Bouncing Baby B

AlphaBooks may be over, but my obsession with letters & text is still hopping right along! This is the first in a series of five illustrated letters that will make its proper debut next Monday. If you have been visiting this blog since around this time in 2011 you can probably guess what it's for. ;-)

I took some extreme liberties with the "B" (not to mention marsupial anatomy) in order to illustrate the word "bursiform"-- meaning shaped like a pouch.

I'll likely make some further tweaks & will post the other four images next week, but until then, I hope those of you who will be celebrating Thanksgiving this Thursday have a delectable holiday. I'm thankful to all of you who come this way!

Acrylic on text (scanned from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary) on canvas, 6" x 6"

Z is for Zaphod Beeblebrox

AlphaBooks has finally come to an end! *sob* And I'm sure I won't be the only one to ride into the sunset with Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed (and also tow-headed), three-armed, flashy-dressing President of the Galaxy in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 

In this scene, the maniacal Zaphod makes his entrance on a semicircular leather sofa floating within a 20-foot transparent globe. In case you can't make out the text: "His fair tousled hair stuck out in random directions, his blue eyes glinted with something completely unidentifiable, and his chins were almost always unshaven."

I won't say what happens next, because I hate spoilers.

But for those of you who have read the book, you'll know why the page number was particularly pleasing to me. ;-)

Acrylic on text scanned from a 1979 Pocket Paperback, ~ 7" x 4.5" In addition to the "zequined" jacket, I attempted to manhandle his two right arms into something resembling a zed.

And with that, AlphaBooks is over! Goodbye, & thanks for all the fish! I still hope to fill in a few gaps to complete the alphabet, but you can see what I've done so far here. And some of us AlphaBooks regulars are currently planning a new project to begin in the new year. In the meantime I have a personal series underway that I'll be posting soon, so stay tuned!

Y is for You!

My penultimate entry for AlphaBooks is a bit of a departure from the usual format. It comes from Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, one of my all-time favorite books. In essence it is a book about books, about reading, about the way fiction intertwines with life. Every other chapter in the book is written in the second person, making you, the reader, one of the main characters in the novel.

Once I hit on this concept, I was stumped about how to illustrate it, until it occurred to me to make the book itself the focus, essentially a reader's-eye view. It may take a little imagination to see a "Y" shape in the hand position, but it's the best I could do!

Acrylic on scanned image of a 1979 Harcourt paperback edition, ~ 11" x 8"

JackOWLantern

I do love Halloween-- after all, it is the oddest of holidays! To paraphrase Dickens, I honor Halloween in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. But especially today, of course!

I'll add an illuminated nocturnal view of the JackOWLantern tonight, once I get home from a Halloween Hoop Jam in the park, with costumes. Oh boy, I just can't wait! What are your plans for the evening?

Happy Halloween to all! Oh, & check out ArtBizBlog today-- along with some great advice about artists' fears, you may see a familiar skeleton monster creeping by! :-)

Edit: As promised, the JackOWLantern in its nocturnal glory. :-) Sorry, no photos from the Hoop Jam, but it was great!

X is for Xaphania

This week's entry for AlphaBooks is the leader of the rebel angels, from The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman. I love Pullman's trilogy (His Dark Materials-- my series "Her Odd Materials" is a tribute of sorts). I'm especially grateful that he created an "X" character so I could squeeze this in before AlphaBooks ends! Xaphania is both ancient & young, radiant & forbidding... she plays a pivotal role in the book, but it would be something of a spoiler to specify.

I have to say this one was quite a challenge, & I'm not really happy with it, but at least I tried to work in a few "X"s with the wing forms & crossed limbs & digits. And yes, in case you were wondering, all angels appear naked in this book.

Acrylic on text ~5" x 8" with some Photoshopical tweakings. The text is mostly obliterated, but here's a pinch of it that I particularly like:

And if you help everyone else in your worlds to do that, by helping them to learn and understand about themselves and each other and the way everything works, and by showing them how to be kind instead of cruel, and patient instead of hasty, and cheerful instead of surly, and above all how to keep their minds open and free and curious… 

W is for Walter Mitty

This week's entry for AlphaBooks & IF is the protagonist of James Thurber's classic short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The quintessential daydreamer, Walter goes about his daily tasks in a mild-mannered, dutiful, non-confrontational way, but in his head he is the bold, dashing hero of countless exciting adventures.

I've always loved this story, despite its mildly misogynistic slant, because it captures so well the double life (or multiple lives, really!) of the daydreamer. And yes, I am one of that breed, in case you couldn't guess. Not quite in Walter Mitty mode, but still I'm a firm believer that dreams of all sorts make any life more interesting!

Acrylic on text imported from Zoëtrope, where you can read the entire story online, ~5" x 8"

I can't believe we're so near to the end of the alphabet! I wonder what will be next. Here are all my entries to date-- there are still a few gaps I hope to fill at some point.

V is for Violet Beauregarde

This week's entry for AlphaBooks is one of the anti-heroes of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In this scene her gum-chewing jones becomes her undoing as she greedily chaws down on an experimental product, & the blueberry flavor turns out to have a serious glitch...

No, I didn't do this in blueberry ink! Once was more than enough for that experiment. This time I used artificial blueberry in the form of acrylic. ;-)

I had a hard time figuring out how to work in the "V" until I realized I could just play up one garment feature. Do you see it?

George Washington Zombie

I'm running late again with AlphaBooks because I spent too much time fooling around with this horrible little Oddment! It's a ceramic doll-head of GW that I picked up at the Fleam some time ago, and, inspired by CreepyGlowbugg, I decided it was high time to zombify him.

First I did a little deconstructive surgery with Sculpey to give him a bulging eye & drooping lip.

Then I gave him a base coat of acrylic. I thought the green back of the greenback would make some pretty sweet zombie skin, so I scanned one & tore it to bits to collage nearly all of his skin. (I especially like the way his chest ended up reading "One Doll.")

I let all that dry overnight before adding the finishing touches with acrylic.

I wonder what GW would make of the current election process if he really did rise from the grave this Halloween?

U is for Urquhart McVarish

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts stumped me at first-- not too many "U" characters out there, & I have a personal rule for this series that I'm only going to do books that I've read & enjoyed. But then I remembered Robertson Davies' The Rebel Angels, featuring the devious Urquhart McVarish, manuscript thief & all-around nasty schemer. The book is a dark take on academic life, part of a trilogy on themes of art, music & letters, religion, skepticism & tarot-reading, along with many other philosophical musings. I found it quite entertaining, although my favorite Davies novel remains Fifth Business.

In this scene Urky has stolen a manuscript by Rabelais & I tried to suggest the master's signature, very loosely based on a letter in which he signs his name in the Latin form, Rabelesus (obligingly including a "u"), but please don't try to make sense of my Latinoid scribbles otherwise! Also, I couldn't really remember Urky's physical description, so forgive me if I'm way off-- I just didn't have time to reread the whole book.

I did my best to make the whole figure (including ms.) form a certain letter, though... do "u" see it? ;-)

Acrylic on text scanned from a 1983 Penguin paperback.

T is for Toad

If you are here from Illustration Friday, you may not know about AlphaBooks, the group drawing project run by Rich Barrett, Andrew Neal & Ben Towle.

AlphaBooks is the name of the game. We will be drawing ficitonal characters from books every week - one for each letter of the alphabet. On the first day (Monday, May 21), everyone will draw characters whose names start with the letter “A.”  The following monday, we’ll draw characters whose names start with the letter “B.” And so on! 


If you'd like to submit your own artwork to the project, please join us! It's loads of fun. You can jump in late with any letter you like so long as you don't go ahead of the game.

My entry for AlphaBooks this week is one of the main characters in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. This is a classic children's tale that tells of the gentle, rural pursuits of Badger, Mole & Ratty... & then there's Mr. Toad. A bit of a spoiled-frat-boy type, he's obsessed with the latest must-have technology, which at the time was the motorcar. His headstrong ways lead to all sorts of misadventures, but his loyal, patient friends always save the day.

Acrylic on text scanned from a 1969 Yearling paperback, ~ 5.5"x8.5" Do you see all the "T"s?

Book Preview!

For a long time I thought I might not live to see the day that this book finally became real, but I have an advance copy on my desk, so I guess it is happening! Below it is the original acrylic painting for the cover.
It should be available sometime in October!

Voracious

This is an older painting (created for my local library), but I haven't posted it on this blog before, & by a curious coincidence, I just added it to my Etsy shop yesterday! (Prints of it, that is, by special request.)

Once again Illustration Friday seems to be reading my mind. ;-) Although, come to think of it, nearly any of my paintings would fit the "book" prompt-- especially the AlphaBooks series!

Acrylic on maps & text on canvas, 12" x  24"

R is for Riddley Walker

This week's entry for AlphaBooks is the eponymous hero of Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker.

This is a highly original book, not so much for its post-apocalyptic plot, but for its language, a unique dialect (& spelling) of English that takes a while to get used to, but once you do, it works its way into your brain & never quite lets go! Many many years after my first reading of Riddley, there are phrases from the book that still pop into my head at unexpected moments. (Arga warga!)

That first reading was a magical thing, by the way: I read the entire book by candlelight during a power outage caused by a hurricane. I'm sure the serendipitous setting contributed to the power Riddley holds over me, but even if you read it on a Kindle in a fluorescent-lit room, I think you'll still find the mysterious, smoky, quasi-medieval world Hoban creates to be an absorbing place to spend your time.

Sneak Peek

Guess what this is? Those of you who have been following Oddments for a while may recognize some of the elements... more to come soon!

Q is for Queequeg

This week's entry for AlphaBooks probably needs no introduction, but in case you haven't gotten around to reading Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Queequeg is the tattooed Polynesian harpooner who befriends the narrator (a.k.a. Ishmael) in the opening chapters of the book. Though at first Ishmael is fearful of the "savage cannibal," he quickly comes to admire & trust him, as well he might, because Queequeg is definitely a mensch!

Given his strength as a character, his striking visuals & the fact that there aren't a whole lot of "Q" characters to choose from, I'm betting there will be a slew of Queequegs in this week's AlphaBooks! I'm looking forward to the Queequeg parade.

I actually remembered to throw in a few "Q"s in the illo this time-- last week I was so rushed that I completely forgot to "P"! ;-) I'll have to go back & tweak that one when I fill out the alphabet.

Acrylic on text scanned from a 1992 Modern Library edition (with the wonderful Rockwell Kent illustrations), ~ 5.75" x 8.75"

P is for Percival Bartlebooth

I'm back in the AlphaBooks game after yet another lapse. Apologies to all for my recent spottiness-- I will fill in the gaps one of these days! This week's character is the somewhat maddening figure at the heart of Georges Perec's Life A User's Manual. 

I have a weakness for novels that knit together many concurrent threads of a certain time & place, capturing seemingly infinite subtleties from multiple angles, & Life is like that-- & then some. A puzzle of a book in many respects, it tells the story of an apartment block in Paris, including all of its rooms & residents, & though the plot doesn't proceed in the usual chronological fashion, it has a logic all its own.

Today's character, Percival Bartlebooth, can't decide what to do with his life & wealth until he hits on a curious & deliberately useless scheme: he will first spend 10 years learning to paint, then travel the world for 20 years painting watercolors at every port, which he will have converted to jigsaw puzzles by his neighbor in the apartment block. Then he will spend the next 20 years working the puzzles, removing the images from their backing, returning to the place where he painted the original painting, & washing off the paint to reveal once again the blank watercolor paper.

His odd & obsessive life story is but one of many that weave through this prodigiously inventive book. I urge you to give it a read. It's certainly not for everyone, but in me it provokes a very particular sort of mad fascination.

Acrylic on reversed jigsaw puzzle pieces & text (scanned from a 1987 Godine paperback, translation by David Bellos-- a revised edition is now available) ~6"x9"