Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Clique

"Clique of Zebras" Ink and Digital

Ok, so really groups of zebra are often called herds, though certain species often travel in "harems" with one male and a group of females.

I came up with this idea immediately after an image of girls who spent way more time on their hair than I was ever interested in. For safety, zebras clump together and because of their stripes, the predator can't tell how many there are or how big they are and get confused. Also, they're very cute. Which I imagine the predator would be indifferent to.

I tried to do this in charcoal pencil first, but quickly remembered how much charcoal drives me crazy. Sharpie is my friend. I made a simplified version of Giselle in the background there to be a counterpoint to the clique, the odd-beast out, poor girl.

I considered putting her in a striped t-shirt to show her trying to be zebra, but I think I like the simpler version better. Thoughts?
PS: G wanted me to illustrate some graph algorithms. Apparently there are groups of nodes called cliques....but what can I say, I was stuck on the zebra idea.



Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Island

"Island" Watercolor, etc.

Well, it was an interesting experiment. And another case where I should have gone with my first idea...but you know..experience and all is always good.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Clutter

"Cluttered" Digital
I gotta say, I really didn't want to illustrate this one. Mostly because I'm still living in a state of not-quite-all-the-way-moved-in-yet clutter that is rather frustrating. We're making slow progress though. And like Alfons (a re-use of the unused memory elephant from last week, I thought he deserved a more prominant piece), I can't find things because of said clutter. Most of it is the uber smooth vector art that I've been trying to stay away from because it was going to be a leeetle bit too much for me to try to give everything its own texture. Alfons gets a texture, though, and one not unlike Beatrice's.
PS: Alfons doesn't actually use his butterfly net. Not that he doesn't love butterflies, it's just that he can't bear to net them.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Published Author - Huzzah!

I'm sure my friends and family are tired of hearing about it, but as I worked my butt off on this, I'm really excited and feel the need to share with everyone. A German publisher called VDM published my senior thesis from Reed College (after G and I edited it to death). I have to admit, it was kind of fun to go back to it, but it was hard not to buy all the secondary sources that have been published since I wrote it originally and rethink the whole thing. As it is, we did a lot of restructuring.
To give a general overview, it's an analysis of three works of literature (Flaubert's Herodias, Huysmans' A Rebours, and Wilde's Salome) as well as some corrisponding works of art that feature the figure of Salome (who, in the Bible, danced for King Herod and asked for the head of John the Baptist).
I haven't seen the actual book yet, I'm still waiting for my copies, but it is available on Amazon.com. Yay for me! (pats self on back)

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Memory

"Elephants Never Forget!" colored pencil, digital
So when I read the subject for this week's IF, I imagined it was the singular 'memory' rather than the plural as seen below. And what I thought of was that elephants are thought to have good memories (mostly, it seems, because they tend to follow the same paths) so I made an elephant. It was meant to mean something more like 'memory as good as an elephant's' but symetery made me shorten it. And now it looks a little bit like an elephant memorial. It was just a sketch that I messed with in Gimp, but I thought I may as well post it.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Memories

"Please come in out of the rain, madame, the sugar is getting wet" Watercolor
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Excerpt from "Le Pont Mirabeau" by Apollinaire
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Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
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Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
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Maren's unofficial translation:
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Pass the days and pass the weeks
Neither past time
Nor loves come again
Beneath the Pont Mirabeau flows the Seine
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Come the night ring the hour
The days go on I remain.
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So I made this painting last week before I knew the theme, but it reminded me of this poem, which I would say is about memories (here's a link if you want to read the whole thing, but it's in French). It was one we read in college that I really liked. While the painting wasn't so much made to illustrate the poem, I think it fits.
Also, and not to attempt to make another tenuous connection with this week's IF theme, but while I was painting it, I was reminded of something, also in French. I was in Bastille, Corsica waiting for my ferry back to Nice to meet a friend, and I was enjoying my espresso and watching the sea when it started to sprinkle. Not a heavy sprinkle, but a light sprinkle, which, being from Seattle, I ignored. And the waiter came out to ask me to please move inside because the sugar was getting wet. And that's why the title is so long. Thrilling story, I know, but it just reminds me of my days as a sophisticated Parisian woman...