miguel Covarrubias. This guy is the forerunner of Hirshfield and Risko (who is pretty transparent in his borrowing from this talent. I have Professor David Tatham to thank for plugging me into this wonder today. We talked about Play and Work today with this engaging man. Other interesting artists he discussed was Hogarth... who was instrumental in the british legislation of graphic satire not being vulnerable to legal action/defamation. We also saw Eric Gill's sculpture of the North and West Wind. Love Eric Gill...the monkish man who lived stylishly, created beautiful type, illustration and sculpture and made a strong enough impression to be viable today. Love Sam Taylor-Wood. She is new to me...but inspiring, talented and has a broad message with a singular viewpoint in all of her pieces. Need to start thinking more like a cubist. Man, did they have some great energy around their work.

Messing with oil paints with the fabulous Greg Manchess. He is such a talent who is really coming on. He has relaxed around us...and we are getting more of him, more of his heart and thinking. He is an inspiration and a good move for Syracuse.

2006 show of the 2006 graduates. Bittersweet and heart wrenching. It was so interesting and bespeaks of closure as all of our pals that we know as individuals--and not part of a clan, a family or a connection were there with their present and future, their family, friends and the embrace of their individual communitites... with all of us
fellow students being ghosts of a memory--essentially a snapshot in time. I was so proud of all of these wonderful people, their work, their energy, and their excellence as people was an inspiration. They are a credit to our Big Orange School. I hope we can continue to stay in touch as they have been a source of comfort and confirmation to those of us with less confidence and work--than those of us who are established and skilled.

The class behind us is pretty wonderful too. And...we have 2 new members of our class...really upping the group--and upping the inspiration. We are blessed. Finished our Business Test. Just need to do a business plan. It's due September 29. Hopefully, we will have this done a month early. We have 2 papers for Mr. Professor Tatham...a picture for Chris Payne, a picture for Professor Manchess. No shortage of business!

images shown above are from Miguel Covarrubias. Are you taken with this? I am!

Week Two, Day Three: Syracuse Encampment


We painted the model...oil paints with our teacher, Greg Manchess, loudly saying the color we needed to mix, where to go, how to sock it in. It was not paint by numbers. It was like trying to jog next to a triathelete...your second day out. Yowza. We had more critiques of our work...and a phenomenal review of a stack of double primed linen rectangles that Greg painted. The black and white work and full color panels he did for a new version ofConanwas phenominal. Very Dean Cornwall. He handles paint in this lovely loose,but tight way. He understands light. He abbreviates detail but the work is not lacking. Plus, he is nice. What a treat for this week.

Mr. David Tatham reviewed the topics of family and world today. We talked about the two papers due...and the dense dense dense readings from Clement Greenberg, Susan Sontag that are key to the understanding and commentary of modern art....but for those of us that seem to be losing brainpower versus gaining...these documents begin to make sense at the 4th or so time. yikes!

sketch for my book jacket cover.

Week Two, Day Two : Syracuse Encampment


David Tatham took us through a discussion on faces (and hands) this morning and on the broad concept of family/groups/communities in the afternoon. Learned about some cool new artists like R. Dadd (a kook who renders wild fairies --English), and K. Sage (an Ithacan...who did surrealistic art a la de Chirico--very evocative). Learned about Walter de Maria (through the reading on meaningless work..essentially, messing about...work that really is just for the artist and no one else). Walter de Maria is the forerunner to Robert Smithson and Andy Goldsworthy. De Maria created the Lightening Field:

The Lightning Field, 1977, by the American sculptor Walter De Maria, is a work of Land Art situated in a remote area of the high desert of southwestern New Mexico. It is comprised of 400 polished stainless steel poles installed in a grid array measuring one mile by one kilometer. The poles-two inches in diameter and averaging 20 feet and 7½ inches in height-are spaced 220 feet apart and have solid pointed tips that define a horizontal plane. A sculpture to be walked in as well as viewed, The Lightning Field is intended to be experienced over an extended period of time

Let's just put it this way. Mr. Tatham is making us think. His connections are illuminating and puts a fresh twist on the ordinary. The readings are hard. But hey.

Greg Manchess has us hopping. He did a beautiful demonstation of rendering a model in oils from scratch. No pencil work. Nothing. We had a long crit of our book jacket work. Making progress on that. He brought in thumbnails, reference through the final tight sketch (prior to paint) he did for a range of clients from pulp novels, Louis Lamour books, a National Georgraphic job etc. Elegant sketches. Lots of self photography for reference and models. Greg also gave us a slide presentation of his body of work. Remarkable.

SU did a little 1 hr. market study on the program with many of us at lunch. We will wait to see what happens.

Perfect weather.

The picture above is the Fairy Feller's Master Stroke by Richard Dadd. The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, was to become the title of a song by the rock band Queen. This picture has inspired Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett in their work.

Week Two: Syracuse Encampment

This week we have during the early morning and late evening --Aesthetics with David Tatham--which is wonderful and topical. This morning we reviewed Death as a topic. This evening, Faces. He shows images and talks about aspects of the topic--shining a light on good ideas and concept....he reads us poetry related to the topic and finishes the lecture with music and song equally related. Some very dense reading from "Esthetics Contemporary" edited by Richard Kostelanetz. Two Clement Greenberg articles that are solid....and hard to make headway. But two fun ones, one from Sol Lewitt (love!) and Walter de Maria (also Love).

The rest of the day is spent with Greg Manchess. We did figure drawing (hard work, but the model was lit wonderfully, so the work wasn't the normal torture it can be). We also reviewed our 20 thumbnails for a book jacket cover. I am doing something for the Garth Nix book, Sabriel. Tonight, we need to scale it up...and show 2 different approaches from the edit. More figure and then some oil painting together. I hope I can come to like this stuff. I am trying to stay open.

Team Cassetti left this a.m. after a really nice visit yesterday and Saturday night (complete with our shaggy girl too). it's true that home is where the heart is...and my little home came to me this weekend. What a lovely little group. And they loved meeting my comrades...and seeing what they were all about. We had a chance to see an effective IMAX movie on coral reefs to our delight and had a nice dinner at a pasta restaurant in the Armory district. It was like being on vacation in a new city! Exciting. Fresh.

If it's good enough for Rockwell, it's good enough for me!

Heat has broken. Nice high blue skies. Lower humidity. Ah! Finished with Chris Payne today. Nice critique...no big surprises but his stressing the process of sketching, researching, developing the drawing, color studies and finalization as template building was salient and to the point. He started there. He finished there. Stick to the basics and always have your reference at hand. Rockwell in the triple self portrait did. If it's good enough for Rockwell, it should be good enough for us. He also recommended we keep art inspiration nearby (even on the ground which sounds consistent with my mode of work)--for their design, palettes etc. Onward. We will need to do a picture about opposites. I will talk about that later.

Finalized with the Business course. Have a take home test with a business plan due by the end of September. Should be fun?!
A full day of computer illustration tomorrow.

Another poke at ole Poe.

Day Four: Syracuse Encampment


Wednesday. Still hot. Not as blazing as yesterday where even breathing made me sweat. But still definitely summer. Lots more good stuff with the business of illustration. Today we talked about copyright, rights, negotiation and the tail end of marketing your business. The wonderful Chris Payne spoke briefly about the impending orphan art bill--and then delved into big issues illustration and the visual world is confronting. He is an impassioned man with great talent and a good brain. He has done a lot for the business through his talent and spirit. A true inspiration.

His process:
Strathmore 500 board
First develop the drawing. Transfer the drawing to the board (opaque projector) with a hard pencil to get basic lines. Then use a burnt umber prisma color to lay in the tones. Lay in a fleshtone in acrylic over all (Chris uses acrylic gesso in place of white to give it texture. Dry it until its really dry (Chris uses a hair drier until the paint is no longer cool. Lay in a burnt umber/brown watercolor wash on in the face area. Allow that to dry again. Using water and a paint brush, pick up the highlights out of the watercolor. Allow to dry. Then lay on a very thin oil wash (Chris used a neutralized purple) over the entire surface of the image.Pick out more detail with a kneaded eraser. Let dry. Chris then sprayed a retouchers spray lacquer over the image. Dry again. Then develop the drawing with peach/flesh etc. prisma color. They he begins to work in the shadows in acrylic, building the image from there. The acrylic kind of mooshes and smoothes the prismas. Its a cool process--that Chris handles very quickly and deftly to wonderful results.

Need to get the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook, and The Legal Guide for the Visual Artist. I have a pretty good seat of the pants knowledge of all this stuff, but having some books making it real would be good.

Image is of Edgar Alan Poe finished today. Doesnt look like it, but the bird/raven was the hardest part of the piece.

Day Three: Syracuse Encampment

Whoo. Blistering heat. Second floor of this semi windowless building with 2 box fans for huge studios. Dizzying. Great stuff with the Business course. Even though much is stuff I know, it is good hearing it come out of another person's mouth...and I truly feel that there may be some action with the illustration and the graphics work as they are linked...and linked to me. Chris Payne continues to be an inspiration. He demonstrated his techique which took the better part of yesterday afternoon. I will go into it tomorrow.Its really forgiving and reductive and additive...where the image emerges like Veronica's veil. Gotta go. Sleep awaits.

Day One SU Encampment

Wow. Long day. Gonna be a long week. Good, exciting but long.

Now that I have gotten that out of my system. We are having two doses (one in the morning, the other in the evening of the business of illustration with Jim Carson. Jim is methodically going through what it is to run your own business. Very insightful and thoughtful--presented in a very informed and casual way with Jim quoting magazines and developing the point anecdotally. Then its full bore from 9-12 and 1-4 with CF Payne who is wonderful. He is very craft and process focused which is something I have been really wanting. His energy is infectious and he talks a mile a minute from everything Sonic french fries (they dip them in vanilla ice cream before they cook them) to art and illustration history. He is impassioned about everything. And really listening to him roar...yields a lot of information. He demonstrated how he works up a likeness..using tracing paper as the key to his development. He also showed how he transferred his trace to a board (he uses a lucy....which for many of the crowd in the room was new stuff...my age was peeking out). He also showed us a little exercise having to do with composition called "teapot/teacup" which we had to work on last night. Today he is demonstrating his technique which should be cool.

Met with J. Thompson on my thesis. All very positive. Keep on truckin'.

Critique on the San Francisco pictures tonight. Should be a little longer.

Cheers!

Man's Best Friend

Shadow and her new friend, Curly Bear, were chasing each other at the ball field last night between the streaks of lightning. They ran and ran. They ran into the bog to have a drink. Shady flipped herself over into this swampy mess--wiggling in the sheer cool stinkiness of it. It was an add to the evening to have the doggie girls there.

Then this morning, Shady did us a big favor and found a dead something (deer? possum? racoon?) that she spread on top of the dried dirt layer. OOCH! It will come as no surprise that she is being given the supreme treatment of hydrogen peroxide and dish soap to rid her of that loathsome aroma. Molto brutizzimo!

It dawned on me that you need this recipe. Everyone does. Whenever the touch for a "bring something original" bakesale is given, I make up 10 bags of these--and the crowd goes wild (sometimes with a little graphic thang to jazz up the paper bags). They are dog biscuits. You can cut them in funny shapes...make em big or small...but you will make your canine friends happy...and indirectly, their owners too. Someone bored in your house...have em whip up a batch. Also makes a nice present (a bunch of my dog friends got them last Christmas!). Mandy promises me her recipe for "Tuna Brownies"--the treat her dog, Sonata, begs for during agility classes. If it's good, I'll pass it on!

I don't think I will sit up and beg for them, though! The Gourmet cookies are pretty good for people (some even add cheese and serve them to their guests). Your call!

Dog Biscuits

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour
1 1/4 cups cornmeal
1 1/4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
1 large egg

Special equipment: a pastry or bench scraper; a dog-biscuit cookie cutter

Pulse flours, cornmeal, oats, wheat germ, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt in a food processor until combined. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal with pea-size butter lumps. Add 1 cup water and pulse until a coarse, dense dough forms.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in parsley and mint until well distributed. Gather, then halve dough with scraper. Form into 2 balls and flatten each into a 6-inch disk.

Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 2 large baking sheets.

Roll out 1 disk of dough into a round (1/3 inch thick) on a well-floured surface with a well-floured rolling pin. (If dough becomes too soft to roll out, wrap in plastic and chill until firm.) Cut out as many biscuits as possible and arrange about 1/4 inch apart on 1 baking sheet.

Gather scraps and reroll, then cut out more biscuits. Repeat with remaining dough, using other baking sheet.

Whisk together egg and 1 tablespoon water. Brush biscuits with egg wash and bake, switching position of sheets halfway through, until tops are golden brown, about 35 minutes total. Turn off oven and dry biscuits in oven overnight.

Cooks' note:
Biscuits keep, layered between sheets of wax paper or parchment, in an airtight container at room temperature 1 month.
Makes about 5 dozen biscuits.

Recipe from Gourmet Magazine, December 2005

Picture: Fashionista Pug Dog from NYC

We have until Friday!

We have until Friday to get our submissions into Ithaca Fine Chocolates for their Art Bar art for 2007. Go here for the details. Essentially, Ithaca Fine Chocolates is a fair trade,USDA organic, swiss made chocolate company founded by an art historian and museum director, Erika Fowler-Decatur and her husband Michael Decatur. They were living in Endwell, NY, moved to San Francisco and then back to this area to raise their son near their family. Their thinking was to produce a high end product that would support global and local art education, provide a platform for new artists to get exposure, to foster recognition of of the importance and potential of art in education and society. What is not to love about this idea. Candy and art. The Willie Wonka concept of a little magic beyond a chocolate bar...and for those of us who are visual, another source of inspiration. Ithaca Chocolates is sold locally at Green Star, Wegmans and of course, Gimme. Kudos to Erika and Michael for moving back to central New York and bringing such positive energy and ideas to enrich the day to day. Makes it more interesting to get up in the morning.

So--get those submissions in...but leave room for me!

Won our game yesterday. Into the tournament semi-finals. Flipped a ton of burgers...the time sped by. A. is delighted that their team is moving up. A trophy is in our sites!

More on the baseball picture, my personal art director had some good input which I agree with and thought I would plug in.

phew!

Long weekend. Tiring. Saw some good musicians play. Lots of hometown pride. Torrential rain on Saturday--essentially creating a gloppy fairground of mud and muck. Sunday was perfection--high clouds, low humidity, Mary Lorson and Saint Low, Bubba George, Jennie Sterns. Took K to Cornell to her delight. Back on more baseball --making up the tournament games missed on Saturday. Will be working with my new friends at the concession stand this pm. Grill is going to be on...and cold gatorade for the teams. Trying to finalize and rework some of the Syracuse pieces prior to Sunday. Onward!

tie dye doodle ey day!

Finished this up last night. Have been working on the finalization and framing of baseball stuff I did last summer. Have tweaked every one of them...which is kind of a surprise as I thought they were "done"/finito. But, with all things, they were done for last year...and incomplete for this. Hopefully, they are a little better.

Today is the opener for Grassroots. Campers galore. People parked by the road in their folding chairs (at 9 a.m.) preparing themselves for a long weekend of music and mixing. We had a great dinner last night at Sam's (Simply Red) with our fellow diners being some of the local musical bluebloods. Richie Sterns with wonderful Jim Reidy were cranking out some great tunes (even a Carol King song that was performed by the Byrds)...Whoa.

The Rainbow people are encamped in Hector--I did a little googling on them. Fascinating. There are a bunch of people here in Tburg that stayed here after travelling with the Rainbow family--and a bit of that philosophy and lifestyle sometimes waft over the day to day here. This is a little insight from one of their unofficial sites:

"When the earth is ravaged and the animals are dying, a new tribe of people shall come unto the earth from many colors, classes, and creeds, and who by their actions and deeds shall make the earth green again. They will be known as the "Warriors of the Rainbow"

Old Native American Hopi Prophecy.

Come to Tburg this weekend. It is a wonderful time. There will be some great local and not so local music, interesting people watching, cool stuff to buy, really delicious food and it promises to be great weather.

John James Audubon


This website is beautiful and poetic from a group of talented and inspired Canadians. Go through it for the artwork (wow!) and how this team carved up the static prints into a lively look at the art and environment. They also have great links to get more information about Audubon, his work, his life etc. I love JJA and how he distilled the moment down to simple images, beautifully designed on the page. He does not shy away from his design...sometimes twisting or pulling the birds to really sit in the picture frame in a bold and agressive way. I did see his watercolors (which, my expectation was very high) and was saddened by their roughness but strong design still there.

We saw two pilated woodpeckers in a dead tree yesterday. Our neighbor claims we have a bear in the backyard. Evidence, she acknowledges, is berry seed laden skat. We hope he takes a little stroll over to Grassroots to dance and sing with the hairies over there. He would blend in.

John James Audubon, Night Herons

a new beginning

I remember when presstype was the end-all, be-all of the world. It was going to put all the graphic designers out of business. Now, we have MSWord and Powerpoint doing absolutely the same thing. I don't think its eliminating the need for designers and even more so, illustrators. The work has just gotten different. I remember the first Mac I worked on, one of those 5.5" screen towers with 512K. Word processing was a miracle--but the concept of actually designing on one of those things was a sheer fantasy. Now, no fantasy. Reality. And happily so.

The web was a miracle too. Not so, now. It is just a medium that delivers the mail...the content. And even more wonderful are blogs as it is an everyman solution to the web--a media or delivery system that even the simplest, most tech backward folks are leaping in with both feet. My new clients have been getting blogs with scans of my sketches posted for them and they LOVE it. It is fast, direct and they can access it even as they travel. And, they think I am doing something special for them...which, maybe I am...but it works for both of us, gets us to a solution faster and its fun!. No fantasy. Reality. And happily so.

Hot like an oven here.