Demento Memento - part 2

Demento Memento - part 1

after Kees Van Dongen Woman with Hat

after Alexej von Jawlensky Spanish Girl


after Amadeo Modigliani A Student


after Otto Mueller Self Portrait with Nude

I had been thinking of putting together a small zine of the ink wash type sketches I'd been doing in my sketchbooks. A selection of the sketches were scanned and a rough layout version of the book assembled. The collection didn't seem to gel though. The toned wash effect was difficult to reproduce in photo-copiable form and there was no overall common theme. Looking at the project again I can see there were some different sets of connecting threads - though not enough of each to justify a zine of their own. This set were copied from tiny black and white thumbnails of the pictures in question from an old 'Introduction to Painting' type art history book.

Bomb you back to the stone age

Annual Covers

A few posts ago I was writing how those new yorker cartoonists are a big influence on the gag style cartoons I sometimes use in birthday card efforts. The bawdy primary colours of the old british humour comic annual covers are an even greater influence than the new yorkers distinguished grey tones. Not to mention the brit comics lewder cousin- the seaside postcard.

Here is a version of another card, originally black and white, that probably makes more immediate sense in coloured form.

Progress

Progress

Here is something not from me. It's a scan of a letter I found outside Clontarf road dart station back during the summer. It appears to have been sent to a pal in the gaeltacht and didn't reach them in time. The teach address has been crossed off the envelope (not shown here) and the sendees home address scrawled in. I've been using it as a bookmark for ages and every so often take the letter for a read and give myself a laugh. I suppose I should freak them out and send it back with a Canadian postmark.







It seems to be written on some pre-used foolscap as if torn from a business studies jotter. I like the way the author has improvised around the content somewhat:



And who's in this newspaper clipping? Ray Parlour and son?


The letter encapsulates the similar sort of demented babbling you come out with to co-workers at a mind numbing job to keep yourself sane. The daft voices and catchphrase repetition that seem indescribably hilarious at the time. The sort of thing you enjoy on a clock-watching Friday afternoon and never speak of again.

Once I wrote this thank you letter to an auntie for some birthday cash she'd sent me but the letter fell out of my pocket on the way to the post office. I duly rewrote the letter as I remembered it and managed to send it off the second time without losing it. Later I learned that someone had found, stamped and posted the original letter and my aunt received two almost but not quite the same thank yous containing slightly different wording, slightly different takes on the same bits of news. It was the subtle differences between the two that freaked her out the most.

Christmas 2005

Working on this years Christmas card at the moment.

Here is last years. Front:


Inside:

and back:

Hello there. I'm switching this to a blog format for a while and may keep it so if it works. Partly because it was a pseudo-blog anyway and partly its easier to add more background explanations to the bits and pieces I stick up here. Also I can put other up other stuff that I find interesting that's not just comics or drawerings. Furthermore it might encourage me to keep it a bit more updated.

So without further ado:


If you know me well enough and I'm so inclined, I might send you a card on occasion. This one is pretty self explanatory. I originally roughed out this gag for submission to Bob Byrne's Shiznit by the way.

A few years ago on a trip to Australia I found a big book of New Yorker cartoons in a second hand bookshop. It had selections of cartoons from the beginning of the mag to the 50's and I lugged the book all the way home thinking I'd struck collector gold. I've since found out they're fairly common.

Nevertheless there was some cracker artwork in it and I was particularly taken with the grey wash work of Helen E. Hokinson and Charles Addams (not to mention 'Arno' and Whitney Darrow) who both influenced this to an extent.

Only thing is its a bugger of a style to reproduce satisfactorily in a photocopier. For best results you end up having to separate the wash from the line work in photoshop, rendering out two different sets of bitmaps and stacking them together - most arduous. Fortunately it works fine on the web - more in this style soon.