Zines Galore

This weekend I went to the Portland Zine Symposium and picked up this lot, all through trades. Pretty good haul, I think. I'm going to read through them, and then I might come back and tell you about the best ones. 

Grr. Argh.

Some new sketches from my usual carry-around sketchbook. I've been having fun with colours lately, which is good for me since sometimes I end up working only in black and white (both valid lifestyle choices, of course). Some pattern stuff, too, or at least little non-representational designs.

I have also been drawing a lot of these crazy little manic faces. I can't stop myself. It's like a compulsion. I just love drawing spiky teeth and weird expressions. It is also important that they be floating in the sky like UFOs, or hiding in trees or whatever. They are definitely always looking at you.

Venezia

So I am in Europe for a while, mainly in the UK, but last week I got lucky enough to spend five days in Venice. It was beautiful! I kept a travel journal while I was there, keeping track of what we got up to, and making a few sketches when I had time. (I also took squillions of pictures.) Here are a few pretty rubbish sketches, ah well.

Stumptown Comics Fest 2011

I love Stumptown Comics Fest! So much amazing art, and everyone is so nice! Comics nerds are the best.


Here's most of my haul from this year; it should keep me going for a while. Some artists I had heard of, some were new to me. I got a couple of prints too.

Some new favourites were the Perfecting Loneliness 24-hour comics which you see top right, plus an issue of Wuvable Oaf, a hand-spot-coloured comic about bears. (The hairy gay guy kind.) Plus some old favourites: Papercutter, Clutch, Erika Moen.

Some links to check out:

Reid Psaltis (fantastic illustrator - got some of his foldout minicomics)
Sarah McIntyre (adorable childrens' book illustrations, plus comics)
Wuvable Oaf
Emi Lennox (Perfecting Loneliness etc.)
Farel Dalrymple (Yeah, this guy is amazing. And he drew a lovely drawing in the comic I bought from him.)
Papercutter etc.

Some Festive Prezzoes

Took some photos of a few Christmas presents before I packed them up and sent them out, because I thought they looked pretty.


Here we have presents for my parents, Tim, and Jen and Lucy. There are a few little prints in all of these, some other small bits and pieces, and a homemade card. In addition, I sent my parents chocolate for my Dad, and a completely lovely book by Shaun Tan, The Arrival, which I thought my Mum might like. Jen and Lucy received the Autostraddle calender. Also I sent them some cute erasers shaped like biscuits. Like you do.


Some little collections of prints for my housies. Below is what was in them. I did a little drawing of our house, which looks a lot nicer inside than out (in my opinion) so wasn't the best ever to draw. Still, it's home.


Some Portland, some foxes, some leaves, our house.

City Moons

A few new sketches from my current carry-on sketchbook, i.e. the moleskine I am working on right now. Long-time viewers of my art will recognize some favourite themes here, including trainers, spheres, and city skylines.

This one is all about the constant lines of communication between the city and the ghost cities.

This one is about the humble trainer as the source of psychic energy and self-esteem.

This one is about cities floating around in the void.

Adobe

Some sketchbook stuff I have been working on this week. As you can see, I have become minorly obsessed with adobe buildings: the shapes and shadows are fun to draw. I might do a series of these drawings outside the sketchbook, or work them into prints.

I read somewhere that the Ranchos de Taos is the most photographed church in the US.

Most of my sources for these drawings are in New Mexico, a couple elsewhere. (I am afraid I have not been awesome with keeping track of where these buildings are, and I have tweaked some details, perspectives, colour (obviously) etc. I think that is fine since I am just sketching, but I am suddenly having citation-guilt.)

These and more work on my flickr, here.

Palimpsest

Here we have fabulous artist Julie Mehretu, my latest obsession. She is of Ethiopian origin, born 1970, now lives and works in New York (with her lady partner, omg.) She received MacArthur “Genius” grant, is represented by White Cube in London and big galleries in New York and Berlin, and according to Wikipedia one of her pieces sold for around a million US dollars at auction in September. So Mehretu is making bank, basically.

Untitled (brigade) detail, 2005, ink and acrylic on canvas, 36 by 48 inches

Mehretu's thing is highly worked, large-scale canvasses layering pencil, pen, ink and paint, usually acrylic, and her subject matter is architecture and cities: she may include drawings of buildings, floorplans, symbols and flags, along with more abstract marks and blocks of colour and tone. Some earlier work has a diagrammatic, chart-like quality, using made up symbols to record some mysterious change or movement (like the 'Stamped Ink' pieces below). She may use assistants to layers drawings using a projector, which sounds like pretty much the best job in the world to me, I wish it was mine. I think the idea is that she is creating her own syntax to record the city’s history, change and flux, the movements of people and how they respond to the space – it's her own idiosyncratic POV.

Cipher, 2006, ink and acrylic on canvas, 48.5 by 60.5 inches

I like how the work can be read in detail – you can recognize bits of building – but also at a distance as an abstract piece. The level of detail as well as the scale and time-consuming method is almost overwhelming, but also absorbing. To me it really feels like what cities feel like: a confusing barrage of information, your eye roaming over a million complex shapes. Love it!

Palimpsest (old gods) detail, 2006, ink and acrylic on canvas, 60 by 84 inches

Atlantic Wall, 2008-09, Ink and acrylic on canvas, 304.8 by 426.7 cm

Citadel, 2005, ink and acrylic on canvas, 72 by 96 inches

Stamped Ink (the herd three), 1996, Stamped ink on canvas, 72 by 60 inches

Stamped Ink (the herd 2), 1996, stamped ink on canvas, 72 by 60 inches

Berliner Platze detail, 2008-09, ink and acrylic on canvas, 304.8 by 426.7 cm

P.S. I am referencing Julie Mehretu in a class project right now, so all this may sound familiar to anyone in my Drawing Concepts II (:Electric Booglaoo!) class.

Shoes, Step 1

I just scanned some sketches and converted them into a format that I can screenprint with (upped the contrast, made them greyscale, fixed some gaps, and switched to bitmap). Pretty exciting, they will be screenprints soon. I also think that whenever I finally get around to Enthusiasm Issue 5 these drawings will appear there. (What can I say, I enjoy drawings trainers.) Call this a watch-this-space post. Soon it will be wall-to-wall trainers, simply everywhere!

Susie's Golas, 2010

Tim's Nikes, 2010

Lucy's Nikes, 2010

Blog, Help Me With My Homework

Well I have been doing some homework researching a bunch of contemporary artists. I have to find one I have an affinity with. Many artists these days are far too icky for me to empathise with their work. Attempting to eliminate that which grosses me out, here is today's preliminary list:

John Latham
Naomi Shigeta
Andrea Zittel
Warrington Colescott
Takashi Murakami
Jasper Johns
Jeff Koons
Mark Grotjahn
Thomas Struth
Claus Oldenburg
Ralph Goings
Whiting Tennis
Juul Kraijer
Ellen Gallagher
Kiki Smith
Vija Celmins
Fred Tomaselli
Raymond Pettibon
William Kentridge
Alfred Leslie
Robert Gober

Here are a few things I've found that caught my eye:

William Kentridge, Typewriter II-IX, intaglio prints

Robert Gober, Untitled, 2002, lithograph on Arches cover paper

Alfred Leslie, Rock Beach, Santa Barbara, watercolour

Alfred Leslie, Bridge From Mill Creek, watercolour

Vija Celmins, Web 1, charcoal on paper, 1999

Vija Celmins, Untitled, 2005

Vija Celmins, Comet, linocut, 1992

The cat was dressed like a samurai.

We have been playing an awesome drawing game lately which is a combination of Pictionary, Chines Whispers and Consequences. We like to call it "Picsequences". In any case, you start out with a statement, someone else draws it, covers up the sentence, passes it on, next person writes what they see in the picture, passes it on, next person draws that sentence, and so on. So you end up with an entirely different sentence than the one you started with. The following may only be funny if you were there, but never mind. You all can suck it. (JK!)


The drunk students scared the old woman while trampolining naked on a windy day.
BECOMES
Edward Scissorhands threatened to cut up the naked people while God blackened the penis man.

Nick cried when Jen flashed him.
BECOMES
The scary ugly girl with big boobs laughed when she flashed the boy who burst out crying.

The squirrel drank from the growler.
BECOMES
The woman lost her tampon and then it was stolen by a squirrel but it was not what the squirrel wanted.

A smelly cow mooed at its cow wife because it wanted to munch the grass that she was eating.
BECOMES
Two cows slept standing up. One had no control and pooped in his sleep.

The Queen liked to secretly look at Playgirl during the official opening of Parliament.
BECOMES
The king dinosaur/moomin had good time laughing about sex while the two men were unhappy next to the Connect 4 boards that were yelling at them.

Aliens came and took away the State of Liberty.
BECOMES
Happy aliens attacked a city but luckily black Jesus is there to save us.

The woman was mightily surprised to wake up to see she'd grown a rather magnificent penis.
BECOMES
The woman woke up, very surprised to see she was a foot shorter than when she went to bed.

The cat tried really hard to use the typewriter.
BECOMES
The cat was mildly struck with writer's block when penning its great novel. It was dressed like a samurai.

The girl was blown away by the awesome that was the 5ive reunion concert.
BECOMES
The dog peered out from the woman's cloak as she sang along to the X-factor on tv.

The lonely zookeeper felt that the animals were his only friends.
BECOMES
The cool lesbian and her girlfriend watched the sad man who was in a cage with other sad animals.

A couple went to the cinema but had to change seats because there was a worrying stain on the seat!
BECOMES
Two lesbians were blown away by a storm. Afterwards, one was still happy, but one was dead.

We partied in the Freeze. Tim tried to make out with everyone. It was awesome.
BECOMES
The lesbians were happy in love. The boys had a fight.

The woman made a cake which was bigger than her house.
BECOMES
A magician sold a cake from his garage.

The nursery worker had his photo taken whilst covered in jelly. (Ed. Nick tells me this is a true story.)
BECOMES
The photographer took photos of the man who seemed quite happy to be covered in wee. The babies looked on - "job done!"

She decided to celebrate after graduation with a party on a boat.
BECOMES
The inappropriate teacher led the dance party on a boat and gave all the children alcohol. The teacher had big boobs.


P.S. It is amazing how often a happy lesbian couple turns up in these out of nowhere.

Watch out for the Vortex

Some drawings from my sketchbook showing an idea (does this count as three ideas?) I've been throwing around. I think I may work this into a screenprint at some point. I nearly did something similiar to this for this series here, but in the end went with other ideas. These are scenes from around Portland, of course.

Kenny vs Shark

My friend Jeryl just introduced me to the work of Ryan Berkley, a pretty awesome illustrator based in Portland. He likes to do animal portraits (not the kind where he does a picture of your pet terrier) and superheroes and sharks and bears.

Berkley also has his own superhero named Kenny. Kenny is some kind of hairy beast wearing tiny shorts, who shoots rainbows out of his chest. AWESOME. Here's a picture of Kenny at bathtime:

Ryan Berkley, Kenny Bath, pen and ink

Ryan Berkley, Kenny vs Mashrik, marker drawing

Ryan Berkley, Polar Bear, pen and ink

Ryan Berkley, Kenny Eagle Blast, pen and ink

Ryan Berkley, Brown Bat, pen and ink.

You can probably get a better idea of this guy by looking at his etsy page, and you can also buy some affordable prints if you feel like it. Personally I wouldn't mind having a framed print of Kenny bathtime up in my bathroom. I would like to feel that awesome when taking a bath. Also I would like a floaty shark.