Documentation of Artistic Reinvigoration: Phase 7

Finished! The practice round that is. 

Swirls of paint...

Working the pulls.

Corpses to be made.

A very good indication of things to come.

The mess.

Mustafa Ahmed, 12: spoken word artist

Sorry I'm Late But Stop-Motion Takes a While

Sorry I'm Late from Tomas Mankovsky on Vimeo.

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 6:

So I thought I would be banging out posters like a pro this class. You can presume I did not, though if I keep this up I'll have some wicked bikini arms come July. Two thirds through my "practice" round for my poster before mastering an edition of 30 on nicer, non-bristol board paper. As someone in my class best put it: "Whoa, that looks like something you could sell for like... fifty bucks!" I'll let the pictures below speak for themselves. Also, now taking orders.

But more importantly...

Quizno Torpedos are like weird sandwich Pogo sticks and a lot skinnier than what I'd imagine a torpedo might look like.

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 5:

The studio and my other, more productive, colleagues:

"Aites, this is how it is done!"

The brave go for the textiles. Risky move ladies, but I like it.

Drying rack full of our dreams and wishes waiting to be realised in paint.

Feels like spring.

An Exquisite Corpse or two.

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 4:

So here are the bare bones of what my final screenprint will look like. 

It's something of a more personal project, I suppose because my main hope for taking this course was to do something creative for myself, as opposed to always thinking about what might look best on a store shelf or best boost sales for bread. Admittedly, it was a little difficult to try and do something without thinking about how I might be able to make money from it, but once I realized what I wanted to do... yes, I think the challenge became entirely about sorting out which animals best represented my family. (Have you ever done that? Sheesh, the skeletons come tumbling out of the closet, I tell ya'). The result: My father, the safari-researcher (complete with convincing disguise), my mother the ostrich, my middle sister the lemur, my youngest sister the tortoise, and me, the elephant.

Despite being warned, I was stubborn enough to believe that SuperMe would be able to fly through this one critical step. So believe it, folks; the biggest pain-in-the-ass about screenprinting is building that friggin' screen (actually, trying to find a competent wooden frame to start with may also tie for that award). I should probably mention that I complicated things by resorting to old screenprinting frames from OCAD that just happened to be ginormous. Who even knows how to spell "ginormous" anyway. Thus, I spent my last class stretching, stapling, rinsing, and coating my two gargantuan friends ready-to-go for next class. Fingers crossed.

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 2

At Function 13 in Kensington this past weekend was the closing party of Halo Halo's 100 Ways to Live show - tons of art, a brilliant live auctioneer who was more punk than pomp, and 100 sticks. I made $2 donating two $1 works of art to the auction (get it, 100 cents?), one of which was a collabo with this guy. Speaking of which, that means I owe him 75 cents, at least. Here are our one-day, one dollar creations:

By freshly_snipes

By Wooden_Tofu

What can I say? "Art" brings out the best, and worst, in people.

And some shots from the show and 100 sticks.

Sticks by Jeff. Didn't have space in my apartment for this, but came very close to bidding on this and reconstructing it on my wall. Ah well, someone more deserving out there is building magical leprechaun bonfires in their kitchen with this.    

Step-by-Step, Ooo Baby.

DOCUMENTATION OF ARTISTIC REINVIGORATION - PHASE 1:

So as I had posted a few weeks back, I had decided to take up the 'Screenprinting for Illustrators' course put-on by Halo Halo, led by Jeff and Jan (who both happen to be super talented but also so unbelievably nice that it's hard to be embittered towards them for it). Despite being a titch nervous going in, asking myself, "Yo, are you sure you're ILLUSTRATOR enough?!", within the first 15 minutes I knew I was in good company.

First things first, perhaps it is just my longing for some sort of education in anything, but throughout this thing I can't stop referring to things in school project terms. Think "homework", "group projects", and "thesis", but stick "super-duper fun" at the beginning of all of that. And we even had a guest speaker. All to the sweet sounds of Live Free or Die Hard playing in the background. The result? A fun, bizarro group project called Exquisite Corpses to whet our appetite for dundundun: The Thesis.

Photos to come, if you can handle it.

*Note: I just keep calling it a Thesis, they mostly just laugh in my face when I formalize it like that.

I've been slacking.

Alright, I know, I'm like the million other bloggers out there who have somehow lost their commitment to their darling blog. Blame it on the economy, okay. Truth be told, have come across little that is inspiring enough, and suited to this blog, in the last couple weeks (you guys don't want to hear about me being stressed and losing sleep now, would you?!). Thus, in an attempt to curb all these issues - check out HALO HALO Screenprinting. I've signed up for their workshops - and hope to absorb their obvious talents by assimilation.  *Note: in a state of weakness, sometimes my internal dialogue becomes external.

Nick Cave's Sound Suits

Some of the most amazing pieces of wearable art (if you can call it that) I have ever seen. One of the most intriguing aspects of Nick Cave's "sounds suits" (and no, I don't think THAT Nick Cave), is his grounding principle that a costume can inspire someone to become someone - or something - else for a moment in time. At times traditional, at other times somber, but almost always animated - these suits are what dreams are made of. Check his interview with B/D here, currently showing at the Jack Shainman Gallery in NY.

Oh, and what the hell, here's some of that other Nick Cave for ya'.

M/M (Paris) 2009 Catalogue

For those of you who, like I, cannot afford a poster for 200 Euros, but prefer to safely admire them from a nice comfortable online distance, feast your eyes on M/M's 2009 catalogue. I am especially loving their 2008 decoupage-esque posters. Mmm/m/m//m/mmmmmm....

Interview with Spraygraphic.

Here it is, me yapping about my vision for our planet and how I fit into that vision. Well, not really. Check out my interview on Spraygraphic here.

More gig posters.

{find and buy pretty well anything at GigPosters, also soom via Well Medicated}

Aesthetic Apparatus

Minneapolis based Aesthetic Apparatus uses their aesthetic apparatus for screenprinting to create dozens and dozen-zos of band posters, art, and (hey, we all gotta pay them bills), Burger King crowns. Check their store for tons of good stuff for your walls.

Now get ready for the most intense screenprinting video ever:

Zune Arts loves cobras and ice cream, too.

Zune Arts has been kicking around for a while, but luckily for us, they keep the goodies coming. I mean seriously, I do not think there exists a more fun (funner?) scrolling menu. The seemingly endless lists of animated shorts (some collabos between both the designers/artists and musicians) seem to march along a path right in front you, coming alive as you tickle their cute and sometimes scary selves with your mouse. 

OK, I'm getting a little into this.

Stepping back a little - another major plus is that the people behind Zune have made the individual videos really easy to embed into sites, or MyFacebookenoratiStumble.Digg.icio.us. 

One of my faves has to be 'Meltdown', created by Epoch Ink to the soundtrack of Goldfrapp.

Now, back to lineup. Tickle tickle tickle, boo.

A Creative Community

Darnit! 

Crappy wireless internet connection is keeping me from posting those glorious images I so love, so for now, you'll just have to take my word for it when I write that Spraygraphic is a pretty exciting spot for lovers of creativity. Pretty easy to make your own mark, and earn the right to call ultra talented people from Brazil your "friend".

Nice notes.

Love Whitelines notebooks, FOB from Sweden. Enviro-friendly with "non-conflict" white lines that make your writings and scribbles the star, without annoying black or blue lines stabbing into them from all sides. My binding of choice? Perfect bound. And did I mention rounded corners? Hoooooo sheeeit. Available in select stores in Canada.

Screengrabs of some work... part 2.

Some older stuff of mine... maybe the sort of thing I should be doing more of today? This is a mashup of things done mostly for fundraisers, charities, local events. 

Surrealism, fo'real.

The mystical musings of artist Andrea Galvani.

I Love Colour.

For all who love colour. COLOURlovers is a fun community of similar colour-freaks where you can create and name your own colour, palettes, and patterns. Best part? You can "collaborate" by using colours created by others and share your creations with the rest of the community or download it in pretty much any format you can think of.



Color by COLOURlovers