Day 4 of 31 Days Bow Tie Creatures

Bigfoot/Sasquatch (ˈbigˌfo͝ot/ˈsaskwäCH-kwaCH)

The massive footed hairy ape like creature of North America. I am having fun.

Day 3 of Creature Bow Tie Guys (IF Book)

Monster Book

Inspired by the Illustration Friday word of the week, book, and Harry Potter. It is amazing what a bow tie does to a monster.

Day 2 of Creature Bow Ties

“There are children here somewhere. I can smell them.”

 I created this redesign of  The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang a number of years ago. He is not a creature in the real sense of the word, but as a child he scared the heebee jee bees out of me. I still find him frightening. This was done in my  blurry realistic phase of my life. I got over it.

And there is a bow tie.

Day 1 of 31 Days of Creature Bow Ties

I realized again that I need little projects to keep me drawing on a daily basis. I consulted with my eldest daughter and she suggested I illustrate 31 days of creatures, monsters and such over the next month. We  with two of my other children cobbled together a list while waiting for the school bus to come. The idea of a tree monster came up. I thought it would be fun to do a Truffula Tree ala trees from The Wizard of Oz or the Ents from The Lord of the Rings. Its not all that frightening, but what I illustrate rarely is.

Weekly Bow Tie Guy

Ostrich (ˈästriCH)

It has been a while since I posted a Bow Tie Guy. As I have mentioned it has been a busy semester. I believe things are settling down a little. I am trying to determine a special project for the blog similar to  lasts years 100 bow ties in 100 days or less. When I determine what that is I will start posting them.

Mark Tansey (1949–)

This last Friday, while visiting the Boston Museum of Fine Arts with students, I was reminded of my love for the work of Mark Tansey. In a college art program that frowned upon narrative art, I found an artist that not only told a story, but one that told the story with humor and intelligence. 

Tansey has said “In the late 1970s, what was particularly attractive about pictorial representation was that one faced an opening and extending realm of content rather than dematerialization, endgames, and prolonged swan songs. Difficulties lay in the long established and increasingly critical isolation of subject matter from art practice. Critical discourse and art education had restricted the notion of content to two pockets coalescing around formal and conceptual poles. To speak about subject matter in a picture simply was not done.

My feeling was that there was no longer any justification for these restrictions. Pictures should be able to function across the fullest range of content. The conceptual should be able to mingle with the formal and subject matter should enjoy intimate relations with both.” 

Enunciation

Currently on display in the Boston Museum of Fine Art, Enunciation is a double portrait of Duchamp. He is sitting in the foreground and is in the other train as Rrose Sélavy, a pseudonym he created in a series of photographs taken by Man Ray. This is an impossible encounter.

Action Painting II

This, in my mind, is a wonderful example of what others think of artists and how easy it is to paint. In under 8 seconds everyone was able to paint a perfect picture of the shuttle launch. Notice the young girl in the bottom left. Again he is playing with reality. This is an impossibility. One in which I find great delight and humor. Tansey played with reality and realism. He paints art jokes with brilliance and I am grateful for his contribution to art and his influence in my art as well.

Imagination (IF)

This summer I took some time drawing clouds and finding objects or creatures in the drawings. It was fascinating to see how one cloud evolved from one creature to another. It was an exercise I hope to continue with in the future.