Painting on Wood and Recycled Pouch

I have been experimenting with painting on wood. It takes some getting used to.

The octopus is my latest little painting. On the right is a piece of bristol where I test out colors. On the left is some inspiration--a cool little zippered pouch made by Blue Q of 95% recycled material. I bought it this weekend at Blick. A little research and I found that the artwork of illustrator Colin Johnson was used. Ironically, he works on wood! The art on this pouch, in fact, was from a mixed media piece done on wood. I don't know how the art was printed onto the "recycled woven materials" or what the woven materials are exactly or what the shiny coating is. I would really like to know, though. Anyone know?

Here is a detail.:


I love it!
My painting on the other hand...well I still need to figure out this painting-on-wood thing. Next time I know I need to sand it smooth (thanks, Matte!).
We'll see where this goes. In the meantime, I'll be on the lookout for more inspiration. Join me?

Since She Asked About Inspiration

Since it's Friday, I was looking through old work with the "flashback Friday" theme in mind. I thought about Nicole's post from Monday about inspiration. I commented on her post that dreams are sometimes a source of inspiration for me and I thought I'd share an example.

The above is a segment of some sequential art I had done based on a dream I had. The art took the form of a graphic novel page.

It was a pretty scary and unsettling dream. It involved a lot of stairs and a lot of gray.
Here is a sketch for another panel:

It seems that painting my dreams helps me come to new levels of awareness about what is going on with me at a given time. Another part of myself speaks...to me.

Tim Burton Exhibit

This past weekend I was in NYC for a tradeshow (you can read about that here), and on Monday my friend Kim and I played hooky from responsibility and saw the Tim Burton exhibit at the MoMA. Amazing. It's on display until April 26th, so if you're in the area, go go GO see it. Of course photography isn't allowed in the exhibit, but I was able to take a couple of the outside, and I scanned in the brochure as well, so at least you'll get a taste here of what I saw. Tim Burton grew up in Burbank, CA, and attending CalArts, and must be a disturbing individual :) He was an animator for Walt Disney for four years, before breaking out on his own, and of course has had his hand in a countless number of amazing films and projects. The exhibit shows his drawings and paintings from his childhood through today, and you can see the evolution to what his style is now. There are sculptures as well - some big, some small, some of which he created himself, and some of which others did, based on his direction. The entry to the main part of the exhibit itself is a giant scary creature's mouth, and inside is a long hallway of screens, showing recent animations he's done, containing characters from his book "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories"... I happen to own this book already - its fantastic and creepy, and I think a bit Edward Gorey-ish. There are many props and puppets and storyboards and sketches and notes and letters from many of his movies including Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Big Fish, Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and even a sketch or two from the upcoming Alice in Wonderland. I loved seeing the various puppets - especially from Nightmare, and Corpse Bride.... he didn't build these himself I don't think, but it made me think how even though he seemed to have hated his time at Disney (there was one sketch there that was a statement about the Disney machine and how they seem to suck the creativity out of things) that the transformation and evolution of his ideas and storyboards and sketches, to the final puppets themselves used in the films - it gets "Disneyfied" or cleaned up itself... I wonder what he thinks about that....because his sketches are so rough and undefined. Regardless, it was an inspiring show, and I couldn't resist a souvenir from the gift shop!

The cover of the brochure:

Entrance to the main exhibit:

Me in the lobby:

Sketch from the brochure:

Sketch from the brochure:

A book from my own library:

From "...Oyster Boy..." :

My magnet souvenir: