Posted by frogisis on January 18, 2010 – 4:56 pm
Filed under Idea, News, Project
Working on an artist’s statement for grad school… That seems to be the first step, even as a prerequisite for getting letters of recommendation. It’s very difficult to find any kind of unifying theme in what I’ve been working on. I suppose that in itself could be spun into some kind of coherent whole, but the phrasing - Aye, there’s the rub. In the mean time, brainstorming them on a sheet of paper will suffice. I have a few ideas, but I don’t want to spill the beans just yet for fear of seeming unforgivably haughty… But I suppose any artist’s statement worth the electrons expended to write it needs to exercise its creator’s command of culture to the utmost…
Working on a comic for some film producers in Australia at the moment, as well as illustrations for SparkNotes, and Ex Occultus for St. James. All in all, my time is well-occupied.
Been a little under the weather this past week, but it seems to have crested and I should be back to my regular ebullient self before too long.
Posted by frogisis on September 21, 2009 – 11:59 am
Filed under Fun, Project, Sketch
…That may not be technically correct, either grammatically or as a statement about reality, but it was the first title I thought of when I wanted to do a post about how I had some family in town this past week, which was a grand old time. We did the whole Chicago tour - Especially the art galleries, which were simultaneously inspiring and infuriating - And I now also have a new cellphone desktop photo of my feet suspended over skyscrapers, as seen from the new transparent Sears Tower ledge.
Did some work while being visited, too, but nothing heavy. Now I’m doing some promotional images for the “Ex Occultus” series I’m working on with St. James comics, before diving into the next installment:
Going to polish that off today and then hit the next one, a more traditional montage of all the characters in exciting poses.
There is also a small canvas sitting on my easel with a sketch on it of an uncanny conflagration of the color yellow that I saw at Walgreens the other day… I’d like to paint that as a warmup for that “Astrolabe” deal in the post below…
Posted by frogisis on September 13, 2009 – 10:08 am
Filed under Fun, Project, Sketch
The last couple of days I have had difficulty reigning myself in, so I am going to spend the day at a coffee shop away from distractions to really get my current workload finished.
It hasn’t been all spazzing out, though - It seems when I just kind of let my subconscious do the drawing, I get a big mass of geometric shapes surrounding and interacting with “real” objects, so I decided I’m just going to roll with that and did this ballpoint pen sketch that will eventually become a large oil painting, as soon as I can figure out what color palate I want:
Posted by frogisis on August 11, 2009 – 4:04 pm
Haven’t posted in a while, but I haven’t been working on anything I’d feel honest posting up here in public until it’s finished, so this’ll just be some incidental sketches and musings to prove I’m busy and not dead.
Here are two 4-panel strips I recently did for a project that later got cancelled:
Here’s a quick drawing I did a month or two ago as a kind of summer fun thing - Haven’t drawn those characters from Urusei Yatsura in a while:
Speaking of summer fun, I downloaded this album last night, and part of the reason I’m posting today is because I want to evangelize:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flight-602-Aim/dp/B000GPI3NU
It’s billed as “dance,” but it’s a bit too musically ambitious and intelligent for that description alone - Yeah, there are some clever polyrhythmic beats and basslines so rubbery you could use them as a trampoline, making something you can definitely get up and bop around to, but a better use is to sit calmly (drawing…?) and nod to the beat as the music puts images in your brain. Niko delivers some excellent vocals, as well, turning the album into a kind of musical chronicle of an entire urban summer. This is music for the “slacker cognoscenti” - If you’re one of those people who bristles at electronic music as soulless beeps for weird skinny kids in baggy pants, this will change your mind.
Posted by frogisis on July 16, 2009 – 5:10 pm
Filed under Project, Sketch
Today I have for you a jumpjet design for “Whiz Kids.” Waiting to hear back from the writer, but I’m going to go on and do some layouts for it.
Posted by frogisis on July 14, 2009 – 10:52 pm
Turns out the temporary internet connection I had here wasn’t up to snuff, but I’ve gone and gotten proper DSL from the fine people at AT&T. I also finished four acrylic paintings for the APW Gallery’s “Something Different” exhibition in Long Island, which you can see in the “Paintings” section. The four of them go together and are titled “The Four Stages of a Most Inappropriate Oath Bearer,” which was a phrase I heard in a dream where I was trying to figure out what to paint. It’s about the evolution an idea goes through when put through the meat grinder of revision and procrastination - Try to find themes that are carried over from one to the other.
Going to get to work now on some other projects, and I learned today I might be joining a co-op that does murals here in Chicago - That’d be a fun experience and a good way to meet other artists… Anyway, further updates as events warrant.
Posted by frogisis on April 28, 2009 – 5:58 am
Filed under Idea, News, Project
The book proposal drawing is done! All that’s left is the words, which I’ll spin in my head while packing for this move to Chicago.
Something about it still doesn’t quite satisfy me - I think it’s because the “painted” style doesn’t appear and I kind of rushed the “tendrils” that appear over everything, but it’s only a proposal, so the final version will have a much more polished style. In any case, I’ll spend the next few days sitting in a coffee shop, putting tracing paper over printouts of these pages, trying to come up with good narrative and good composition.
OMG spoilerrrrrrs! That weird cylinder thing in the previous pages is the human character’s “descendant” from millions of years in the future. He (It?) is trying to protect him from harm, and the “eye” thing is his assistant whom the cylinder-being created to help him in this case, but since Mr. Eyes won’t come into being if the human man isn’t harmed, the eye dude secretly wants to kill him. Anyway, I was thinking that the whole “prose” section would be from the point of view of these two post-human beings, with the dialog of the two humans being completely parenthetical to that, and the third-person explanation of their behavior being the whole conciet from which I’d write this. I thought it would be a good device to tie the two styles together, and also a good way to add some real “narrative” that isn’t often seen in graphic novels. They’re a visual medium, to be sure, but it’s very, very difficult to comment on specific behaviors or mentalities with nothing but tiny squares full of drawings. Check “Bus” in the comics section for an attempt, but I’m going for something a little more complex this time. Anyway, feedback is appreciated.
Posted by frogisis on April 27, 2009 – 6:22 am
Added this one at the last minute - It can fit in anywhere in the sequence. Not sure if I like how it turned out, though; it’s a little different from how I envisioned it, and I just kind of flew by the seat of my pants. In any case, I can still cover up parts with words, and there’s only one page left now.
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Despite the occasionally clunky acting, I have to say that “Fringe” is a surprisingly decent show. I had it on in the background while I was working on this and thought it was entertaining enough to cue a bunch of them up. EDIT 4/29: OK, saw a few more episodes, and the main character seems to have a Harry Potter-like “special destiny” that’s slowly being revealed. My surprised enthusiasm in the show has cooled off a little.
Posted by frogisis on April 26, 2009 – 6:08 am
Page 4 is done!
Now it’s bedtime, because I have quite a nasty headache. Night, y’all.
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