I came in late to the Arrested Development show. I participated in a group gallery show at Gallery 1988 in LA. The theme was pop culture TV shows. I started looking at video for the show and ended up watching about a season's worth of shows to get a feel for it. I found all the character's amazingly repulsive yet fascinating at the same time. It was so cool! I haven't had a TV since the year 2000, so I'm usually behind the crowd when it comes to being up on all the shows. I had to give up on commercial TV because of the time investment. I didn't feel sitting through all the commercials was worth waiting for the shows and didn't want to pay the extra for the channels I would have liked so I just quit. Not that I can say I spend all the time I would have spent watching TV in more productive ways, but I don't feel like I miss out. I don't mind not having a cable bill to pay. Every time the cable co. calls to see if I want to pay for a package the conversation is pretty quick once I tell them I don't even own a TV. One time I think I could feel the person's mind melting on the other end after I said I didn't own a TV.
Despite of my lack of participation in this area of pop culture, I'm still asked to do illustrations about it. Mitchell Hurwitz was for Wall Street Journal and Jeffery Tambor was for Gallery 1988.
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Business magazines. I like to try and convert the subjects presented in a business article into a fun illustration. Fortunately I had fairies on the brain from doing so many to take to the Angouleme festival. Some are still available for purchase by the way. This real estate developer, Bruce Eichner, is apparently risking a lot to rehab a tall building in Harlem, (New York City) and the editors thought it very delicate and sort of a fantasy that it would all work out. They wanted him in a bubble or on a bubble that might get popped by any spire that happened by.
I didn't feel so good about a bubble and decided a fairy with a magic wand is what he would be! Then there was the decision on how much of a fairy. Wings: check, Flying: check, Wand: check, Rose colored glasses: check... I didn't give him fairy ears and I kept the business suit. Then there was trying to show him fixing up a building with magic. Taking artistic license, I bent the building over with shaky lines and uneven windows except where his wand had touched. Tadaaaa! This image went the rounds! I did a lot of sketches for this cover and ended up just tweaking the first idea a little. The subject was women (and men) who are financial dominates. Basically, a woman insults some guy with a lot of money and gets her rent paid for the year. It's all kind of prearranged I guess. I'm kind of jealous of this job. It's not like some wealthy millionaire type with a guilty complex is going to be hanging out with me any time soon, so why not have a relationship with a guy like that? "Hey! Jerkface, you look like 10 miles of bad road!... Give me 5 G's my ugly man!" I'm a natural.
Well, when I look back at what I did, it never seems as much. There are always cool things I want to do in different geological locals. I went to Angouleme, France in the winter. Now I'm going to the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, OH. What's wrong with everyone!!??? It's winter, lets do these things in the Caribbean! Columbus is by no means tropical. Officially, it's called Art at the Arnold. It's a fitness expo. Body building, weightlifting, aerobics, etc. The art part is just a cosmetic window dressing for this event, so we're easy to miss. I'm not complaining here, just stating the facts. The Arnold is about the human body. Not art, but we'll be painting from fitness models and finding some of the folks in the crowd ourselves. I'll be bringing prints and maybe a few originals if any collectors want to hang out at the bar afterword... er, JUICE bar! Celery, beets and wheat germ, or whatever the latest health drink is.
And I still haven't mentioned all the goodness I experienced at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Winter conference! I need to get more immersed into this field. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I have the time to invest like some folks do. But I guess everyone needs a hobby? hahahaha <sarcastic laugh. Update on the scanner. All fixed and happy. Now I don't know how to use physical paint! Here are some digitals from the last month or so. Just in case anyone cares, I just downloaded a ton of Miles Davis jazz and followed it up with an album by Slipnot. So I'm making a wacky playlist now. So these are just my 1st thoughts upon returning to the states. First: WOW! Second: What a great time I had in Angouleme, France. Marie Claude was the resident we stayed with in the town. Angouleme has very few hotels so many residents rent out spare rooms to people. This was the 3rd time I stayed in her place. She is so extremely helpful and nice. One night she just appeared with her car to take us back from the convention to the grocery store and then her place where we had a fantastic French meal. Steve Ellis had tweaked his foot earlier on an uneven part of the road we were walking on. Over the course of the day his foot was starting to really bother him. Jeff, one of the guys in our group who was a natural guide to everything in France, realized Steve probably shouldn't be walking around endlessly as we tend to do in Angouleme and should stay put in one place to recover. Steve really didn't want to but after thinking is over a minute, agreed. Marie Claude pulled out her cheese melting contraption that she had never used and we put it through the ringer! Steve, Jeff, Marie Claude and I had the most amazing dinner with French cheese, meats, breads, and wine. The rest of our group that went on to a restaurant without us arrived as we were eating some nice desserts and the night became a nice little party with friends and drinking. Le Baron He even has his own Facebook page!
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