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here is one with some drawings on it… the mug is my white castle mug and the skull it just a skull….
The evil looking art subject is pretty common and strong. There are leagions of artists who draw dragons and fairies and other pagan themes. I often wonder why this style is so popular among illustrator types. I have been to student shows and know illustrators and the bulk of them get into this type of art. Parallels can be drawn between the Guitarist and the artist…
The more a guitarist is into the craft of playing they tend to lean towards metal and mystical styles. Punk rock was not so much about technique but connecting with peoples everyday crappy life. Where as metal was about leaving this crappy world behind and traveling to a place that was way cooler. Pink Floyd takes us to a distopia where people love misery and strive to achieve freedom through anarchy (we are all just a brick in the wall). Led Zepplin “the battle of evermore” and Queen of light took her bow… Early Led Zep was very sexualized. Which leads to another form of graphic design the “Pin Up”.
So basic themes are:
- Escapism
- Sexuality
- Distopia – the opposite of utopia – Blues etc.
- Melancholy is a sub catagory
Very little time is devoted to Happy Art…
I was hoping to make music of only happy fun songs without being corny but that might not be something people are interested in at this time, but maybe soon…..
this is lost in time,
at one point, before war came about, army air corp planes where painted bright colors, with racing stripes, and large red white and blue stars…
after the beginning of WWII, they realized the planes looked too much like the enemy, because they shot down many of our own planes.
currrently our airforce paints planes in flat black, and dull gray colors, like they did at the end of the last war, they look mean and dangerous…
there is something charming about innocence, before people know fear, they live in a Utopian world, Fear makes us old before our time, religious people with pure hearts seem to age a lot slower than your run of the mill non religious person. trusting in a greater power relieves people of the day to day horror. it is hard to believe. logic does not apply, but for some reason since the dawn of time, mankind has needed relief for the soul, almost as much as food…
reality is a punch in the face, we ultimately are aware of ourselves and we are aware of our mortality. after all we are only so much meat trying desperately to keep from rotting
interconnected lines, create a nonlinear pattern, not really a pattern then, more of a collection of random things. The Internet is a collection of random things thrown in a box. You can only see into the box through a screen, you cannot touch the things in the box or smell or experience them in reality, but you can fantasize about them. You can look at pictures of a Ferrari or death without being connected to them emotionally. The next level of television. Alternate reality, second life. there is no editor though on the Internet, so you get a lot of gum wrappers and pull tabs next to the rare coin.
My father used to wake up on Saturday mornings and go metal detecting with his buddy. They would research old maps to look for 100 year old bandstands, where people would sit out on a lawn to enjoy the music on a warm summer evening. The pockets of pants have a tendency to empty when you sit down, and grass is deeper then it appears. Small things can fall at your feet and you cannot see them.
ninety percent of the things you pick up with a metal detector are foil gum wrappers, and beer can pull tabs, to our younger readers, all cans had a piece of metal with a small handle you pulled off the reveal the drink. then you would trow away the small metal tab or drop it on the ground. so there is a layer of them about 3 inches down everywhere.
many things in life are like the pull tab, take for instance this drawing I did for no apparent reason in the 1990′s. This illustrator blend heavy monstrosity was the pinnacle of design in the 90′s. blends had to be cut from zip a tone sheets with x-acto knives in one color and pasted into place on a piece of cardboard called a mechanical. You couldn’t just blend from color to color easily like with illustrator and freehand. outlines had to be hand cut or drawn, so you avoided them. It was a real skill to be able to create a consistent weight outline around type and anything. Color separations were super labor intensive. Every studio has staff production artist who take the designs and make it actually print right. A truly needed skill….
Windsor McCay was a cartoonist around the 1900-1930 era. His drawing ability was unquestionably amazing. He drew in ink with very little pencil work, so he basically had to see the drawing in his head, then draw it perfectly, because you can’t erase black India ink.
He also invented animation as we know it today, a series of ink drawings done on acetate. His early films although rough by our standards today, where created without any guidance because no one had done it before. thousands of drawings done by himself in ink, stuck to a card, then photographed to 35 mm film. Film was still in its infancy and an unsure art….
Although he was a great artist, I find the whole hero concept flawed. To look up to heroes you place yourself in a separate category. All men are created equal, is the mantra. I have always strive to be as good as Windsor McCay, in many ways I have fallen short, but I am only human I can’t do it all….. So what is the point of all this? to strive to be better… to not become complacent… that is the hard part… the world around doesn’t favor people who do better… nobody wants to look bad or feel like they aren’t good enough.. but the only path to enlightenment is through constant improvement… and no accomplishment is so great as to complete yourself… Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, but failed a thousand times before… he didn’t quit trying until he died… trying to improve life for others… the only truly worthy goal….
oh… oh wa a a aaughhgh
CRASH!!!
oops I fell off my soap box!!…
how embarrassing!
What a load of crap!
it has been a few days since my last post… time slips by sometimes… It was just yesterday I was riding in a box car with hobojobo… he looked at me and said slappy (that was my nickname, after I got kicked out of St. Josephs Reformatory School for slapping too many small 3rd grade girls) slappy he says.. time is like a river of time you jump in at one end and it pushes you along endlessly until you reach the ocean of death where a shark bites your arm off and you slowly bleed to death staring at the night sky…
so I am driving my family home from SC on Friday, we travel 500 miles by car and get about 10 minutes from the city. Imagine four lanes of traffic, packed tightly all going 80 mph. Semi tractor trailers large enough to crush us on the right, hot rod teens on the left. We have all of our Christmas junk piled so high in the back I can’t see out the rear window and must constantly check the mirrors before veering ever so slightly to the left or the right as I might hit some one. Oh yea it was raining and I had a bad case of hemorrhoids. My lower back was tight and my eyes kept twitching from the constant driving for the last 8 hours straight. But we were almost done. just a few more minutes and I would be home in my own house. with my own t.v. sitting in my own chair, drinking a cold drink in my favorite glass.
then I see a ford explorer skidding across the lane in front of me sideways.
The car was headed toward the concrete wall between the 8 lanes of traffic. It hit head on and rolled over one and a half time resting on the roof. As I watched it skid I thought “OK we just have a skidding car no need to panic don’t make any sudden moves” then it hit the wall and started rolling it was like “oh shit, this is not good, try to avoid any obstacles“
as we drove past with my foot off the gas not believing what just happened. my wife picked up the cell and called 911. I slowed even more. I checked my mirrors and everyone else was just slowing also. My wife said you need to see if they are all right. so I pulled over and said” nobody get out of the car” I ran back to the wreak sight. My pants kept falling down. I had removed my belt to be more comfortable in the long car ride. so I was running with my hands on my waist to keep my pants up. I get to the car and about ten people are already there. DVDs are scattered on the highway along with other personal effects. A PlayStation 3 is behind the wreak. and other small items. The people can’t get out. I can see them in there. who are they? are they OK? how many? people are amassed around the drivers side door pulling on it and it won’t open. I say “is it unlocked?” they yell unlock the door in the window. We wait a little bit while they unlock it. they people start pulling on the door and it scrapes open. Two middle aged people get out, a man and a woman in the drivers seat, the man is holding his arm, we look at it it appears OK. The women gets out and is standing there looking annoyed. everyone is standing around the man and to woman stands alone. the police or emergency guy shows up to look at the man and tells everyone to get out of the road. At that point I realise I am not helping anything, and might become a traffic victim also and head back to the car. We drive the 20 minutes home.
The whole trip I am concerned with safety. And here we are second away from being involved in a crash. I am not ready to die. That is for sure.
Turns out I see people fucking up the merge everyday for the last ten years while I drive to work and it pisses me off. How hard is it? There was a mustang that got pushed over by a car that merged without looking. that caused the ford to skid and hit the wall.
O.k. let go over this.
Step 1 .) when you approach the ramp look left to see if you can see any traffic.
Step 2.) Press the gas down to the floor until you reach the speed of traffic you are merging with, if people are going 60 mph you need to go the same speed.
Step 3.) when you reach the parallel lane look in your left mirror for a space in traffic
also check over your left shoulder in your blind spot.
Step 4.) THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART: adjust your speed to fit into the open spot!
so if there is a car right next to you slow down or speed up to fit into the empty space.
this is crucial! if you just pull out you will hit the car! or the car will have to move to miss you and it could hit another car! you are at fault here
if you can’t do this don’t drive on the highway where you must merge to get on. It is no shame in not driving. It is a shame to kill people because you cannot merge.
