a year of exits

when i began this blog about a year ago, i had some doubts that it’d see a year of entries. but some 40-something entries and 12 months later, i’m still here. i’m not sure if congratulations are in order or if i should’ve spent that time on other things. i do think that blogging has sort of provided an output for occasional writing, which output was formerly provided by being in a band for a few years.

in that time, i think i established a fairly good and natural pattern that goes from somewhat technical articles to lightly philosophical entries about art or art history, with forays into light entertainment and complete randomness scattered between.

moving to europe earlier this year really hindered my pace and made me think blogging would grind to a halt. the blogger site is notoriously slow, and doing this all on dial-up has been painful at times, especially when i go about finding random links to insert. yet i persevered--for better or worse--during what by any measure has been the busiest single year i’ve had in my 11 years at this illustration game. i spent a lot of time out of the studio this year at cons and such and moved a couple of times, yet had a more full workload than in most years, which meant almost non-stop painting whenever i was home. also about a year ago i started dipping into some digital art and that has been a painful on-the-job training, albeit with some clear benefits in the end.

anniversaries are strange things, marked as they are by our relative position in an elliptical solar orbit within a constantly moving universe. why then should they be special? i don’t know, but it does seem to be important for us to stick markers down in our path every so often, to take a breather and look back. having taken stock of the distance covered since our last marker, we readjust the straps of our pack and trudge on.

thanks for walking along this far with me.

spam

i have to wonder sometimes if true spamming even works anymore. like there might have been a day, maybe back in like 1994, when someone received an email from mr. dr. ubugu from chad and thought, “wow, where would they have gotten my email address from? i should reply, the situation sounds bad!” but that day has got to be long gone.

right?

please tell me that no one falls for spam anymore. i have to believe that every spam is from some nitwit who suddenly got the idea that he could make a billion dollars, or euro, or whatever, on some clever spam idea, and who tries it once but ends up disillusioned and reverts to gambling for their ill-gotten gains. if a sucker is born every minute, i’d like to think those suckers are only the ones dumb enough to think spamming works. if each moron tried it once and moved on, that would certainly still account for the volume of spam i receive even with spamblocks installed.

and anyway, when was the last time spam even tried to meet my needs? take these subject header examples, fresh from today’s inbox:

1. don’t expose your intimate life!: now this isn’t so bad as spam goes; free advice! and from two different people, no less. but it comes too late: i’ve been blogging now for almost a year. darn. deleted.


2. xerox copiers wants you to win super bowl tix: that’s awfully nice of xerox. after all, what have i ever done for them? oh, that’s right: i boosted their brand-recognition all my life by asking for “xeroxes” of my documents when I meant, generically, photocopies. but i haven’t watched football since high school! why couldn’t they have offered me a lifetime supply of hot dogs or something? now that might get me a-clicking! as it stands, deleted.


3. what every man has been looking for: if this spammer seriously thinks that what every man has been looking for can actually be contained, somehow, in an email, then this spammer has no idea what a woman actually is. baleeted.


4. participate and get mp3 sunglasses!: ok, if they mean a pair of sunglasses that stores mp3s, then that has got to be the most stupid idea i’ve heard of in a long time. if they were english-grammar impaired and meant that i could get an mp3 of a song called, “sunglasses,” well while i’ve found tracy ullman to be humorous at times, i do not want to hear her sing sentimental songs of lost-love. has she really recorded albums? sheesh. deleted!


5. would you like a free escalade?: now i’m assuming they meant the car, the escalade. i suppose that could be pretty cool. but does it come with right-side steering wheel? ‘cause i’m moving to england soon and it’s crazy enough driving there as it is. plus, gas is expensive enough in america, but in england? forget it! close, but no dice. deleted.

pictionary

i don’t play board games very often these days, but one game i’ve had the opportunity of playing many times is pictionary. i suspect you’ve played this game as well. a variant on pictionary can also be found in the game cranium.

inevitably, when i’ve found myself among a group of people who have decided to play pictionary (because most board-game playing in my experience is fairly spontaneous), people immediately find me, being an illustrator, an attractive teammate. my profession makes me, in their minds, a first-draft player. i draw for a living! surely that will give their team the extra advantage needed to carry off the win and subsequent trash-talking rights.

it probably comes off as modesty, but i quickly find myself protesting by telling them that, in fact, pictionary is a game for which my skills are not very useful. it works like this: the first skill involved in pictionary is in quickly associating an icon with a word or symbol. in this regard, i’m probably no better qualified than anyone else, except perhaps on the more obscure words that don’t lend themselves to obvious icons. take the word “woodsman” for instance. immediately, any player will draw “-- | --“ on their paper to indicate first/second part. for the first, the most rudimentary trees will be drawn, each looking like the Christmas-tree icon we all know. being correctly guessed at, the draughtsman will proceed to the second part and everyone’s favorite stickman will quickly appear on the page. the word is put together, and the point scored.

now note that there is little i could have brought to the table to improve the situation. instead, i am often a liability to any team i am on for a simple reason: pictionary requires me to “dumb down” my talent and draw simplistic icons. i would have to fight my natural inclination to draw a brawny man in a plaid shirt and caterpillar boots carrying a large axe in one hand and a tree trunk slung over the shoulder, complete with intricate root system, dirt clods hanging from it, and a fleeing squirrel leaping away from it, utilizing full chiaroscuro and sfumato, to boot. the everyday folk—those who always like to tell me, “i can only draw stick figures,” are in fact in a position to humiliate me in pictionary, even on the obscure terms.

now if the term “corinthian column” showed up, i might be at an advantage since while anyone could draw a column and score half, getting that top part would be a breeze for those who could quickly draw acanthus leaves and such.

but i imagine “corinthian column” is not likely to appear any time soon.

book review: the orientalists

in the introduction to the book, “the orientalists,” author kristian davies makes a connection between much of the art of the 19c. and today that i have often made:

today there are many art genres that speak to the same part of the brain as orientalism that are so often discussed with that sense of joy. the brandywine painters and their storybook land of indians, sorcerers, and pirates, frank frazetta and his heroic barbarian world, alan lee and the many illustrators of the lord of the rings, and the rich tradition of illustration in national graphic—they have always been celebrated with a delirious energy, a tangible, uncomplicated enthusiasm that orientalist painting deserves but lacks.

that the author noted a genealogy of art that extends from even before and through the italian renaissance, through the baroque, on down through the classical revivals of david and his ilk, through the 19c. academic painters, maxfield parrish and the brandywine artists as mentioned, and finally to modern fantasy/historical painting is no coincidence. that he sought to mention it in a major publication of this sort is pleasantly surprising. score one for the team, you know?

nevertheless, for anyone who enjoys modern day fantasy art and who undoubtedly appreciates one of the main aspects that makes good fantasy art so appealing, namely a concern for technique and craft, this book comes incredibly highly recommended by me.

the group of artists in question all worked in the 19c, and were nearly all european. though many also worked in other genres, they had in common a fascination with the beauty of the lands, people, architecture and costume of the east, as variously defined to extend from north africa through india. and as alluded to in an earlier post, they managed along the way to create some of the most beautiful paintings mankind has ever produced.

this fascination with color, beautiful architecture and costume, and a penchant for representing it with the intent of dazzling a viewer with the otherness of it all are traits that today’s genre artists still carry. i would also group american southwest painters among the scattered progeny of yesteryear’s academic tradition. whether it was the german romantics who portrayed fairy tale and myth, the victorian classicists who painted greek mythology and roman/greek recreations based on then-breaking archaeological finds, or the orientalists opening the east up to the west, what was certain was the incredible talent of so many artists of the period.

davies’ book is written at the lay level, seeking to introduce the reader to the genre under the recognition that most folk today have no idea who jean-leon gerome is, for instance, though he was one of the 19c.’s most celebrated artists before abstract expressionism pulled the spotlight away (as an aside, one of my professors in college called the artist in the prior link the greatest living painter at the time. sigh). in this regard it is a great art book to read (who reads art books, anyway?), filled with an overview of the relevant history. it is also largely written from a personal context which makes it approachable, although his tendency to inject commentary into what he is describing often leaves one with a sense of personal disagreement that normally isn’t experienced when reading a more academic art book. davies has a healthy appreciation for the culture and traditions of the east which makes him able to communicate the sense of wonder the artists intended, but often this is at the expense of having an equally inspired view of the west he contrasts it with.

if you are a lover of art, you owe it to yourself to get this book. you will be amazed at the quality of work presented, and it may sadly cause you to be a bit spoiled when considering the offerings presented today. but since pictures speak louder than words, i present to you two examples that should convince you if nothing else will:

and the following, by a guy whom i had seen a painting by once, without knowing his name but is now probably near my favorite ever (need to see more):

oh yeah his name is ludwig deutsch. and once again i’m left feeling like a monkey with a stick.

time to be thankful

if you live in the states, or elsewhere, and have always-on, high-speed, all-you-can-eat internet, take a moment to be thankful for it. i say usa because i know that in other places all-you-can-eat broadband is either expensive or not possible to come by. i have none of the above.

though the last post was involved enough to warrant two weeks before the next post (which is about ready), losing all internet for days at a time does hinder you. so a nice long post is coming, but i gotta do work now that i have a connection, so blogging will have to wait a little longer.

now, go and download some 100mb file, for fun, and smile.