aerofish

It's been a while...

2010-06-05T21:47:00.002-05:00

Hello. It has certainly been a while! Here, have a slightly smug looking bird.

This Owl Has Socks

2010-05-03T08:54:00.000-05:00

Owl!

2010-04-26T09:52:00.002-05:00

Finished a new piece last night. The drawing was done in ink, then scanned and colored in Photoshop. The great (and infuriating) thing about that is that you have endless control and there's no "too late now." I could twiddle endlessly with colors and textures and never finish a piece.

Radiohead DVD bootleg cover #1

2010-04-23T11:39:00.000-05:00

I like Radiohead. A lot. You'll find this out, if you didn't already. Going through some old files of mine, I came across some old DVD covers I designed to make my bootleg concerts pretty.

Here is the first of three. Inspired by the song & music video for "There There," for you fellow Radiohead nerds:

Artists I love - Nomi Chi

2010-04-15T14:39:00.004-05:00

Nomi Chi's art is a explosion of surreal madness. It feels immediate, as if she just sat down and created her imagery with no forethought, as if it sprung fully formed from her id.

Her creatures seem as if, were you to talk of them, they would be full of great truths...of the sort that might drive you insane.

Her ladies seem so proper and genteel. Even as they bleed. Even as they flash my-what-big-teeth-you-have.

You can view more of Nomi's artwork at her website.

Back from Joanna Newsom.

2010-04-03T12:36:00.007-05:00

We drove up to Milwaukee last night to see Joanna Newsom at the gorgeous Pabst Theater. My fiance took me for a birthday gift, even though I knew he wouldn't enjoy it. But he was a trouper. He only fell asleep twice.

Joanna Newsom is also the musical equivalent of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but girl is still hella talented and I love her.

WTF Tumblr picture of the day.

2010-04-01T14:53:00.001-05:00

To pass the time at work when it's a slow day (like today, for example) I like to browse through Tumblr. It's a great place to find inspiration and amusement and to pass away some time.

Sometimes I run across an image that makes me pause and wonder just what is going on here? Left with no other choice, I come up with my own plausible story about what has led to the image in question. Such as in the following:

I am not sure, but what I BELIEVE happened here was a girl was taking a cross-country busride, and those bastards (Greyhound isn’t known for their excellence in terms of service) left her behind at a rest stop. She just got up to stretch her legs! To wash her hands in the questionable gas-station sink! To buy some chedder Combos!

Then, to make matters worse, all her clothes were stolen. Off her body. By…vintage clothing bandits. That’s how the hipster trendy vintage clothing places get more stock, you know. After all, there’s only so much vintage out there to go around. Damn her love for 70’s Gunne Sax dresses!

So there she is: cold, lost, and the sun is setting. Whatever will she do?

AHA! She had brought her handbag with her off the bus, and it had not been taken from her. In it is the project she had been knitting. I don’t know what, exactly…and it doesn’t matter. What matters is that she can drape the yarn across her body, staving off hypothermia!

Our plucky girl is saved! While she listens to the wolves howl, she will knit the night away. When the rising sun illuminates her handiwork, we will see that she has knitted a red catsuit, which she will entice a passing biker with. What zany adventures will they have as they roar away together? Oh, I do not know, but I am sure they will be clever and picturesque.

Bikers just cannot resist a crocheted alpaca-yarn catsuit.

Nobody is Sleeping in the Sky

2010-03-31T10:12:00.004-05:00

A new watercolor painting:

The words and title are taken from the poem "City That does Not Sleep," by Federico García Lorca.

(full poem after the jump)

In the sky there is nobody asleep.  Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the 
            street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
            stars.




Nobody is asleep on earth.  Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream.  Careful!  Careful!  Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead
            dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists.  Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.

One day 
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the
            eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful!  Be careful!  Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention 
            of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes
            are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.

Nobody is sleeping in the sky.  Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world.  No one, no one.
I have said it before.

No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the
            night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

The Lady with the Axolotl Hat

2010-03-30T08:28:00.002-05:00

I have a thing for axolotls. They're odd little Mexican salamanders and I can't help but smile any time I see one (probably because, much like goats, they always look like they're smiling back).

New Scanner and a finished watercolor.

2010-03-29T08:29:00.003-05:00

So I hooked up my new scanner, the Epson Perfection v300. I'm playing around with it, trying to get the optimal scans. Looks like the trick of getting a good watercolor scan is pushing the brightness down.

I'm pretty happy with this. It's about as close as I could wish for. Now, the really hard part will be creating prints that match the original.

Artists I love - Valerie Hammond

2010-03-26T13:40:00.006-05:00

I find myself absolutely in love with the work of Valerie Hammond, whom I discovered recently. Well, I'm sure she - as well as many others - was already aware of herself, but you catch my point. Her work could be the daydreams of remarkable seeds or the recollections of fragile old things locked away in trunks.

Fleur Rouge, 2007

Madill Flower, 2009

You can see more of her work here.

Have a great weekend!

Snail painting WIP

2010-03-23T14:06:00.006-05:00

I have been wickedly sick the past few days. At this point I'm more sick over being sick than being sick in itself...if that makes sense? Anyway, I blame the fever for such a suger-sweet —almost sickenly so— snail girl. I hope to finish her up tonight.

Paintings in Progress - Owls, Fish, Bugs, and Snails

2010-03-22T14:01:00.004-05:00

Pile of artwork waiting for me to paint it.