TRA LA LA LA LA! TOTALLY DICKING AROUND WITH THE BLOG INSTEAD OF ESSAY WRITING!

i know i've already bored you to death with how much i love sticks and ink BUT OHMIGOD OUR LOVE IS SO TRUE. must must must try drawing free style with them sometime. it would be pretty fly if they could be brought into actual work.

fun fact: did you know that once beethoven went totally deaf, he'd bite his piano in order to feel the vibrations in order to 'hear' what he was composing? so tragic/triumphant...

a friend of ours is off to the ukraine for the year to max out her russian skills. we figured the least we could do was make her a bon voyage card.

wow, is it me or does this borrow rather heavily from the covers for the scott pilgrim books? also, ukraine is most defiantly NOT soviet russia, so what's up with the color scheme/bears?

did you know that the national animal of mauritius is the dodo? OH LOL!

#THE MORE YOU KNOW#

and this time round, you may notice a shameless rip off of zone of the ender's jehuty. hacktastic!

mech-tennis ball's kinda fun though.

did you know that leonardo da vinchi's sketchbooks were found to contain plans for a humanoid robot? it's possible that the vitruvian man may have been research for it.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW#

so a couple of weeks ago a couple of us went to this music festival thing called gocstock. it was a pretty small affair but has me convinced that if you own a sizable amount of land, it's your god given duty to use it to host a music festival once a year. there was a tone of awesome people and bands, one of which was this dude going by tatterrattles. if you've got a moment, give his myspace a look -> http://www.myspace.com/tatterattlesmusic

did you know that the first music festival on record were held at the pythian games at delphi?

#THE MORE YOU KNOW!#

it's true.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW#

another part of the cup series.

i really don't know what the hell i had against starbucks back last year when i got the idea for this... in fact, i don't think there were any bad feelings at all.

... i think it was all just an excuse to draw kelptomanic mermaids. in hind-sight, the flow of that tentecal sucks balls. needs to be waaaay more fluid.... although acctually i think it might work with the gaps between the line up of cups.

OH WELL.

did you know that starbucks is named after the first mate in moby dick? initially, the company wanted to go with pequod, abham's doomed ship, but pr didn't warm to that idea.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW#

also, may i recomend you all go out and watch simon schama's bbc series 'power of art'. i've pretty much blew through 5 out of 8 hours of it yesterday while i was working and it is GOOD stuff. ok, so the guy may be a little forthright with his intentions but it's a really interesting examination of the selected artists and the production on it is BEAUTIFUL.

rough work for the invite. hmm, perhaps that cut out look i wanted to incorporate into it would have worked better with the simpler aesthetics of the gloves and cards.

OH WELL.

recently went to an interview at edinburgh (which explains the lack of activity round here) but i'm not going to be holding my breath about getting a place. they were SUPER over subscribed this year and nothing makes me channel my inner moron more than interviews.

again, OH WELL.

did you know that harry houdini's brother was also a famous stage magician? theodore hardeen went on to set up the magician's guild after harry's death and it was infact he who came up with the iconic straight-jacket escape trick.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW#

 

my boss is so very awesome. he might have possibly got me a gig doing the poster for this event going on at warrick castle. it's either the celebrations of some big birthday of henry viii or the production the fencing academy's putting on for their bicentennial- i'm not sure...

anyhoo, they needed an idea of the color scheme so here's a rather gross thumbnail i sent them. for some reason they seemed to actually like it.  

did you know in his younger days, Henry enjoyed playing a sport called REAL tennis? also, Edward wasn't his only son- he had another, illegitimate son called henry fitzroy. Henry made steps to name him heir but never went through with it. fitzroy's death by TB might have also had something to do with that.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW!#

lol, so emo.

but yeah, kinda sorta preliminary work for a crappy little sculpture i made (watch this space) based around Orestes little run in with the furies. for more on that, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orestes_(mythology) or http://threepennyorchestra.blogspot.com/2009/02/oh-those-crazy-greeks.html and oh dear, i think i just fragged the text formatting on this post.

did you know that coffee is a wonderful artistic medium? it's true!

#THE MORE YOU KNOW!#

ideas tossed around for some more concept art. this time boss man wanted something to capture the flavor of a screen play he's currently working on based on the life and times of ormer locklear.

uh, who?

locklear was a stunt flyer during and after WWI. during his time in service, pilots would sometimes have to 'wing walk' to perform repairs on their air craft. 

pretty hair raising stuff, no? 

anyhoo, locklear carried this practice on into the movie industry when he became a stunt man and performed all sorts of crazy ariel shenanigans for the camera. unfortunately, this proved to be the death of him.  during filming, the lighting crew didn't pull a light off him in time, causing the momentarily blinded pilot to crash.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW#

so i get up this morning and it's 3 o'clock. blargh. i could have got on with some work but i wasn't feeling all that cerebral on 4 hours sleep so what better way to kill some time by knocking out a sketch for this weeks art jam? the theme this time round was foot soliders/lackeys.

man, i really want to watch star wars again... and by star wars i mean episodes iv-vi, you know, the ones george lucas made before he had one too many sips of the cool-aid.

did you know that the term 'the storm trooper effect' was coined after these guys and refers to the fact that shit hot marksmanship apparently isn't a quality evil organizations look for in their employees?

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aaaaaaand here we have the final thing. i'm not too sure if the over head angle worked out in the end... also, the placement of red and blue- isn't the first rule of color theory that reds make things jump forwards and blues push objects back (coincidentally, the second rule of color theory that reds make things jump forwards and blues push objects back)?

whoops.

also, it's a WOODEN indian. why is it BLUE!? someone clearly needs a reality check.

did you know that wooden statues of native americans was an old advertising figure representing cigar shops. this was on account of illiteracy. why indians? because they got the early european settlers hooked on tobacco in the fist place.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW!#

merry christmas, y'all.

did you know that contrary to popular belief, coca-cola did NOT invent the red sporting santa that we've all become so familiar with? instead, the finger of blame can be leveled at thomas nast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nast), an american cartoonist who transformed him into the jolly little fat man we've all come to know and love. also, there are numerous links between mr clause and the norse god odin but those have pretty much been brushed under the carpet since the ye olde christians felt that smacked of paganism.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW!#

something old for you today but i've still got a soft spot for it. still, can't quite shake the feeling she's just discovered something weird going on in her nether regions.

did you know that  in the late 18th century, students working in jacques-louis david studio would spend six hours every day drawing from nude models? also, in a rather ironic twist, women weren't permitted to life drawing classes as students until the end of the 19th century.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW!#

mmm, wonky! a pretty crudely done illustration for bach's 'air in G'. 

did you know that despite composing more than 1,000 pieces of music during his life time, it was only after his death that people started to recognize bach as a composer?

#THE MORE YOU KNOW!#

more album cover design. now with added pseudo cubism!

did you know that the term cubism was coined by french art critic louis vauxcelles when he described a painting as full of little cubes?

#THE MORE YOU KNOW!#

 

part of that whole illustrating music project thingy-ma-jig. this is like the first second of the minuet waltz- i had some crazy idea that i was going to transcribe the WHOLE song in it's entirety. 

40 minuets in i realized that was NOT happening.

did you know that the minuet waltz doesn't actually last a minuet? even the speediest play throughs clock in at around a minuet and a half. Chopin originally wanted to call it 'the little dog' but his publisher went with the final title with the intention that 'minuet' be interpreted as small.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW!#

and while we're on the subject  of antlers...

did you know that the antlers of the giant irish elk were the largest ever recorded? these things could measure up to twelve foot tip to tip. the more you know!