The Grind

New year, new groove. Tomorrow I go back to RISD and the next day, Wintersession starts. Wintersession is six weeks of elective classes, and it's meant to be a kind of break. I'm taking a painting course and a film course and will maybe be looking for ways to be a bit more enterprising than I've been in the past months. In old news: I think I promised to show some more work of mine, so here is a drawing from my first semester drawing class, and a link to all of my assignments from that class. Some are more conventional, and some are experimental to varying degrees. My work from other classes is not so well organized so I may take a while on that.

oh and they are all like 12 square feet at least


http://www.flickr.com/photos/claralieu/sets/72157627607103959/

Life has been good, except for Alec being trapped thousands of miles away all the time. There's always the internet anyway. Above all, I am excited for 2012. And if it's the last year of human existence, it had better be a good one.

Happy new years!
-Daniel

Oh ya and alec's album roxx

Birdthings

This post will be good for you if you're not big on reading, but you are big on looking at kind of weird pictures.

Hey! I'm not going to lie, I'm get pretty stoked every time I look at these pictures. I recently grabbed a Moleskine sketchbook, because I felt like I had too much money and I wanted to have none. I like the color of the paper and I guess it's stimulated my creativity gland, because on Monday, I came up with this fella:

Well, he's a little rough, and I tend to like to replicate and perfect the stuff I draw, so after a page of failures, I came up with these two:

click to enlarge

I know there are some flaws, but I really like these bird-mole things, and I think I will try coloring them. Related: I recently figured that wet acrylics look kind of like watercolors, so I will be experimenting with that. One last guy:

click to enlarge

He's definitely the most complex of the group. Again, there are some flaws, but I think it shows that he's the most recent one. I say this a lot, but I really hope you like these.

-Daniel

Marc Johns

Evidently, I'm a few years late for the Marc Johns buzz train, but he is most certainly not to be overlooked. Johns is a Canadian graphic designer, but he's mostly known for his drawings. I say drawings rather than illustrations because they are far simpler, and often rely as strongly on the words as the pictures to deliver ideas. Like many artists, he draws his inspiration from the ambient elements of his existence, and supplements the raw input with dry wit and a strong imagination. He almost exclusively uses pens with watercolors or highlighters. Their subtlety helps to create the quietness of his drawings without detracting from how much they say about the silliness of the world.

Sometimes he isn't saying much, and that's part of the beauty of his work; if you're browsing through his gallery, you get into an analytical mindset, and every once in a while a something like this one will catch you by surprise. Johns' pictures are not the prettiest things I've written about, but I find that they speak a lot more clearly than anything else I've posted. They really make me think and feel things, and absorb me in ways that very few artists can match. As you can see, his style is super simple, yet very distinct, largely due to the alien sorts of subjects he uses. I don't know if I would call him a uniquely talented illustrator in the classical sense, but I believe he is smart as hell and draws splendidly without technical complexity. That being said, he is good at drawing antlers and sweaters.

He's done a number of interviews, and his work can be found in various locations on the internets and in the physical world. He's got a book out - H is for Holy Crap. I wouldn't say he's a hidden treasure to the extent that some of my other posts have been, but he's quite the treasure nonetheless. And in parting:

-Daniel

Inspiration

Or maybe it's restlessness. At any rate, my art anxiety has driven me to decide to try to make either some kind of comic or animation. Right now, I'm leaning towards a comic. At any rate, for the first time in a while, I am earnestly busy (thinly veiled excuse for my spotty posting.) While the picture above isn't fantastic, I'm pretty happy with the style and I've been drawing a lot of things like it.

In order to make this post feel more legitimate, I'm going to talk a bit about what's been inspiring and influencing me. Stylistically, my recent stuff is looking a lot like a new cartoon that's coming to the Cartoon Network, and if you've seen it, you will know what I'm referring to.

Adventure Time's the name and I'm trying not to be too similar to what the creator Penn Ward is drawing. If I decide to comic, I think the similarities will become less noticeable, and will mostly amount to hats and bendy limbs.

A video worth watching:

Adventure Time!

There are other sources of inspiration that I think will not really manifest outside of a comic or animation. I like the idea of using historical events as settings, and working in Norse mythology, which tends to be rather silly in a very hardcore way. In an effort to avoid seeming preachy, I think Calvin and Hobbes can serve as a very effective model of what to do and more importantly, what not to do when trying to achieve subtlety. The humor of Flapjack, as well as its renditions of classic archetypes are both very interesting, and will probably emerge in any stories I come up with. Finally, while I am unsure how it will show itself, I feel the Katamari franchise will have influenced me strongly enough, either with its music, humor, or art direction, to appear in some yet unknown way, but that stands to be revealed later.

Here's a gift to you: Katamari Tunes!

-Love, Daniel

EDIT: Oh yeah, and Kate Beaton!