Rabbit Engine

Portrait

2010-05-10T20:28:00.001-07:00

Well it has certainly been a busy quarter. I just got back from NYC where my Sufjan portrait was in the Society of Illustrator's student exhibition (yay!) and am working on something similar which I thought I would throw up here (word choice?) even though its not done yet. Portrait of Maria Callas as Norma. Or maybe Lucia.

Maybe next quarter I will keep up here better. Remember you can always follow along on Flickr which I tend to update more often since there is no pressure to come up with witty written accompaniments. :-P

From Last Quarter

2010-03-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

A frog painting I did.

And, I got a cat! Whose name, coincidentally, is also Frog.

Portraits

2010-03-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

This portrait of singer Sufjan Stevens, which I did last quarter in my Illustration Techniques class at SCAD, was juried into the Society of Illustrator's 2010 Student Scholarship Exhibition. So I framed it all up and sent it off to NYC. I'll be going up in May to attend the festivities/observe the proceedings. A really exciting opportunity and a great honor!!

Some process shots for a portrait I'm doing. I've been looking at illustrator Mel Odom and wanted to try my hand at some fun 80s splatter backgrounds.

Frederic Michalak, French rugby

A little shot of my desk, mid-painting. I think its fun to see people's workspaces.

Recent Events

2010-03-07T12:02:00.001-08:00

I wanted to practice this technique a little more, so I put together a portrait of my friend Ryan. Some steps:

First I transferred my image and painted over it with a warm acrylic undertone to establish the highlights of the painting.

Then I went over the acrylic with a contrasting dark layer of gouache to establish the darks. The gouache is watersoluble so once it's down you can remove it with a wet brush to reveal your image.

Then I fixed the gouache with sprayfix, and started going back over it with acrylic again.

Not much of the gouache layer ended up showing through, but its still a really useful technique for establishing values. I wanted to work with some fun shadow colors here. I've been thinking about Pontormo's Deposition a lot.

Grisaille underpainting on shaped canvas for class. Pretty excited about this. Not done yet.

Some mail art I made.

More Baba Yaga

2010-02-11T15:38:00.000-08:00

More here...

Homework and Funwork

2010-02-10T19:42:00.000-08:00

Our most recent Illustration techniques assignment was a multistep, multimedia process that we used to design a cover for a story by Poe. You lay down a layer of acrylic to establish your midtones, then a layer of gouache to establish your darks (spray-fixing between each coat), then you pick out highlights from the [water-soluble] gouache (which is opaque watercolor) using a wet brush to expose the acrylic underneath. Then you add color with watercolors and put in your highlights and other details with a final layer of acrylic. There are pictures because it is confusing.

This is part way through picking out my midtones through the gouache. The acrylic layer, which is that yellow-green greasy color, is showing through the dark maroon-purple of the gouache. (This is an illustration for The Fall of the House of Usher btw...showing Madeline merging with the house as it sinks into the glowing waters of the tarn.

All the acrylic-midtones are established now. At this point the water seems much more stylized than the rest of the image, but this got sorted out in the final acrylic phase.

I've started to lay in colors and highlights with acrylic on the face and the undersides of the clouds.
Here's a picture of the final product. it is blurry and the color is a little off (mostly just in the lights of the chin and the waves) but I thought I would include it since the texture of the gesso made the scan pick up a little reflection on each imperfection of the surface...not so good.
And here's the final, with type treatment.

Something fun I am coloring in Photoshop. The water looks sort of the same.

Portrait

2010-02-07T15:08:00.000-08:00

In an effort to make more art - no matter what, just something - I did this little colored picture and spent the afternoon reading Brandon Graham's livejournal insteadof doing my homework. Well, i did a little bit.

Trent and Draco. Not telling which is which.

Baba Yaga

2010-02-05T21:54:00.000-08:00

The first of my Concepts and Composition pieces for Baba Yaga.

Some process shots of laying down the early washes and then building details on top...

See more here...

2010-02-04T06:37:00.000-08:00

Final scans of my graphite drawings from last quarter...I'm scanning this quarter's fresh crop today so those should be up soon. Exhausted.
***So...linking to these on Flickr doesn't work so well. But if you click on them you'll see the whole thing.

More Collaboration

2009-12-30T21:33:00.000-08:00

Aya Takano

2009-11-30T13:10:00.000-08:00

New Aya Takano paintings at Arrested Motion... here

At home in Beverly for the week. Yay!

Editorial Illustration

2009-11-18T14:43:00.001-08:00

digital illustration about food poisoning and Guillan-Barré disease caused by raw milk consumption

Plus de Sufjanerie

2009-11-17T13:31:00.001-08:00

Final portrait, taken into Photoshop.

Friday Blog

2009-11-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

The 'real' class project. Portrait of Sufjan Stevens.

Poetry collab. tester piece. Inside your chests are bent down branches burdened.

Sufjan Stevens

2009-11-11T15:26:00.001-08:00

Digital extrapolation of a tester piece I did for a new in-class technique.

Thoughts on a Collaboration

2009-11-11T12:39:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts on poetry that I'll be making some complementary pieces for, interspersed with Art History notes.

Related older pieces I don't think I've ever posted:

Anatomic Manual

Remember, Gentle Reader, that most of these and a variety of others are available on Flickr.

Baby Steps

2009-11-03T20:13:00.001-08:00

The top panel took 2 hours. I'll be working on this on my deathbed.

More Paintings

2009-11-02T20:19:00.000-08:00

I will scan this once its further along so you can really see the details. On the left side you can see some of my initial layers, and then a later version. I work spontaneously right onto the painting, and then occasionally take the image into Photoshop and superimpose my initial sketch over it to see what I need to change. I end up with sort of a plastic surgeon's notebook page of changes. :) hehe

Sometime I will be more diligent in documenting the various layers that go into a painting like this - I do some fun stuff with pouring, dripping etc. Basically I came up with a line drawing, copied it by lightbox onto the paper, then painted loosely over it using a lot of liquid, flowing paint to get various exciting textures and a lot of movement. At this point the underdrawing is only vaguely visible, so i repaint it from what I can see of it, and then started applying really, really thin glazes of translucent acrylic. Then take it into Photoshop to compare to the original, fix stuff, paint more, on and on until I am happy. Depending on the subject and how things turn out on their own, I may be more or less meticulous about sticking to the original drawing.

There will eventually be a huge field of purple peonies in the background. I think.

This is coming along. I think it's mostly done - just needs some darker values and some more color in the twisted branches.

Big Blog

2009-10-31T13:11:00.001-07:00

Wow, I haven't posted in a while and things are going very fast here....
A sampling:

Illustration for The Green Bird, Illustration Techniques. 8x10", scratchboard

Early stage of drawing for Drawing for Illustrators

Not done but mostly there.

Early stage of 3rd drawing for Drawing for Illustrators. The assignment is to do loose, unfocused markmaking (artist word! :D ) until an image starts appearing from our subconscious. Then we can start developing it.

...later on...

Done!

detail of bottom left corner

Pollockesque diptych of slouchy sad rabbit (left) and llama and bull's head (right). Not done. In the tradition of Ex Nihilo.

Experimenting with some new/old techniques. (Stuff I used to do a lot of updated with ideas from the internet).

More Fun Than Homework

2009-10-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

I continued to productively procrastinate this afternoon by working on Retinue. It is coming along well and I have a spin-off piece using one of the figures.

Also doing some watercolor work in Illustration Techniques that I will post soon, maybe. Well, next week probably.

Retinue

Gaurd

detail

These things are starting to suggest other, bigger things to me.

Something From SCAD

2009-10-09T14:59:00.000-07:00

I've been experimenting with the Scintique screens here at SCAD (you draw directly onto the screen using a stylus instead of using a mouse; it's just like using a pencil on paper (!!!!!)) and am digitally coloring this sketch/collage from my sketchbook.

Having some silly fun with lasers. :)

progress so far:

I need to redo the drawing on the pope/saint figure and figure out what drawing to do in the foreground.
(the main figure(s) are model Sean O'Pry, fyi)

Scratchboard

2009-09-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

My current assignment for Illustration techniques here at SCAD-ATL is a set of three illustrations for a fairy tale, one large piece and two smaller spot illustrations. I chose "The Green Bird," my favorite Chinese fairytale (is it still a fairy tale if there are no fairies in it? Is it a folktale if it has magical elements? anyway...)
Top: sketch for large illustration (final here, bottom, spot #1 finished.
Cheers!

From The Home Decorating Front

2009-09-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

Red is the Official Accent Color for the apartment.

Yesterday there was a huge thunderstorm (including The Loudest Thunderclap Ever!) It reminded me of Thailand; it was nice.

Mother Superior

2009-09-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

A drawing I did in my Drawing for Illustrators sketchbook. With details. I like the nun hugging the pony.

Also, progress shot of a drawing I'm working on for class. Probably about 1/4 done (?). 18x24. (Note: more here!

From the Graphic Novel Front

2009-09-16T16:00:00.001-07:00

Some process shots from a little bit of The Pearl Wars (working title!) that I was able to squeeze out last week.

Some bug snuggling, right before things start going wrong. :)

And some collages I made on cards.

The inside of this one is a pop-up and is really cool, but my camera cord is currently AWOL so...
edit: found it!

Little Interim Post

2009-08-25T09:38:00.001-07:00

Dear readers,
I'm in the middle of an epic state-to-state move. But once I get there I should be producing art very regulary (I'll be in grad school! :D ) and hopefully posting will become more regular.

In the meantime - for old time's sake - here is a little thing I did.

This is a mockup of the album art by up-and-coming close-personal-artists Dreamtigers, who will be releasing their first full-length record this fall! Check them out on Myspace!

And here's the t-shirt version. :)

As you can see, I'm really into black and white right now.

Cheers all,
grant

Foxworld...

2009-07-02T10:00:00.001-07:00

Whew. That's a little better.

Beetles

2009-06-22T12:50:00.001-07:00

Getting there.

The Graphic Novel

2009-06-21T18:01:00.001-07:00

So, I am back to work (art work that is) after broad-ranging shenanigans. We have a fairly finished script for Chapter 1, I guess you could call it, and I have been doing storyboarding and even some 'final' style pages ( "" because there are still a lot of kinks to be worked out).
For instance: Page 1

Page 4. I really like this, but it seems unfinished...

...so I inked it in a little more, which I think looks pretty good in general...

...but NOT how I want this book to look. I've definitely been envisioning something clean and foreign-looking, and inked this way it looks so generic to me. grrrr So, a lot more logisticking and drawing and redrawing to figure stuff out.

Graphic Novel: More

2009-05-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

Some more sketches and working drawings. Am working on getting sets of nice drawings for each character, but also dong some quick brushy things to figure out stuff works (esp. the problematic anatomy of two-headed things) and get an idea of movement, etc.

frog sketches'n'notes

frog priest

aerial battle

swan princes

two-headed fox sketches

leopard saint

Rabbit Paintings

2009-04-23T09:59:00.000-07:00

My exhibition, Rabbit Paintings, has just been taken down, which means that the paintings are now available and can be taken home immediately! A selection of works for sale is displayed below.
See something you like but not sure you can afford it? Payment plans are available.

Support A Good Cause
100% of the proceeds from artwork sales will be donated to Grant's Graduate Degree Fund. Foster the future by decorating your home.

Black Sheep (Apex) + Black Sheep (Nadir)
$175 each or $300 for the pair
Make An Inquiry

On The Shoulders of Giants (Pandas. Crocodile Smile.)
$450. Payment plan available.
Make An Inquiry

Carrion Crows (6 pt. buck. Lay of the land.)
$450. Payment plan available.
Make An Inquiry

Brood Nurse
$750. Payment plan available.
Make An Inquiry

Snared Rabbit
$900. Payment plan available.
Make An Inquiry

Lotus Pond
SOLD!

Conquered Rabbit + Resurrection Rabbit diptych
$1750. Payment plan available.
Make An Inquiry

I am from battles! (Retribution Rabbit) acrylic and gold composition leaf, 2 panels, 60" x 70"
$3000. Payment plan available.
Make An Inquiry

Persian Megature acrylic and sterling silver leaf on panel, 78" x 28"
$4500. Payment plan available.
Make An Inquiry

Other Works For Sale
Not a fan of gold? I have a variety of other works for sale.

The Gates of the Underworld, 2006
$450
Make An Inquiry

Various framed watercolors
$120 each
Make An Inquiry

A selection of black ink drawings of animals
Economically priced at $25 each
Make An Inquiry

Please contact me at rabbits (at) granthanna (dot) com with any questions.

A Big Bug

2009-04-17T09:20:00.000-07:00

a big tank bug to accompany the mantis

closeup of head. Mostly done; need to fill in some more values to bring out details of head and antennae.

Progress Continues

2009-04-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

section of hill with two fox saints

detail of third fox saint

More Foxes and Insects

2009-03-31T16:43:00.000-07:00

"inked" version of the fox from the last post

black-tipped fox saint

progress detail with work done on the hillock: little flowers, vines, lichens, an aeromouse

mantis lord. only partially colored, as usual.

detail

Lofty Aspirations Produce Ideas

2009-03-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

Another fox, crouching on a cliff. Battle inventory above.

I have big ideas!

Some Thoughts on Comics

2009-03-26T15:01:00.000-07:00

Here are some sketches and workups for a story I have been building slowly over the past few months. It started with this drawing of a firefox from last June

and draws on Asian (mostly) mythology, Watership Down by Richard Adams, Miyazaki's film Princess Mononoke, computer games like Starcraft and DungeonSeige, the Alien trilogy, Chinese landscape paintings and the art of Katsushika Hokusai, battle-epics, and the poem My True Love Has My Heart by the Elizabethan poet Philip Sydney.

St. Trueseam

St. Trueseam

Human form sporting same ornamentation and tattoos

sketches: swallows, rabbit saint, little fox, insect queen with a diadem of stolen pearls, black swan princes, some crappy cats and a little rabbit

fox saint with gems and medals

aeromouse captain

acheivement chart

The main challenge apart from working on the storyline, which will coalesce in time, is omcing up with a drawing style that I can maintain consistently for a long time. I love the line quality of the foxes above, but have concerns about weight once combined with value (ie. in a crowded scene areas of value would be valuable in order to distinguish levels of the plicture plane, etc. - but will such fine lines hold up against areas of darkness, and might too many fine lines become tangled anyway? (But, see this Hokusai print for potential refutation...)
[I know, what a terrible picture - why even bother including it?]
Anyway - did some sketching of frames, which I kind of hated until I worked it up in Photoshop a little:

blank bug hive

Bug hive colored
Now it looks ok, but upon re-examining the work of Hokusai and Chinese landscape painters, am reminded that one of my initial inspirations is the supreme clarity of line evinced by Hokusai, usually with no shading at all - must play to strengths and follow drinking gourd! No doubt recent aquisition of new drawings tools will help. :)

Image Bank

Kitsune

Alien Queen

Watership Down

Okkotonushi from Mononoke Hime

Starcraft

Dungeon Siege inventory panel

Clear Spring by Hong Ren

Hokusai

Comix Research

2009-03-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

So in thinking about doing a comic/graphic novel/what-have-you, I've been buying and reading a lot of comics. A selection:

Scott Pilgrim, by Bryan Lee O'Malley. This one is really fun. Compelling story about Canadian indie rockers who are also ninjas. Not the kind of art that I draw, but I like it. No hint of self-imposed-homework-feelings while reading (and rereading :) it.

Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. Storyline, B- ish; artwork, A. Very different feel than Scott Pilgrim and most comics for that matter. Lots of brush work and fluid use of space.

Best American Comics 2008. This is a fun (and cheap!) hardcover selection. Some are great, some are pretty, some are boring. Overall a really useful survey of what is going on, I thought.

AND, In The Studio
Sanded down some old half-done rabbit paintings that looked AWFUL. Like the result. Painted a lot of things red the other day in preparation for gilding, but had no camera on hand. Am moving out of studio soon (in like 3 days :o ) so I need to finish up with stuff over there.

sanded panels

This Is How I Do It

2009-03-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I was talking to my fantastic friend STEPHEN who reads this blog, and he said that I should put in more details and descriptions of how I do things. I think sometimes these processes seem obvious to me, or I do them more intuitively than analytically, so I’d never really thought about doing something more step-by-step like that before. So, without further ado, a More Detailed Look at how I created this digital illustration in Photoshop.

This is an illustration based on a reinterpretation of the hymn, “Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending” by Jonathan Green. We met up yesterday and had a stimulating talk about electronica (Björk and The Knife!) and the intersection of visual and audio art – among other things. Anyway, he left me an album he’d made, and after listening to it for a while I got to thinking about how I might visually represent this rather gritty track, which stuck out to me.

First I decided to work digitally rather than with ‘real’ materials, since the song is so synthesized and contains a ton of artificially-generated textures and sounds. I also decided on two colors that really stood out to me from a few listens: a sort of grey-green-greasy army-fatigues color, and a harsh, El Grecesque acid yellow.

Then I thought about imagery. I have a print that I made my sophomore year of an angelic figure and decided to use it as the basis of piece. It uses a lot of radiating lines and is somewhat of a favorite of mine, but it isn’t framed or anything and doesn’t get out much.

Then I started thinking about the nature of sound(!) music programming, and how I could bring in a feel of these digitally-created textures and sound patterns. I thought of bringing in little digibit-shapes like the MIDI sequencer in Garage Band

but ultimately decided to go with something more like sound waves or sine-waves. I build them by creating some random shapes with the Lasso tool and then warping them repeatedly using the various Distort filters until I had an nice curvy wave shape [not pictured]. Then I duplicated this and distorted it some more to give an idea of the dark, minor feel of the song, and the timbre of the bassline at the opening. (Not that the song is especially dark or destructed by the standards of electronic music, but minor keys are an interesting feature of a lot of hymns that isn’t reproduced much in contemporary worship music, and I liked how this was carried forward in Jon’s re-do. The dark musical elements stood out to me so I wanted to emphasize that in the work.)

ANYWAY I arranged the ‘waves’ in a repeating sequence and then applied a further filter from left to right so that the sequence would show change and progression (ie.
1st wave: not filtered, 2nd: filtered once, 3rd: filtered twice, etc.). You can see the degrading of the wave quality at the bottom of this shot:

At this time I also incorporated a bit of a glow around the figure’s head, using both photoshop brushes set very Soft, and some effected scans of ink splashes on Yupo, a plastic paper (“paper”) which preserves the pigment texture of watercolor really well since th eliquid has to evaporate vertically off the surface rather than being absorbed into the paper body and blurring the pigment grain as it does so, and which I often use for “real paint” effects that I can scan and use as textures in Photoshop.

At this point I had the angel and a lot of yellow squiggles, so the image wasn’t very high contrast; I needed to bring in some darkness and drama. I brought in another watercolor/ink scan

and played around with it a little, duplicating it, inverting parts of the color so that I could get the right balance of black+white in different parts of the picture, and applying various blending effects from my Layers palette, as well as adjusting the color with Hue/Saturation so that the red in the original was a nice yellow that went along with my color theme.

Here’s the yellow effects combined with the ink scans (the angel layer is still turned off so you can see what’s going on elsewhere, although when I’m actually working I leave all the layers turned on, usually, because Blending effects depend largely on what other layers the effected layer is interacting with…if that makes sense).

It still lacked depth so I added a large, transparent layer of red over everything, faded in some areas like around the angel’s head. (Around this time I switched the main color scheme from green+yellow to red+yellow. Originally this layer was green, but it seemed too underwatery and not celestial enough(?).

Alternate green version
I wanted to add some gold as a halo, and looked around to see what scans of gold I had. I found a section of Resurrection Rabbit and thought incorporating the flowers would be interesting too. Using Polygonal Lasso, I chopped out a jagged crop of the flower area that combined the sinuous motion of the plant with the energy of a lightning bolt. Using the same original layer, I chopped out a different variation of the jagged edges and multiplied them over each other (using Difference to make sure they lined up exactly) for a richer effect.

That looked cool, but now the lightning/roses were the focal point and the figure was getting lost. I snipped out some body parts from magazines and scanned them in to create a composite, Michelangeline body.

[Other layers removed for a better view of the body and how roses/lightning turned out]

I submerged most of the body under a few other layers, but left the left hand on top so that it would really pop. I gave it a little benedictive flame. The angel print was still not really holding its own so I duplicated the [already Multiplied] layer and offset it a tiny bit to give it some movement.

Around this time I added some other details which are pretty subtle but help pull it together – for isntance: Even though the feel of the song is pretty minor, and the second coming of Christ will be pretty dramatic, I felt that the piece overall was a little dark and I wanted more light to be shining down from heaven on the figure. So, again using Polygonal Lasso, <3, I created a jagged, lightningish burst of light coming down and illuminating the space a little bit. I duplicated this and assigned Overlay and Saturation to the layers, respectively, to tone them down a little bit – I wanted them to add ambience, not really be seen.

Made final tweaks to color richness and such, and DONE.

More Watercolors

2009-03-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

Some little paintings I am making as mail art. Again, trying to keep them loose, but want to do another layer of little detail as well. There must be a balance to strike between the watery work and the fine detail.

Little dragon

Little dog-like thing. This reminded me of the goblin creatures in The Princess and the Goblin and made me laugh. :)

Another state of the watercolor from the previous post. Again on this one, started going in for some fine details but stopped. Unsure how to continue. It is fine this way but I think it needs 'finishing' which may be my obsessive inability to leave well enough alone...but I think I can figure something out. I might just have to go in and maybe wreck it looking for the answer. I don't do that enough.
Also: the colors here are really, really bad. I need to get a new paint box layout that will urge me to mix more.

More Watercolor

2009-03-09T22:04:00.001-07:00

More watercolors I did today. Aiming for a free and loose style that lets the image evolve with the natural movements of the paint as it dries. Made a really cool animated gif of these three going together, but Blogger wasn't having it. >x<

Looking at a lot of Yoshitaka Amano right now.

Some Watercolors

2009-03-09T16:10:00.001-07:00

...augmented digitally. I did some sketching earlier and put in some colors but the paper was v. cheap and wasn't holding up well. So I scanned them and added more color/shaped things up digitally. It's a technique I think I will explore more.

A horse

A youth

Still Here...

2009-03-09T12:00:00.001-07:00

I am still alive and basking in un-busyness following a very succeful opening of the Rabbit Paintings at Gordon College last weekend. They're on display in the loggia of the Barrington Cente of the Arts (open til about 9 p.m. on weeknights and into the evening on Saturday as well, i beleive) and will be up til April 25th.
Will put up some pictures once I get around to it.

In the meantime, here is a layout for a pamphlet I might be making about protists.

Woodland Manifesto

2009-02-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I rediscovered this important early work from c2003. It's a collaboration with Jon Zoba, and is heavily influenced both by his use of geometry, which has largey informed my ideas of structure since then, and by my discovery at about that time of the work of Swiss Art Brut artist Adolf Wölfli. You can see some clear parellels in last year's Narnia pieces and also in my senior thesis work, esp. The Lover's Resolution.

Also incorporates excerpts from Dvôrak's symphony From The New World.

Probably the biggest I had gone at that time, and the most extensive use of decorative and ornamental elements.

Woodland Manifesto/The Planets ink, mechanical and colored pencils on paper, aaprox. 11"x18" (?)

detail (Earth. Coilglade.)
Frog, rabbit, lynchee, hedgehog, Wölfli snails, lotus buds

detail (Mars)

detail (pediment)

detail (Lisa)

detail (swimmer)

detail (Ice. Galeglory)

detail (Munephorse. Tiderace. II:Adagio.)

Paperdolls

2009-02-20T12:06:00.000-08:00

Some art I made recently around the idea of paper dolls and action figures with included accessories.

Dark Hills illustration, Edwin Arlington Robinson

Vault

Alissa (Zombie/Clown)

Part of an experiment with painting and drawing onto print-outs. It is a little outré but I like it. I don't think Alissa does so much...

If It Takes A Genius To Read It, Wouldn't It Take A Genius To Write It?

2009-01-23T17:43:00.000-08:00

TV Reviews

Yay for me, I guess :P

From The Past

2009-01-22T12:15:00.001-08:00

I drew this on the plane to Thailand back in December (Dulles-L.A. leg ;) )Inspired by Einstein On The Beach, by Philip Glass.

A Little Something

2009-01-19T18:59:00.001-08:00

Some drawings I did yesterday. Mechanical pencil and Photoshop.

Being In Thailand

2008-12-25T19:13:00.000-08:00

So here I finally am in Thailand. I bought a new camera with my birthday so I am well-equipped to photodocument everything that goes on.

Because of the blizzards last weekend in Boston, Philip and I stayed in a hotel downtown so that we would be able to get to the airport without any weather-related problems.(Photo: Me looking through my Moleskine address book in the Back Bay Hilton. But we were delayed and missed all our connections, so by the time we finally arrived in Bangkok, several days later, I was ravenous and quickly made my way to a little shop to get some food.

I was able to find many of my favorites: Prawncrackers.

Sugus, which is kind of like Starburst but less sweet. It comes in Raspberry, Orange, Blackcurrant and Green Apple.

Some fish sticks for Philip.

And my favorite, these paprika-flavored potato chips in the shape of penne pasta.

Once we got home we hung out with our grumpy cat, Fitz.

We didn't really have jetlag, because that;s just not how Philip and I roll, so we were able to begin doing fun stuff right away. Last night we went out to a tiny Indian restaurant, smaller than my bedroom back in Beverly. The food was very good and cheap (about $1.75 for this dish of chana dal) but the portion size was tiny. Afterwards we went and walked around the night bazaar. I'll have to put up some pictures of that later.

In Thailand there are a huge variety of kanom, which means snack or dessert. Two of the main ingredients in most of these are coconut milk and rice. This morning for breakfast my father and I walked through the temple compund and over the bridge to the market, where we picked up lots of fresh fruit, flowers and these kanom. From the left: khao laam, khao niaow/sankaya and khao mun sai goey. Everything comes wrapped in traditional biodegradeable packaging.

Here is the khao niaow/sankaya and the khao mun unwrapped. There are both served in banana leaves. The khao mun is coconut milk-sweetened sticky rice wrapped around a little piece of baby banana and then steamed in a leaf. Khao niaow/sankaya is sticky rice with gatit (coconut milk) and a porous, homemade custard, wrapped together in a fresh bit of leaf.

The khao lam is the most interesting; it is sticky rice, flavored with something, usually black beans (beans are seen as kanom in Thailand) and packed somehow into a bamboo segment and steamed. The whole thing packs together and forms a thin skin over the outside, so that once you peel off the sides of bamboo you can handle the sticky rice without getting sticky yourself. It is sort of the same concept as a sausage casing. This khao laam seemed very fresh; sometimes when they are a little bit older, maybe, (or maybe it ia different method of preparing it?) the bamboo flavor seeps into the rice and gives it more of a rich, worked-on flavor. Still, it was all very good.

Hanuman

2008-12-16T15:29:00.000-08:00

A drawing of Hanuman I did for an art trade. 0.3 mechanical pencil on buff Arches Cover paper. No erasing.

Details

And He Don't Stop

2008-12-10T09:08:00.001-08:00

Christmas Decorations
I'm making some Christmas tree ornaments to give away to friends and family. They're gilded, rhinestoned dinosaurs.

Plateosaurus

Spinosaurus

Psitticasaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus (front)

Paintings

Finally did some more work on Independence Park, using my acrylic-stabilized gouache technique and a lot of granulation medium.

Also have been doing background work (sketching, etc.) for Fergus and the Druid and Nereus (working title). So am getting back to stuff that has been untouched for almost a year! :D

Finally Here!

2008-12-04T09:37:00.001-08:00

"...a man's work is nothing but the slow trek to discover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened." -Camus

The show is finally up at Redbrick, 95 Rantoul St., Beverly MA, bottom floor.
It's only open M-F during business hours, which is too bad - except on Saturday the 6th (upcoming) when it will be open for December Open Studios from 10 a.m.--5 p.m. I will be hanging around so you can come say hi if you want, and see everything hung up, which looks very good if I do say so myself.

The work will also be on display at Gordon College sometime in the spring - probably from late January until mid-April. That will be a slightly more complete show, including smaller work, some older works from private collections, and more Silver Worlds pieces.

Snared Rabbit

top: Resurrection Rabbit
bottom: Conquered Rabbit

Another angle showing the gilded inner rims of the frames.

from left: Carrion Crows, Lotus Pond, Predator/Prey

detail of Lotus Pond

Persian Megature

Persian Megature

left: Snared Rabbit, right: I am from battles!

I am from battles!

2008-11-11T07:13:00.000-08:00

A look back on the history of I am from battles!

early digital mockup

embossing/underdrawing

Gilded

Done!
HURRAH

Detail

Counting Down The Days

2008-11-05T21:39:00.000-08:00

Lotus Pond

This is going really well. I've switched from acrylic to gouache mixed with acrylic medium (to make it waterproof), which is working out really well - I am much more comfortable with the way it handles; I just can't get the same results with pure acrylic. Also, the pigmentation of the gouache is SO much richer...*enraptured sigh*

I am from battles!

A greenflaming tendril.

head with a blade and more tendrils

eyes painted in a bit

detail of horns by ears

colophon on back

resurrection rabbit framed!!!

Coalescing

2008-10-20T15:50:00.001-07:00

Images from the studio this weekend.

Resurrection Rabbit

Resurrection Rabbit, detail

Conquered Rabbit, detail

Conquered Rabbit, detail

Conquered Rabbit, detail

Snared In Its Glory (At the height of its powers. Thorn in the flesh.)

Snared, detail

left: Black Sheep (Apex), right: Black Sheep (Nadir) 6"x8" each

Persian Megature

Lotus Pond

On The Shoulders of Giants

4 Down

2008-10-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

Carrion Crows (Lay of the land. The earth is no footstool for the sky.) Acrylic on silver leaf on panel. 11" x 15" Complete!

Also complete:
Resurrection Rabbit
Predator/Prey
Brood Nurse

Resurrection Rabbit

2008-10-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

Pictures from tonight; the kitchen table. 99% done. No color fidelity.

Resurrection Rabbit (Eglantine. I wound to heal.)
25.5"x 25.5"
acrylic and 23.5 kt gold on panel

This One's For You!

2008-09-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

Portraits of Dave:

Normal.

Punked Out! lol

Phases

2008-09-22T20:17:00.001-07:00

Lotus Pond. Two images - make an average in your mind and you will see its true color.

Ensnared. Experimenting with gouache and granulation fluid.

Break At Dawn. More granulated gouache.

Sunless Sea. And again.

Megature. All the shapes finally blocked. I'm worried that I may have miscalculated the figure-ground weight on the right vs. left sides :/

More Bookmaking

2008-09-22T20:09:00.001-07:00

Another book I made; A Truncated Bestiary. The cover has an inlaid collage-piece (the paper substrate is cut away so that the thick cardboard frog lies flush with the box-surface. Nerdy:)

Bookmaking

2008-09-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I did a little bookmaking. Here's my setup (to use the term loosely. I still have a lot of materials left over from when I was in Orvieto, Italy in 2005, that I get out when I start a project like this.

Here are all my collage matirials, most of them collected in Orvieto, Florence and Rome. They're organized by color in little envelopes. Going through them again after 2 or 3 years really made me want to do some collage again. You can see some printed and hand-marbled Florentine paper underneath the envelopes.

The book is is its own slipcase, all labelled correspondingly with text from some Korean green tea bags.

I needed more pages to complete the signature than there was content for, so I made the middle of the signature a four-fold spread and used my page-planning notes for a touch of ephemera.

+++

Working on Lotus Pond for Silver Worlds. yes, I am still having a show! :D

Flickering In And Out

2008-09-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

Eu...this hasn't been updated in a while. And it won't be for a little while longer as I finish up some freelance jobs and ease back into the studio after a summer hiatus.

But, if you want to see more stuff, I've just joined Flickr and you can view my photostream here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rabbitengine/

The Much-Maligned Gull

2008-08-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

I know everyone hates seagulls, but I love them. I think they are adorable and hilarious. They always have that grumpy, sour look in their beaks, as if they were displeased, vinegary cats, and their feathers are so white and smooth that I imagine petting one would be incredibly soft and satisfying.

I just found these gulls photos from Schoodic in Maine that I took on my vacation back in May. I don't know if anyone will love them like I do, but it's my blog so I'm just posting all of them :D haha!
The gulls in Schoodic seemed more ecologically naive than others I'd seen, so I was able to get pretty close and took pictures of this one (later joined by a friend) for about 20 minutes.

How terpsichorean!

At the end there were two that got into all kinds of tableaux.

Just hating everything!

The awkward, ballerinalike things they do as they clean themselves are another thing that reminds me of a cat, trying to lick every bit of its legs.

I love how abstract they become as they preen - like little headless puffs.

More Digistration

2008-08-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

Portrait of Sufjan Stevens

I Can't Stop...

2008-08-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

...listening to:
Z, by My Morning Jacket.

Homogenic, by Björk

Oracular Spectacular by MGMT

Anywhere I Lay My Head, by Scarlet Johanssen

Back On Track

2008-08-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've actually been "back," as in "regularly at my studio," for a little while now (July was a very slow month - necessary downtime) but haven't been putting up pictures. Thank for the nudge, Jake, this one goes out to you. And Tim, if you're seeing this, go paint something! :D

The whole shebang, set up for a studio visit/critique.

From a few days ago. The places with little black X's are prepared for my assistant the talented Susie to paint in. :D

The core of the megature. A colloquium of rabbits.

This is an example of the light refracting (science term check?) differently through the colored clouds at different angles. From the front they are not very bright and can even look like unpainted silver, whereas from this angle they are very red (or blue, n other areas).

panther!

a dear sheep

a fat sheep

Brood Nurse

Snared In Its Glory

More Foxes

2008-08-06T07:55:00.001-07:00

A fox meeting a rabbit under a moon and a pine.

All handmade elements assembled in Photoshop.

From The Vault
Summer 2006. Some details from an album cover I did for After The Sirens.

field of thorns

the sky is assembling an army

cities built on bones

Two little creatures, probably from 2004 or something like that. Wow.

beastmonkey

otterstar

Foxes

2008-07-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

A fox I drew twice over the weekend. 0.3 mechanical pencil.

Foxrankchart

Firefox.

Graphic Novels

2008-07-12T12:23:00.001-07:00

Just something I threw together last night/this morning to hone my skills for a potential upcoming collaborative project.
Whee!

I Am From Battles!

2008-07-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Various detail shots of the main attraction. It's very gestural. Used water, gloss medium, a wetting agent, granulation fluid (to break up the pigment molecules - these last two are esp. visible in Conquered Rabbit details below), powdered gold and dripping and wiping to get the effects. I've been preparing the panels for over a month and it took about two hours to paint this far. 98% of the game is half mental, you know?

Compare to prelimiary work here.

I Am From Battles!

Progress on Conquered Rabbit. Might be done. There's a moderate amt. of detail on the head, while the hindquarters are jsut the bare gesture I initially laid down. Will seek second opinion.
Details:

Break At Dawn - I don't know if I've ever posted this - probably. But now it has a glossy new coat of black on the clouds. maybe will put in the rabbitx tomorrow.

gesture for Snared In Its Glory

Excelsior!

2008-07-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

So I TOTALLY busted a move on Battles! today. Pics tomorrow!!!

Dinner

2008-06-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight I made us (Philip and me) some food. It was a concoction of my own, Hot Honey-Lime Glazed Chicken. You should make it; it came out really well!

le recipe

a package of chicken (I made it with 4 small breast pieces, but I would recommend more. Philip and I had to continue eating for several hours after this course - "The abyss demands sacrifice!"

two limes, thoroughly juiced

1 tablespoon soy sauce

two tablespoons of honey

a teaspoon of Tabasco sauce (you could vary this. I didn't put in a whole teaspoon, just 5-6 drops, and it wasn't really hot enough for the recipe to warrant it's name)

freshly ground black pepper

a teaspoon of ground cumin

a teaspoon of turmeric

a small onion, coarsely chopped

two cloves of garlic, treated similarly

Combine the lime juice, honey, soy + Tabasco sauce and spices in a bowl. Cut and clean the chicken and put it in the marinade [if you pierce it with little holes all over it will absorb more sauce! -Ed.]
Heat up some vegetable oil in a pan or on a skillet. Add the garlic and onion and let cook til golden. Add the chicken and remaining marinade, and continue to cook until done. The marinade should have reduced into a sauce at this point; leave it a little longer if you want it thicker.
Serve immediately over jasmine rice.

From Out Of The Gloom

2008-06-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

Some pictures I took directly upon arriving at the studio last night, when all th elights were still off. I love the Byzantine effect of the dim light glimmering off the gold.

Having this mounted with Conquered Rabbit underneath as they will be once installed has really helped me figure where to go next with it.

Photographing it in the half-light has this great negative effect as the gold reflects but the rabbit does not...mmm yum.

Resurrection/Revolution/Resolution Rabbit (still have not figured out which one is quite right) after some work last night. I've been really cautious about this and have not worked on it for a few months (since Feb?) because it's really delicate and I don't want to overdo it. I think at this point I'm leaving it and will come back for continuity s necessary once the rest of the series is done.

The gilded half of from battles! freshly glazed and out to dry.

A firefox I drew while on the phone with Liz.

Studio set up for visits.

Open Studios

2008-06-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

So open studios is over and went pretty well. Thank you to all who came by.
As usual such gregarious pursuits have left me fatigued, but I'm a lot less worn out than I was from Dec. open studio, so I think I might head back in tonight for some gold leafing.

I hung everything up on the walls to get it out of the way and make it presentable, and it really helped me wrap my mind around what I have going on, where things need to go (with some help from the excellent Michelle I have come upon a compositional solution for Revolution Rabbit, a longtime bane of mine), and what needs to happen next. I am pleased to announce that most of the prep/craft work on the panels is done, and soon I will be able to *gasp* actually get out the paints again and paint.

Crazy right?

English Language Comix

2008-06-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

Some stuff from 2005 (?) involving a place called Animal Kingdom *Goodland*. Maybe do more with this after Dec.
Think the comix are really funny.

Animals And Fungus In Formalwear

2008-06-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

Solid Gold

2008-06-17T07:48:00.001-07:00

Gold lamé jacket, American Apparel, $58.00
Gingham shirt, H+M, $29.00
Levi's 501 Superskinny jeans in black, Urban Outfitters, $49.00
Black and orange Venetian blind shades, NYC street vendor, $5.00
***

The bulk of recent work has been working on the bulk of this Enormous Rabbit. There's a lot of embossing to be done before anything else can happen. So I embossed and embossed...

Here's what it looks like as it goes on.

And here (mostly invisible) is what it looks like once it's dry (there's a little bt near the bottom right reflecting some light). You can't really see the results of your work until the piece has been gilded and the emboss shows up through the gold. It's a little mysterious and satisfying.

I've already gilded a little bit because I'm impatient. The main gilding for Battles! will occur tonight, starting 6.30 p.m. Eastern. Have had troubling finding enough of the composition gold I'm using; everyone seems to be out in this crucial week. Hopefully 4 packs will be enough.
My open studio is this Saturday and Sunday, the 21st and 22nd, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and from noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday. Come by and see what's up! I'm trying to get everything, or as much as possible, gilded by then, to present a united front of metallic splendor.
***

Here's the carved final for Moon Over Independence Park. One night I was out there with Brendan and Alissa and the moon was incredibly huge and casting a sheet of glow over the water towards us. It was a very particular cold-warm gold-white, so I chose moon gold for the gilding on this piece. Moon gold is a blend of silver, gold and palladium, and is even more fragile (!!) than 23 kt. gold, which made for some stressful times on the gilding table.

In process.

The unearthly sheen of moon gold, more so than the other metals I've been working with, cannot be reproduced digitally. Colder than gold and warmer than silver.
***

I don't know if this has ever been on the blog before; it's the bottom piece of the rabbit diptych, Conquered Rabbit to hang beneath Resurrection Rabbit.

Together, but stacked inversely.

Some Random Stuff + Vault

2008-06-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

Beverly, MA, present day:

Sketch for Snared In Its Glory, last projected major work in the White Rabbits series. I had been working on an (unintentionally) similar image for the tondo from Silver Worlds a few month ago, but eventually abandoned it because it hadn't been planned superwell, but the other night Susie and I were looking at the underdrawing for From Battles! and she asked if it was going to get tangled in its horns, which of course is the obvious logical conclusion if you look at these images from a purely biological/practical point. Plus I love the stimmüng of this; goes back to Thorn in the flesh/at the height of his powers. (no image available :( )

This is a thing I've been side-burnering; using a transfer technique that Steve told me about (Kellogg might use it too -but her ways are a mystery...). (Steve, you need a blog so I can link to you at opportune moments!) As you can see, I've transferred the Day At The Races drawing from a few posts ago onto this panel; starting to build up an interesting collage effect. Not sure what I'll use this for in the future but it has all kinds of imaginable applications in the fields of Exactitude and Perfection.

Sometime In The Past

Hmm, this is an interesting one. Digging through The Vault, I found this from last October. It's after Murakami after Francis Bacon. Not finished - can't find the .psd I was working from - but interesting. I like it.

Murakami's^

Bacon's (BBC News)^

on Arches Cover Buff

on Arches Cover Buff. Sometime in August 06.

monotype from printmaking I.

artist's proof from the telamon plate that I used in The Sheep and The Goats.

I Am From Battles!

2008-06-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

Quick update of last night's studio actions:

Underdrawing for Battles!

Susie silverleafing the panel for The Sunless Sea.

Painted sketch for From Battles! This will now be embossed, gilded and painted.

The battle zone.

2008-06-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

This was the best art exhibition I've ever been to.
Unfortunately they wouldn't allow picture taking inside, so, perhaps channelling my mother, I had Philip take a lot of pictures of me outside the museum with the big sculpture of Mr. Pointy. (They wouldn't even let me drink water inside, but I guess when you're surrounded by 15 million dollar pieces of art, you get nervous about that kind of thing.) Come to think of it, that sculpture is probably the most expensive thing I've ever been close enough to touch. ...Interesting and awkward.)

Mr. Pointy was riding on an enormous squashy frog.

The level of detail all over everything, even on parts you could barely see, was incredible:

2008-06-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

When Tim went a few weeks ago he snuck some pictures with his very capable camera phone. Below we see two views of Tan Tan Bo.

Here are two of 727-272. This was one of several that were elaborately sanded down to create a shifting series of colors and textures.

This was probably the most breathtaking one: Tan Tan Bo Puking - aka Gero Tan. It was probably about 40 feet long and 15 feet high, and the level of detail was astounding. You could stand back and see the whole scene, with enormous cascades of vomit oozing out between the teeth into the mouths of melting frogs, or go in close and see all the other details - tiny creatures holding staffs topped with skulls, eyeballs with teeth vomiting mouths vomiting vomit, a field of little spiky exploding antennae...and it goes on and on.
Just breathtaking.

This one below kind of shows how big it is. But it was actually bigger than it looks here.

Another great one: Reverse Double Helix. I'd only seen these in print reproductions, and hadn't really had any idea how big they were. I knew they were large, but I was thinking maybe 4 ft square or so...I think this one was about 8 feet tall.

I was really happy that this one was there: Homage to Sir Francis Bacon (Portrait of Isabelle Rawsthorne). This is my favorite piece by Murakami. It reminds me of a huge fleet of living Star Detroyers morphing into...something even more awesome.

*phew*
Ok, I could go on and on, but there was some other stuff that went down in the city, too! Saturday was the first hot day of the year, and entering the humid odiferous air of New York reminded me SO MUCH of being in Bangkok. Perhaps such an atmosphere is common to all big cities, but NY like Bangkok seems to keep the apparatus of its existence on the outside. Everything is slightly used, a little dank and crumbling; even in the nice parts of town you could tell that there would be a grimy little alley opening up just after the next storefront. It wasn't necessarily bad.

This is Philip drinking water in Yaffa, an underground (literally) restaurant in the East Village, every square inch of which was covered in animal prints (leopard, zebra, dalmatian), Rococo decorations, enormous faux cameo brooches, chandeliers, mirrored stickers, little blinking lights, statuettes, paintings large and small, the color red, antique tapestries, vintage pinups, a mirrored portrait of Jim Morrison and fake flowers. I had a wrap.

I was fascinated by the wealth of fire escapes that this building somewhere near Union Square possessed.
***
In a word, I would sum up my New York visit by saying: 'There was a lot.'

:(

2008-06-06T12:47:00.000-07:00

So I'm just about to leave for NYC to see the Murakami exhibit, and suddenly Mr. Tummy feels angry and ill-at-ease. Could it be the not-quite-hard-boiled eggs I had for lunch? Or the dried apricots that I precipitously consumed on the drive home from work? Is it true that dessicated fruit can swell in your stomach?

:(

It's Enormous.

2008-06-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

New Client Work

2008-06-04T09:24:00.000-07:00

Three images I just produced for CIVA, as page decorations.
Hand-drawn ornamentation with Rennaisance painting clippings assembled in Photoshop.

Coronation

2008-06-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night it was too late to go to the studio, so I stayed home and worked on some Coronation drawings for open studios (June 20-21).
Coronation drawings are done without photo references and without erasing. In each drawing I try to highlight some fact that I happed to know about the animal, either of scientific or folkloric nature.

naga king (three great rivers.)
It usually takes me about one drawing to warm up, and the king cobra sadly got the brunt of that...I think I'll have to go back in and add some stuff...or put him in the bargain bin.

lonely bird (bittern)
I really like this one: that it's a little sparer and sad.

four-gems firefox

poison-spur tyrant (platypus. down under.)
+++

must you have battle in your heart forever?
study for I am from battles!

I'd like to do a bunch of studies for from battles! because
a) it is a subject matter that has obsessed me for a while
b) it's going to be the most obvious piece so i want to get it perfect

Persian Megature

2008-06-01T10:30:00.001-07:00

Work continues on the Megature...on Friday evening I was assisted by my excellent assistant Susie, who's heping me for the summer, and we got a lot done. I'm hoping to pick up two more panels for I Am From Battles! and get that underway this week. Had been planning on leaving it as blank wood, but now have decided that it just needs to be gilded. But I will be using composite gold ( = fake) instead of 23 kt.

Here's an image of progress so far. I've washed in most of the clouds except in some up-in-the-air areas. I need to make some decisions soon as to how much empty space there will be vs. the clustered forms in the central bottom right (hehe). But I think more rather than less. Also, still need to work in a horse.

Here's the rabbit pieces I have going so far (and the ubiquitous sketch for Battles! in the background). I have a panel in preparation for Conquered Rabbit but really want to get back to work on Revolution Rabbit as well...so much to do! And prep for Brood Nurse is coming along really well too; I have some novel embossing going on that I think will make it quite distinguished.

Thousand-year rooster, Persian Megature

Heaven-hound, Persian Megature

Tiger, Persian Megature
***
Also, next week Philip and I are going to NYC to see the Takashi Murakami show at the Brooklyn Museum. He is my favorite living artist (probably?) and I am very very excited.

Concept Drawing

2008-05-29T12:21:00.000-07:00

A concept drawing for an upcoming music-related project.

Saturday Studio Report

2008-05-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

Wow, if there are any fans of poorly lit photos out there you are in for a treat today. But first, a picture of Grant and his excellent friend Natalie in Rye, NH on Memorial Day:

Break At Dawn, in progress, copper.

Brood Nurse, underdrawing on poplar

Scylla and Charybdis, very much in progress, it will end up being beautiful I promise!

Woodcut for gilding, featuring a view from Independence Park, Bevtown.

Long White Cloud, 63% done.

Relics Of A Week Spent In Maine

2008-05-23T05:30:00.000-07:00

A mysterious teaser; read right through to find out what this is!

Maine
So I'd been going to do a lot of drawings in Maine, but decided to Down East it up and do some classic watercolors instead. I went to the Bass Harbor light every day (yes), not for the lighthouse but just to see the rocks and the tide coming and going. The first two were done en plein air.

These are a bit more premeditated; the first one has me trying to do some linear work in the water, but still keep everything fluid and in the style of the medium.

In this one I did a sketch onsite and then filled in the colors later, using photographs for reference. (I took a lot of photos. I'll have to post my gull ones soon, they're superfunny.) It doesn't have much energy and I have to see if there's a way to pep up the water, but I like the colors.

Studio
Back in the studio last night, painted some things pink, tried to sand them down for some variegated background effects; think I need a new plate for my sander (something rougher like an 80) as not much went on. Sometimes I worry about breathing in acrylic dust.... :/ Anyway -

In between painting and sanding, began searching for a technique to maintain my underdrawing on Long White Cloud once it had been leafed. I wanted to do an indented line rather than the embossed lines I have been doing. Tried knocking it in with my silverpoint, but the wood of the panel is rather harder than I thought, and I just ended up silverpointing the drawing rather than sculpting it. But will remember that; it's amazing what you can silverpoint. I'd like to do some of those again sometime. Anyway -

Then I got out my printmaker's woodcut set (a gift of my dear friend Becca) which i was afraid wasn't very sharp, but things started going my way, and soon I had a woodcut that I will gild and paint. I forgot how much I love carving in wood and linoleum, I'll have to od a print show too, if I can get someone else to do the printing for me :P

Now my only problem is what do I put on the card: gilded polychromed wood or acrylic and gold leaf on panel?? Being an artist is hard.

P.S.
Seriously, though, it is dangerous work. In college I would tell people I didn't have to take tests or do readings and they'd be grumpy, but there are all kinds of bodily dangers involved in art: powdered cobalt, sharp blades, acid, the carpal tunnel flare-up triggered by last night's return to relief carving...hehe. I almost gouged my arm with my gouge last night. Luckily I have the motor skills of a cat and Bene Gesserit-like control over my own body.

Back In Civilisation

2008-05-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

My life is in a little turmoil right now due to the sudden transition from wilderness to commuting to Boston for the HOW Design Conference ( :x ), and also the chaos of having my little brother move into my room for the summer.

But as a sign of goodwill to all you readers, here is a little peek of my fabulous vacation: a 180 degree(ish) composite of the rocks at Schoodic Head on the Schoodic Peninsula.

Lots more that I will post - including some awesome seagull shots.

Vacation

2008-05-09T08:33:00.000-07:00

I'll be on vacay with the fam in Acadia for a week starting tomorrow. I plan to turn out a series of Coronation drawings for open studios at Redbrick in June.

$ $ $

The Vault Opens

2008-05-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

Recent work in the studio is preparatory and unscannable, so I have an X-tra Big Helping of Vault today - for the first time in a while!

Duck underdrawing on panel. This is an abandoned drawing from when i was still hopeful about embossed gold-line drawings (turns out they're not really high-contrast enough to hold up from more than arm's length :( ). I love the duck, but the background details were not supergreat (and, as Out recently noted, coral is so three months ago.)

Rabbit Diagram from the first Italy Sketchbook.

detail of Virtuous Rabbits which is currently on haitus but will be featured in the NEXT show...probably. Also the inspiration for the Rabbit Triptych I am currently working on.

Some Sketches and Ideas

2008-05-01T19:53:00.001-07:00

A recent 7 hour Photoshop training seminar turned out to be a ripe time for all sorts of ideation:
Got some great new ideas for Brood Nurse, a piece I've been thinking about for a long time but have not been able to finalize in my head, and came up with a concept for utilizing some nice Japanese-style clouds and my new gold and silver powders.

Some sketches for the rabbit triptych - three pieces which connect but will be separate entities, from a commercial standpoint (as seen in the purple section.)

above: Break At Dawn
below it: Brood Nurse

Sketch for Berries (very much a working title :P), a small piece to help fill in the low price points. A nice chance to get some delicate foliage going on that would be prohibitively time-consuming in a larger format.

Today I sent out a call for an apprentice/studio assistant this summer. I can't really offer any money, so I tried to play up what I honestly beleive would be a valuable learning experience.

The current list for the show looks like it will be about 23 pieces, now that I have abetter idea of how long it is taking to do pieces in the Silver Worlds series, and also know how big the potential venue is. (My initial goals for the amount I would produce this year would be feasible, I think , if I didn't have another full time job, but in any case, so many would not fint into the space I'll probably be in.)

Foreign Language Comix

2008-04-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

Some foreign language comix I've been working on. The duck panel is presented above in the original English because it's too precious to pass up!

I've been too lazy to finish coloring it. O well.

A Recipe

2008-04-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

Having come home at lunch time, still ill, I decided something nourishing, yummy and full of vitamins and protein would be a good way to combat my malaise. (Plus, I like think that my mentor figures are in some way pleased when I am eating well instead of the alternative :) All items that you may have available in your own kitchen!

Grilled Chicken Salad with Beans
1 can of chickpeas
1 can of cannellini beans
5 chicken breasts

some sort of vegetable greens mix, like a spring mix
a cucumber
cherry tomatos
Peppadew roasted peppers from the deli, with juice

5+ cloves of garlic
olive oil
turmeric
ground ginger (or fresh if you have it!)
black pepper
paprika
coriander seeds

Combine the coriander, turmeric, ginger, paprika and some black pepper in a mortar and grind. (Use maybe 1 tsp or a little less of coriander, turmeric + paprika, and half a tsp of ginger.)
Put the ground spices in a solid bowl with 1/4 cup of high-quality olive oil and the peeled garlic; crush into a paste with the pestle. Add cleaned chicken breasts to marinate for 20 minutes. Add a little more oil, adjust spices as necessary and stir from time to time to make sure the chicken is covered.

While this is going on, wash the cherry tomatoes. Drain the beans and rinse, and chop the roasted peppers into little pieces. Peel the waxed skin off the cucumber (blech!) and slice Very Thinly, and then crosswise into semicircles. Once the 20 minutes are up, ready a skillet and set it to high heat. Put in the chicken and the oil marinade, turning chicken when cooked on one side. Once the chicken is white on both sides (well, it will be yellow due to the delicious, colorful action of the turmeric!) add the cherry tomatoes.

Continue cooking, adjusting heat as necessary, until chicken is cooked through and the tomatoes are wrinkly and bursting with hot fragrant juices!

Prepare a bed of greens on a plate. Add the cucumber slices and some beans on top (I used probably 3/4 cup beans for myself) and sprinkle the red pepper over this. Add the sweet, spicy pepper juice as dressing. Spoon chicken and tomatoes directly from the griddle onto the salad, making sure you pick up some of the roasted garlic and pleasant, oily sauce. Top with black pepper. Some crisp white wine like an Orvieto Classico would probably complement this nicely.

Persian Progress

2008-04-25T07:26:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty sick for the past two days (a case of virulent laryngitis that, like all youngsters, quickly entered a terrorizing adolescence) but was still able to get in the studio and do some work.
To start off, I took this messy, unkempt drawer where my paints have been living:

And used my superb craftmanship and woodworking skill (haha) to create a store-style display where everything is easily accesible:

Painting is an exalted practice, one which kings and potentates have honored and funded for centuries. Keenly aware of this honorable lineage, I make sure to assume the most august and reverential of postures while practicing the art.

(I'm not really sad; I'm just concentrating!) The brush is a 0/3, or something like that.

Side note: I have a fairly idiosyncratic way of holding a brush or pencil, which has drawn criticism from teachers, but it's what lets me make such fine, controlled lines.

The drawing instrument rests on the third finger of the left hand, with the pads of the pointer and middle finger where the ferrule of a brush would be. The main guidance and pressure comes from the pointer as it pivots on its middle knuckle, heightening or decreasing the tension of the finger's pad on the instrument. The body of the hand, including the base segment of the little finger, is firm + flat on the art surface which creates a very stable base for clear, steady lines.

Two progress shots of the Megature:

And some close-ups:

^An aeromouse

^A cloud

^Aeromouse with a boar. Overall, I want to the painting to be beautiful, majestic and silly, like a Bjork song.

Back In Action

2008-04-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

Back in the studio tonight after a week of SLOTH (ok, I was doing pro-bono stuff for senior thesis projects - still felt lazy about the studio). First thing:

Finally remembered my camera. Here is the working sketch for "action rabbit," now operating under the new working title From Battles.

Here's me next to it to give an idea of the scale. Final will probably be slightly wider.

Also pulled out the ol' Megature and gave it a go again. Things went much faster this time (last time I worked on I despaired of ever finishing anything in addition to it), but I will definitely need to buy a new outlining brush - very hard to find a good one for doing really fine acrylic details. After thinking about it for a while, decided to go with the same colors for the clouds as on Heavenly Creatures, but I think I must have used cadmium red on that one, because the clouds came out very purple this time around (I used my Naphthol Crimson instead, and Cerulean blue...one of my least favorite colors...but it works well with the silver)...anyway. You can see a snake coiling from top-right to bottom left, the head and body of the fox-dragon-axlotl, a little aeromouse top center and a boar on the left where the snake and fox make an X.

Here it is with a lttle more black filled in. I'm excited to see it done.

Out Of Synch

2008-04-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

I just ate my lunch leaning against an overturned canoe and watching the geese out on the Pond. Then when I came back to the office, I noticed that the bare patch where the ducks lived in the winter is suddenly covered in grass, and felt very removed from nature.

It made me want to build a little Waldenesque hut of sticks between the ponds and eschew human interaction there.

A Friendly Game of Tag

2008-04-18T06:45:00.000-07:00

Jack over at The Pink Armageddon has challenged me to some tag, so here goes:
4 Places I've Been

Orvieto, Italy. I lived in a convent with miniature nuns and incestuous cats for a semester!
Thailand. And various locations therein. One of the most beautiful parts is the Queen's Botanical Garden, built up the side of mountain and landscaped into different sections divided by plant type. There is a huge Crystal Palace-esque greenhouse with a rainforest inside, and an elevated boardwalk so you can walk through the tree's canopies!
Mount Desert Island, Maine. Very beautiful there as well.
Singapore. I lived there for six months when I was little but don't remember much about it. Except for all the rules we had to follow every waking minute.

4 Jobs I've Had

Data Entry. I think this was the first paying job I ever had. It was a one-time thing. I sat in a small room and typed stuff into a database.
Cafeteria Server/Vegetable Chopper. I liked making sandwiches and I really enjoyed being alone, chopping vegetables for an hour, and getting paid for it! Vegetables are actually really beautiful, if you take the time to look at them, especially cauliflower.
Custodian. Cleaning dorms and toilets in the summers.
Tour Guide on Boston's Freedom Trail. I showed people around Park Street Church, gave little guided tours, and said, "No, the church is NOT connected to the graveyard. Yes, I know they are adjacent," many times a day.

4 Of My Favorite Foods

Sticky Rice.
Anything Indian, especially Malai Kofta and Shahi Paneer Korma.
Pasta
Wheat Chex. My favorite cereal, which I can no longer eat due to my wheat issues! Fie.

4 Scenes In Movies I Wished I'd Written And Directed

Elizabeth Rejects Darcy: BBC Pride and Prejudice Oh, the fire in Jennifer Ehle's eyes when she declares, "I had not met you one week before I knew you were the last man on earth who I could ever marry!"
The Two Femininities: Aliens Ripley getting into the power loader and screaming, "Get away from her, you bitch!" as the alien queen tries to eat(?) Newt. (Do the aliens really eat, or do they just implant their embryos and skedaddle? The whole food intake is never really gone into that I remember...)
Attack Bible: Saved Hilary Fay, her attempt at excorcism thwarted, actually throws her Bible at Mary. Mary turns around and says, "This is not a weapon, you idiot!"
The Diva Dance: The Fifth Element Need I say more?

Illustrator's Copies

2008-04-16T14:04:00.000-07:00

I just got my complimentary copies of A Writer's Space the last book I did some illustrations for.

Possessed, perhaps, of a morbid state of mind, I always suspect a letterbomb when I receive a package that I'm not expecting, but this turned out to be nicer.

Progress Continues/Self-Reflection/Geeking Out

2008-04-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

Was back in the studio last night doing a little more drawing on the megature - dogs, tigers, more spines on the snakes...

While I was creating a series of arching, fluted horns growing from the back of a floating, greyhound-like creature, I found myself in a moment of self-recognition.

backstory:
A week or so ago Jonathan Bennett came by to discuss some potential collaborative work, (ekphrastic stuff, as we say here in Wenham) and we got into a fairly in-depth talk about my artistic motivations (it was actually a little like being in therapy). At first I was a little wierded out, but eventually he explained that he was just trying to find out what makes me tick artistically so that he could respond informedly to the work.

Since Jonathan is a poet, the conversation naturally drifted to my past work in orthographies and constructed languages - what sounds I like, how I go about choosing and developing letter/character forms, etc. I have mostly abandoned such pursuits in the last few years since they're time-consuming and fairly solipsistic, but it was fun to babble about them to someone who was actually interested.

One of the languages, Oriset (the only one with a semi-developed working grammar and vocabulary) whose script is calligraphic and resembles sequences of clouds or waves, has a very complicated system of verbs, with many irregular ones and an ornate method of conjugation. The entire language from the choice of consonant sounds up to conjugations and noun declensions, was developed for beauty, flow and a rhythmic, embellished sound, which brings me back to the Persian Megature.

As I was drawing the various creatures, it struck me that I was designing the line-quality of the Megature in much the same way that I went about building the sound-quality of Oriset. I take the necessary and essential elements of the creatures I choose to include, and spin them out into a sort of attenuated Mannerism that borders on the Rococo.

So, an interesting observation - don't what what I'll do with it yet.

From The Vault

Speaking of hyperstylized linework: a rabbit grooming itself in a thicket by a pond, in the Thai style. Circa late 90s?

Illuminated manuscript, color pencil, 2004ish

Rabbit Engine

Portrait

From Last Quarter

Portraits

Recent Events

More Baba Yaga

Homework and Funwork

Portrait

Baba Yaga

More Collaboration

Aya Takano

Editorial Illustration

Plus de Sufjanerie

Friday Blog

Sufjan Stevens

Thoughts on a Collaboration

Baby Steps

More Paintings

Big Blog

More Fun Than Homework

Something From SCAD

Scratchboard

From The Home Decorating Front

Mother Superior

From the Graphic Novel Front

Little Interim Post

Foxworld...

Beetles

The Graphic Novel

Graphic Novel: More

Rabbit Paintings

A Big Bug

Progress Continues

More Foxes and Insects

Lofty Aspirations Produce Ideas

Some Thoughts on Comics

Comix Research

This Is How I Do It

More Watercolors

More Watercolor

Some Watercolors

Still Here...

Woodland Manifesto

Paperdolls

If It Takes A Genius To Read It, Wouldn't It Take A Genius To Write It?

From The Past

A Little Something

Being In Thailand

Hanuman

And He Don't Stop

Finally Here!

I am from battles!

Counting Down The Days

Coalescing

4 Down

Resurrection Rabbit

This One's For You!

Phases

More Bookmaking

Bookmaking

Flickering In And Out

The Much-Maligned Gull

More Digistration

I Can't Stop...

Back On Track

More Foxes

Foxes

Graphic Novels

I Am From Battles!

Excelsior!

Dinner

From Out Of The Gloom

Open Studios

English Language Comix

Animals And Fungus In Formalwear

Solid Gold

Some Random Stuff + Vault

I Am From Battles!

© MURAKAMI Pt. 1

©MURAKAMI Pt. 2: Eyeballs With Teeth Vomiting Mouths Vomiting Vomit