So I've always thought that a great job would be designing book covers. I mean, I am definitely guilty of buying books that I thought looked mediocre just because they had a stunning cover. Granted, this is more in the graphic design realm than I am now, but over at RISD they have a class just for book cover design. I would definitely take that class, especially after checking out some of the awesome book covers at The New York Times Book Review and The Penguin UK Blog. One of the coolest sets of book covers I saw were done by Penguin designer Coralie Bickford-Smith when they were republishing a bunch of classic horror stuff for October. The coolest part? They are cyanotypes! My favorite kind of graphic design is the stuff that has an element of hand work in it. It always just seems to have a lot more depth if there is some part of a photo or hand drawing in it. That's just my aesthetic. But these covers are just GORGEOUS:
I think what I really like about them is that they are spooky and haunting without resorting to the cliche of black and red and white. You can see her talking about the process of making them here:
In other news, I am currently reading an extremely interesting book calledJonathan Loved Davidby Tom Horner. I think a lot of people who have read the story of Jonathan and David in The Bible (Samuel I & II) would agree that they were probably pretty much gay for each other. This book talks about middle eastern attitudes toward homosexuality in Biblical times, and much like their Greek and Roman brethren, many men were getting it on with each other. I found this very interesting because it sounded like there were a lot more men sleeping with each other than would count for a contemporary gay/bisexual population. It would seem that a lot of men were unabashedly bisexual. This started to make me think about how probably a lot of our own preconditions on our sexuality are socially conditioned. I mean, obviously all of these men were sleeping with other men because they wanted to. It's not like when they slept with women in order to procreate. There was really no motivation other than wanting to, and perhaps in some instances a power play. I am really interested by this ancient world idea of manly men who heroically love each other. There are several stories of it: Jonathan and David, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and Achilles and Patroclus. Was this a love between people who considered themselves equals in a time when love between a man and a woman could not be about respect because of the socially constructed sexism and gender segregation of the time? I wonder about "love" between men and women from that time. After all, it would have been very rare for a man to have viewed a woman as more than an object. And yet, they would think they were in love though they knew next to nothing about the object of their affection. These are the themes I am going to explore in my next short story, I think. You can read Jonathan Loved David online on google books here: Jonathan Loved David.
Also: Lot is a douchebag. What kind of man offers up his own daughters for rape? That is messed up.
Gouache. You cheeky bastard. You had me fooled a few years ago. I thought you were annoying, stupid, impossible to work with. I will blame this partially on the lack of gouache technical direction I got from my design teacher. I tried to treat you like any other paint, but you weren't like that. You were your own animal. Why didn't anyone tell me?
I became reacquainted with gouache through the work of Kara Walker:
Untitled, 1996
They Say Water Represents the Subconscious in Dreams from the series American Primitives, 2001
Middle Passages, 2004
It's opaque and much more textural than watercolor. As I veer further and further away from literal translation of imagery (i.e. photorealism) and start to experiment with collageing and photo techniques, I think that discovering how to use gouache will be very useful. First, I already know it can be used to make very nice and graphic text that also looks slightly distressed:
This is the cover of a book I've been working on for my (now finished, whoo 8 week classes!) Japanese paper making course. I traced the type from my computer and then filled it in with white gouache. This is a look I really respond to because it's hand done but it looks really graphic and doesn't venture into Holly Hobby the way hand written text (especially text hand written by me) tends to.
I also like how it can be used kind of like white charcoal--and opaque white line on a darker paper. This is a very simple collage on page one of the book--> the girl was a line drawing done on a darker grey paper that I cut out and glued onto the eggshell white of the page. The text on the pager was once again traced from the computer, but this time I lined it out in watercolor. All of the shadows and atmosphere color has been created by watercolor. Once again, I like the line this hovering between graphic and hand done. I don't feel that this page spread is quite as successful as the last one, but this book was really more experimental so I'm not overly concerned. One thing I learned was to always make sure you have really sharp Exacto knives if you're going to insist on doing a detailed cut out. That was not fun. Actually, just steer clear of Exacto knives and get a surgical scalpel. They have a much more ergonomic design and are MUCH sharper. I mean, they're meant to cut through layers and layers of skin with great precision, so they can probably handle some 120 lb cold press paper. You can pick them up at Talas Online. I recommend going with handle #6 and blade #25.
Anyway, I prefer this spread: I guess only wish I'd worked a little more of the gold into the other side. It looks a little violet heavy there.
There is more, but I'm effing exhausted. I'll post the rest tomorrow.
Also, everyone's favorite stuffed bear, Paddington, made it onto the google search page for his birthday! This was a while ago (Oct. 13) but still, happy birthday, Paddington!
Finally, this comic made me laugh because I just turned in a (very bad) chapbook for my advanced poetry class a week or so ago: A la pictures for sad children.
So I was figuring out the text on the pages that I had done in InDesign the night before crit. It was really REALLY frustrating because it didn't look great. At all. And in order to split the text up in a way that doesn't completely ruin the painting, I would have to do weird stuff with it and reading it became labyrinthine and confusing. People in crit agreed when I showed them the final printed off version. So I've made a decision. The text is no longer going onto the pages.
These paintings are different than anything I've done before. They are huge, but full of negative space. Because I was thinking that they would end with text on them, I decided to focus on a single central subject. They are also incredibly layered so I feel there is a lot of depth (visually, not subject matter-ily) to them. I couldn't stand to ruin this SPARSENESS that was creating such an atmosphere. I mean, the POINT of the paintings was to create an atmosphere to go along with the text. So, here is my new game plan:
I have extra white pages at the beginning and end because I was planning on doing twice as many huge painting pages. I even have extras on top of them because I was planning on having collages at the beginning and end as well as a title page, etc. SO. I am going to use these extra pages and fill them with the text. I'm not sure how I'm going to put the text on the page yet. Maybe screen printing still, maybe the old version of etching. Maybe Van Dyke prints. Letterpress would be the coolest but LORD I don't feel like dying at such a young age. The idea of setting all that type physically repels me. Plus my school has apparently decided that art students can't have access to the facility that has all the alternative process dark rooms and letter presses and etching presses this semester even though it's SITTING RIGHT THERE WITH ALL THE MATERIALS IN IT. Ugh. Seriously, how effing ridiculous that we HAVE resources and I can't use them.
Anyway. I'm still doing the collages of violent religious imagery--in particular of Joan of Arc and Jeebus--but there will be text on those pages as well. I will integrate the collages in with the text. Then the story will be split in the middle by the watercolor paintings I have done, which will have screen printed onto them just a sentence of the text that I find particularly powerful. I think I will begin the book with a watercolor painting that just takes up parts of a double spread, but has room on the bottom and top for text as well so the middle isn't strange and sudden and so you start to feel that sparse landscape atmosphere at the beginning.
Whew! Lawd, so much work to do, so many decisions to make! Hopefully I'll have this somewhat figured out by the end of next week. Now here is the painting I just finished recently:
In other news, The Office was awesome. Hurray for the return of fall television! Also, a post on my collage inspiration, Kara Walker, is pending, but there are SO many images that it will have to wait until this weekend. If I'm not puking all over the place, that is. I think I have caught something horrid.
Pages 9-10. Hurray! Also, it is Friday, so that is exciting. And now pages 9-10 with the potential text as done in In Design with my new favorite font, Adobe Jensen Pro. It's cool enough to look like it's sans serif, but it's totally serif: This text is by NO means set in stone. I was just playing around and getting ideas. I'm going to pass all my text by the graphic design prof here who is evidently a type nazi before anything gets printed on my precious precious paintings.
My friends, having internet in the studio is a blessing and curse. While I can now research images and such with ease, I also can spend too much time looking at things that are amusing but distracting and watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on magical, magical Hulu. But I do find some pretty ridiculous/awesome things. For example, I'm pretty sure this is the only way Wuthering Heights will ever be interesting to me:
There is also this educational comic on the Japanese language and culture. You know you love it, ladies.
Via Yes But No But Yes. There is a glorious list of ancient ridiculous comics going on over there.
Finally there is a fine specimen of manhood seeking out a very specific wife on Yahoo. His "Quick Disqualification List" of 19 bullets includes "You have to go to the bathroom more than once during a four hour date where we first have dinner at a restaurant then see a movie." He then goes on to create a "Quick Qualification List" of 12 bullets:
Besides those things that can be ascertained from the "Quick Disqualification List" above, the following is a list of things I seek in my future wife.
My preferred height for my wife is between 5'4" (162 cm) to 5'8" (172 cm). However, if you are very thin, shorter is fine, and taller is fine if you are slim.
Though most men like large breasts, I don't. The larger the breasts, the more I'm turned off romantically. Bra size 32 B is my preferred, but any size up to 36 C, depends on your height, is good. Any larger than that will depend on the rest of you. I've seen women with 36 Ds that are fine. But if you are in the 40 Ds and above, forget it, a total turn off for me romantically.
Weight wise, for the following heights, the indicated weights, give or take 10 pounds, are generally best, the less weight the better. However, depending on your build, an acceptable weight may be quite different. For example, I have heavy bones, in high school, I was 20 pounds over what the charts said I should be, but there was no fat on me whatsoever. I've known girls that were very slim but weighed 10 pounds more than the average girl her height and build. Whatever your weight is, you must be somewhere between thin/slim to a lean athletic (meaning, not much fat). To help you better understand, in American sizes, if you are a dress size bigger than 8 or in plus sizes, it would be highly unlikely that I would be interested.
5'0" - 90 lbs or less
5'4" - 120 lbs or less
5'8" - 140 lbs or less
You are under thirty years old. My preferred range is between 24 and 29 for such girls have generally finished their formal education and have a good idea of what they want for themselves in life. However, I will consider younger and older. If you over 29, you will have to be pretty and slim.
You have no children, will not have children and do not want children. I have already raised four wonderful children and do not wish to raise anymore.
Sorry, but when it comes to turning me on, light chocolate to white skin color is needed. However, there are exceptions for darker skin, but they have to be very beautiful.
As my wife, you will have no desire for a career of your own, since as my wife your career will be working side by side with me starting and running our own businesses (Yes, I’ve started and ran my own successful businesses in the past). Only my future wife and me will know the details of the businesses until they are started. All you will know now is that they will be financial in nature, they will help others financially.
You are a hard worker. My wife to be and I will work hard together, play hard, rest well, and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Our work will have us traveling all around America. The fruits of our labor will enable us to travel around the world if we choose.
You are content in humble circumstances. My future wife and I will live humbly at first and as our businesses grow and flourish, so will our lifestyle. Therefore, if you are looking for an easy life of play and leisure then I am not the one for you. This eliminates virtually all girls of well to do parents for such girls are used to getting everything they want and have an expectation of instant gratification. My joy will come from watching my wife’s enthusiasm and excitement of growing businesses that provides the financial freedoms to do the things she so desires to do.
You must be able to get yourself, at your own expense, to anywhere in America.
ETC.
Then comes a wordy tome that has paragraph titles like: "An obedient wife is NOT the same thing as a slave!", "Do NOT fall in love with me until I say so!", "When a Wife Becomes a Whore" and "Multiple Wives". Unsurprisingly, he has been searching for several years.
And lo, I leave you with a glorious abomination of God that could only be a Dürer:
Bwahahaha! Okay, I'm currently pumped on a three espresso shot caramel machiato. Perhaps this was a questionable decision seeing as I have a packed day tomorrow and class starting at 9 am, but whatever. I'm getting things DONE.
First? Pages 7-8! !kaPOW!
The next two pages are already taped down and on their way to getting done. They should be finished by tomorrow AT THE LATEST.
!sha-ZAM! mock up for pages 9-10, pages I've already started painting.
11-12 are already figured out, so 13-14 will be my goal tomorrow. Gettin' stuff done is pretty fulfilling. Also for some reason there is a girl in my narrative writing class whose name is Precious Angel. I don't know if her parents named her that or if she decided on her own that that was her name, but I don't know which is worse.
I was pretty aghast to find this photo shopped horror of a classic piece of Americana feminism, generally because people are trying to pretend like Palin is a feminist when in reality she is anything but. She is a woman conservatives like because she touts every ideal--particularly gender ideals--that they hold dear in a pretty package that really has no substance.
Back into semester now. The trip to England made me not want to be in school anymore. And then I came back and I was and that sucked. Especially because I missed a whole week and everything was going on and I had to catch up. After a fairly stressful week, I'm back into it and I even have a prospective finish date for My God: December 1. I plan on having all of the big pages finished by October 5, which gives me 3 weeks to paint 8 pages out of 12. Also, I plan on having no social life. Fortunately, after a dry summer imagery has been coming really easily and I already have another 3 pages mapped out and 1 about halfway done.
Mock up for pages 7-8.
Pages 7-8 being transferred onto big pages.
Mock up for pages 9-10. This will probably change a bit when it hits the big pages, there is something lacking. I think I may have applied the water colors too thickly over the entire thing. It will be a slower, more thinly layered process when I get to the big pages for it.
So I've been packing up my apartment. I have entirely too much crap, but it's a little tough not to when you're an artist, especially when you watercolor, oil paint, sew, knit, build, print . . . I will always need a ridiculous amount of supplies. My new place is pretty amazing though. It's a house apartment in an old Victorian. A huge step up. I'm really looking forward to decorating it.
