laziness, chip board, ephemera, etc.

More art submitted for the city gallery; the peach tree piece is already up, so they're turning stuff around pretty quick right now. I'll find out this week if these ones are going in the next show. Based on these pieces, the theme might have been "art in 60 seconds". Is it bad when the framing takes longer than the drawing? When your materials have so much acid in them, they'll crumble in a month? Heck no, I say! ha ha. Makes them more of the moment. As my dad has said, I'm here for a good time, not a long time. They're NFS, anyway. And as they fall apart, I'll just watch them turn into something new. :-)

By the way, did anyone read the recent quote from Phillipe Starck where he says he's basically lazy, and his favorite piece is always the next one? (I'd look it up, but uh, I'm kind of lazy too. Or busy? Or tired? They all blend together sometimes.) Anyway, not really related to this post, except for maybe the lazy part, but interesting!

hailey's plane

Something leftover from the city map that my neice drew on our driveway. Her city was HUGE, the hospital HUGE, the airport and zoo HUGE, with a road that took up the whole span of asphalt. To watch her go is a fascination. She always thinks big and fast and direct, kinda the opposite of me. Very instructional, and I eagerly study her work! There's a lot to learn form a 7 year old....

my muse :-)

I draw Sam a lot. At this age he's pretty oblivious and unconscious about being observed, which is great for me! When I grab a minute or two to draw him though, mostly I do it from memory, channeling a feeling or a moment that I want to keep.

bemelmans book

I went to a yard sale the other weekend and found this amazing book by Ludwig Bemelmans. (...The Madeline guy, right?) I raced to plunk down my $2 so fast, I didn't take time to peruse, but wow, now that I've caught my breath I can see it's really lovely. The book is called The Best of Times. Talk about the golden years of illustration-- shortly after WW II ended, Holiday magazine comissioned the artist to cruise around Europe, paint, write, and do some general brighter side of life looking. For me it really captures that post-war feeling when everyone needed things to be lighter, more hopeful, even if they quite weren't yet.

Anyway, the drawings are really wonderful, so I thought I'd post a few. (I'm sure it will be even better once I actually READ it.) Click on the .jpgs to see bigger.


Paris


Arles


Venice; reminds me of Maira Kalman's work a little, hmmm?....


Not everything is cheerful; Bemelmans' impression of Munich before and after the war...


Bavaria


Switzerland. Aaah, wouldn't a nice cocktail be really good right now...?