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I'm beginning to think that my favorite kind of Art always has an underlying brilliant idea at its core.  That seems kind of obvious doesn't it?  

Art that sucks is a bit of a twist.

It wouldn't be Art if it sucked.

Art always has to be awesome.

You can't lower the standards on what you think is Awesome.

Mediocre Blues Man.

At least I'm not a poet.

Request Night 4

Steven LaRose, 2011

nebulotinklestab (Dean Terry)

Photoshop

Request Night 3

 

Steven LaRose, 2011

Heat Death Time Line (Brian Cypher)

Photoshop

Request Night 2

 

Steven LaRose, 2011

kerosene daydreams (Paul James Martin)

Photoshop

Request Night 1

Steven LaRose, 2011

Caught, Dripping, feverish (Janet Galore)

Photoshop

Box of tricks

 Zaida had a friend spend the night last night.  There is nothing blogworthy about that save for the fact that I am living in a spartan shell of a bachelor pad.  I don't have cable, Wii, or whatever eleven-year-old girls need to occupy themselves.  Or, so I thought.  On a whim, I opened one of the boxes that contains all of my useless vintage how-to "art" contraptions.  By the third "That's awesome" proclamation, I realized that maybe hanging on to those three sets of Spirographs wasn't so futile.  Last night my kitchen floor was littered with clear plastic templates, green balled tacks, and uni-ball® Vision™ Elite™ Liquid Rollerball Pens. 

I was only mildly surprised when the first thing they did when they woke up was move the operation out by the wood stove.  "That's awesome" again.
 

Facebook Request Night 6

Steven LaRose, 2011
Horse Play, (Susan Abrill)
Photoshop

Facebook Request Night 5

Steven LaRose, 2011
Mother Loves Her Child, (Dashiel House)
Photoshop

Facebook Request Night 4

Steven LaRose, 2011
Progressive Recompense, (Paul James Martin)
Photoshop

Facebook Request Night 3

Steven LaRose, 2011
Incendiary Rhetoric, (David Lane)
Photoshop

Facebook Request Night 2

Steven LaRose, 2011
Pulmonary Tuberculosis, (John Wilson)
Photoshop

Facebook Request Night

Steven LaRose, 2011
She Simply Said, (John Wilson)
Photoshop

Versacrum

I just spent waaayy too much time learning the joys of the Bézier curve.

Self Own Cell Phone Amalgam

 

I know it is merely a cliche, but who could resist the Chocolate Lab/Meringue Doodle harmonious duality?

I have fifteen students enrolled in my Community College Introduction to Drawing (Value) class.  Just between you and me, I am appalled that "line" gets separated from "value" in an attempt to let students enroll any term.  

The schools I work for want bodies, they aren't thinking about their product.  

I have fifteen Drawing students who all contributed a title to their first "abstract" drawing.  They had to create small thumbnail sketches of fifteen words.  

 

I love the white board markers because chalkboards in general make the hair on the nape of my neck stand up, but conversely, white boards amplify my evil handwriting.

I have another group of Introduction to Oil Painting students who are doing quite well (chops wise) but simply don't understand the concept of working outside of the classroom.  Yeah. . . I'm talking to you.

Hunker down.

How many of you receive texts with photo attachments from your eleven year old that are fucking brilliant?  Is it just me?

Jugendstil Wednesday

 Arnost Hofbauer

 

Arnost Hofbauer

 Hans Christiansen

Hans Christiansen

A serious distractor:  The University of Heidelberg has a digital library that has tons of Jugend scanned and archived.  Heilige Kuh!

One hundred years later. . .

. . . and the uniforms have barely changed. 

Illustrations by Gabriele Galantara who was "an Italian socialist with a scientific background, known throughout Europe for his caricatures. In 1892, he teamed up with Guido Podrecca to launch the satirical weekly L'Asino. The first issue appeared on 27 November 1892, and Galantara drew covers, cartoons and comic strips for the magazine under the penname Rata Langa. Around 1924, Galantara cooperated with the anti-fascist magazine Il Becco Giallo, for which he was arrested and sent to jail in 1926. Released in 1927, Galantaro has lived in probation until his death in 1937. During the final years of his life, Galantara painted, worked in animation and cooperated anonymously with the humorous newspaper Marc Aurelio." - from lambiek.net

Neophyte

I've decided to call my new enterprise Fish & Cut Bait.

Notice that the wishy-washy "or" is not part of the business plan.  Illustration and Design will be my focus.  I am giving myself a crash course in Illustrator through the Lynda.com services.  It is so fun and enormous I had to start somewhere simple.  This was my first stab at a vector logo for F&CB.  More to come of course.

I know NOTHING

I am quite certain that it is inappropriate to discus the creaming of one's shorts on a blog that my daughter might read, and yet, how else can I describe what happened when I discovered the Art of the Luggage Label's photostream on flickr?  Note that many of the sets also contain detailed historical descriptions. 

Ayao Yamana

Cool.

The Interwebs still work

A couple days ago I was contacted by the manager of this building.

It seems that the 3600 North Lake Shore Drive Condominium Association has a couple murals in their lobby that they are restoring.  They were painted by Claude Bentley who I did a little post about back in October of 2009.  Claude doesn't have much of a web presence, so it was lucky that I was able to point the building manager towards the book that contained a brief statement by Claude.

I was understandably a little excited to see the murals so they sent me these two pictures.  In the second one you can see where the restoration is almost complete around the signature. Dr. Margaret Nowosielska of the Conservation Center is doing the restoration.

 

 

But what really surprised me, besides seeing the internet once again work as a tool for esoteric research, was how big these paintings are.  Here is a shot of the lobby from the condo's website and that must be a ten foot painting.