Ricky Swallow

Tusk

 I know that I, personally, would like to have skeletal arms on my wall. However I'd probably end up using them as coat racks, which I don't think the artist, Ricky Swallow, had in mind.

Everything is Nothing

Putting The Fun In

Took this on the weekend. Also got some nice shots of the funeral parlour, hopefully I'll get to upload them sometime this week.

Putting The Fun In

Explosive

Looking for some nice x-rays of horrific injuries? Check out radiologist Surfactant's flickr stream, which includes gunshot wounds, things where they really don't belong (shotglass, anyone?), and my personal favourite, Hand Trauma, which you see above, where a homemade explosive exploded before it was thrown.

There's also some neat pictures of shells and other objects that are worth checking out.

Via wasteofbaco.

Gustav Doré

An illustrator from the 1800's, Gustav Doré used painting, engraving and drawing to illustrate a myriad of works, with the prettiest (in my opinion) being those from The Raven (above), Paradise Lost (bottom right) and The Divine Comedy (bottom left).

These are really worth viewing larger, the detail is amazing.

View a gallery of his art here.

Ron Mueck & Puppetses

 

 I was informed today that they're having an exhibition of Ron Mueck's giant half-naked people at the NGV in Melbourne. I'm told the only real way to experience his artwork is to see it in person but unfortunately it looks as though I won't get the chance, as the exhibition closes Sunday.

However, while I'm using Ron Mueck as a reference in my art folio (school again. I'll be interesting soon, I promise), it's not his giant naked people that interest me the most, but his other work. Once upon a time Mueck was a prop-maker and puppeteer, and he worked on the Jim Henson's Labyrinth, not only making a certain puppet, but doing the voice.

Now if they had his Ludo puppet in the exhibition I'd be there for sure.

For those who are interested, there's a video of Mueck making one of his giant people here.

Paper Street Soap Co.

 

Writing a desgin brief is a pain. Writing a design brief from the point of view of a fictional company from a movie you really like is much more interesting. But still a pain.

As well as studying Art this year, I'm also undertaking Visual Communication & Design, and part of your 'do this to pass' is that you've got to pretend that a company has approached you to do something for them.

Anyone who's seen (or read) Fight Club will know Paper Street Soap Company.

For those who don't, Tyler Durden makes soap from the fat that's dumped from liposuction clinics and sells it to rich people. I believe the remark about it is something along the lines of:

"We're selling rich ladies their own fat asses back to them."

 I'm pretending Paper Street is a proper company that just make fancy soaps, and thus far my teacher seems to not have picked up on it. Shame.

Anyways, in searching for a witty name for their latest collection of soaps, I found the Paper Street Soap Company website, which is full of wonderful in-jokes (hover over those little circles for links). And then I remembered that Last Exit To Nowhere, maker of wonderful movie-nerd shirts, has a PSSC t-shirt.

Available here, which I've been wanting for awhile.

Of Questions On Clays

I appeal to those of you with experience makin' stuffs. I know you're out there.

This year for art I'm required to make at least two artworks for my final folio presentation, and I'm planning on doing some anatomy/human body type sculptures.

I'd like to make one slightly bigger than A4 sized, length and width wise, and the other I'd hope to make about the size of an actual torso. I've used basic terracotta clays before in class, and the results were pretty good, but I've no longer got access to a kiln, wherein my problem lies.

I'm looking for a relatively cheap clay (or clay-like substance) that doesn't require kiln firing, and can be painted and perhaps varnished, something to that effect. Air dry would be a bonus, as well as light-weight, but I'm willing to pass those up for a better alternative.

Your help is much appreciated and willing particpants won't have their brains stolen in the night.

Unless you're into that kind of thing.

Nickelodeon Vs The Winter Olympics

By Madatoms. Via mypopculturebrain 

I say bring back Legends of the Hidden Temple.

The final temple maze level always had me in awe as a kid - unfortunately I was too young to watch LOTHT during it's original run (1993-95), seeing as I was born in '92, but I was lucky enough to catch the end of the golden age of Nickelodeon, not to mention plenty of repeats.

Happy "I didn't get a Valentine" Day

Now, before we start, it'd be supercool if everyone actually watched the video I linked to in the For Future Reference post, but if you haven't, then this will (most likely) make no sense to you at all. 

If you can't be bothered watching the whole thing but still want to know what's going on, then this is the link again, and watch from around the 4 minute 20 mark.

 

 Valentine's Day is a holiday I appreciate more in theory than I do in practise. If you're in a couple, there's too much pressure to choose the right gift and to make everything perfect. If you're single it can be incredibly depressing to be surrounded by other people's flowers, chocolates and happiness.

A quick chat to my friends revealed that even those in a relationship were hating on the holiday - something which, despite my distaste for it, I found rather disheartening. 

So, drawing on a shared love for a certain crazy drunken Irish man who owns a bookstore (Bernard Black), I decided I'd make an Black Books referencing anti-Valentine card.

Also I really wanted a use for the accordion sketches I've been doing lately.

 

 The front of the cards read (in case you can't read my awful handwriting):

I've come to serenade you.

I can't play guitar.

I can't play this either, 

but I thought it would be less obvious.

While the inside reads:

Happy "I didn't get a Valentine" Day

More Brian Ewing

 

Hi-res here and here

Hanging on my wall I have the 'red girl' poster. I've had it for awhile now, and only yesterday did I notice the brianewing.com in the bottom right hand corner. If you recall, I talked about the Brian Ewing/Crankbunny card two days ago, but I didn't actually take the time to search through his entire gallery.

In fact, I didn't even wait for the page to load fully, you'll notice there's another version of the umbrella girl on the bottom half of the page. 

Anyway, I've just discovered that you actually get the posters in a pair. 'Red girl' was given to me by a friend, and as far as I'm aware, they don't have the 'blue girl' twin, so... what happened to the other umbrella girl?

And more importantly, why don't I have it?

The Rib Cage Card

If you've been playing along, you'll remember this picture of a valentines day card I posted.
When you open it up, you get this:

 

These cards were the result of a collaboration between awesome artist Brian Ewing and pretty paper thing makers Crankbunny.

The red foil heart has to be scratched away to reveal the message beneath, and while this message may be a bit too soppy for most of you, then you'll be happy to know that there's a choice of one of five pre-made phrases, or you can write your own in 25 characters or less.

Despite their limited editioness, they appear to still be in stock from the Crankbunny website.

Letters to Dead People

 

Some are funny, while other are lovely and nerdy, and sometimes they're a bit sad.

Letters to Dead People writes open letters to, you guessed it, dead people.

  You can send in a suggestion (of a dead person to write to), or you can write your own and hope you're lucky enough to get yours made into a 'Dead Letter'.

P.S. How childish is it's been two, three days since I saw it but I'm still laughing at the Freud one?

Can't Wait To Be Eighteen

So that I no longer have to get an adult to buy my spray paint. Few people are willing to drop everything and go buy a half dozen cans at my say so. For now, however, my skills remain only at the 'stencil' level.

Internet tells me that this amazing piece is by Shepard Fairey aka The Guy Who Did Those Obama Posters. See also album covers for Mothership by Led Zeppelin and Zeitgeist by The Smashing Pumpkins.
via fuckyeahstreetgraffiti on tumblr

Almost There

The Gardener is done. For now. The fabric really bugs me for a number of reasons, but the main one is that it isn't old-looking enough. Right now though, I don't have the time. Or the initiative. It's done and I don't have to worry about it anymore. Sometime after Halloween I'll post more pictures.

I'm going to be all hyper tomorrow morning when I wake up. And then I'll realise I have to set up a projector and a set of speakers about twice as old as I am, clean the house and tape off doorways. Plus all that little detail stuff which is fun to plan but so time consuming to execute. Really wishing I'd had more time, but there's not much I can do now other than finish off an English assignment. Last English work for the year! Woo!

Innards/Progression

I think it's fairly safe to say that I enjoy taking photos from this perspective. It's pretty cool though, you can see the changes taking place, from the raggedy beginnings to smoothed out edges to the final coat of paint.

Pumpkin Teeth, Eyes & Blood, at Flickr.
(Eyes is my favourite. Just the colours.)

It's In The Blood

I've posted my mother's art a few times, and my own more than a few, so I thought now was as good a time as any to show some of my brother's. Don't let the messy style fool you - he's only two years (and eight days) younger than me. He just likes things messy.

More than once I've gone into his room to get/steal something and ran into something creepy staring at me. Luckily for me though, he also shares my distaste for cutesy Christmas figurines, much to the chagrin of our mother. Last year I was bringing the boxes of ornaments and general Christmassy things down from the shed's loft when I dropped a box and it bounced its way down the stairs. I freaked out for a moment thinking it was the box full of expensive breakable things. It wasn't. It was filled with the annoying novelty plushes that sing songs and dance when you press them. Which explains the horrific cacophony of noise that erupted upon the box's arrival on the bottom floor. I decided that it would probably be best just to check to make sure nothing had died, and if it had I would have sufficient time to dispose of the bodies. Then I discovered that two creepy porcelain santa figurines were in the box. One survived unscathed. The other was not so lucky. Head shorn from its fabric body, he lay in the bottom of the bag, begging for a quick death. Or maybe I was just imagining things.

Either way, I had a beheaded santa to deal with. So I got my brother to dispose of it while I carted the rest of the decorations up to the house. I came back to find this:

I'm not sure why he decided to give it gold skin. I just know it's awesome.

Mark Tatulli & Heart of the City

Click to enlarge

Every Sunday the paper has a bunch of liftouts, sports, music, news, travel, racing, etc. My favourite is the kids liftout. It's only one sheet, so two pages and one centrefold. The centrefold has comics. Some of them are cute and funny and some are so stupid it makes me want to smash my head against the table. But I'm like that most mornings.

Heart of the City is from the first category. Mark Tatulli, the creator, has captured the essence of little girls everywhere rather well. Sometimes it's a little scary how much Heart is like my childhood-self. And my now-self. Especially today's comic, except I never have and never will have a Jonas Brothers poster. You can check out more of Tatulli's Heart of the City comics here. I briefly considered posting all the Halloween ones here, but thought that perhaps some might not appreciate the page taking an hour to load.

Page Four.

The 'That Night,' series is now complete. Check it out here.

Poker.

Forked

The second in the 'That Night, A Forest Grew.' series.
Which from now on I'll refer to as the 'That Night' series. Because I like it better that way.

Page One.

Page One., originally uploaded by The Cadaver.