Online I found this photograph of singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens. I always liked the picture because it has fantastic colors in it. (I'm seeing him in Portland ME soon!)
I thought it might be fun to do a quick study of it. There are so many fun parts in this photograph, I knew I would have fun. (Plus I admit I think he is oh so handsome, so I have no problem studying this photo intently whilst painting it...haha) In the photo there is a little glint of blue light hitting his teeth. Ha! that was my favorite thing to paint.
This is what I was working on when I got distracted with Sufjan: I lost some art for the book when my hard drive got ...um erased. So today I worked on making another treatment for the title page. It's slicker looking I think, but It wasn't fun having to go back and redo when I need to go forward!
Small and quick color study for a painting. It's harder to pin colors down, especially when it's a night time scene. (But they are my favorite) (double click on the image and it gets a little bigger)
Molly and her cart design Molly's house and Floral Shop burned down ( to See Her House click here ) so she sells them from a cart and wheels it into town
Azur and Asmar: The Princes Quest. Rating: ***and 1/5
I saw images from this French produced film a while ago and missed my chance to see it in theatres, so I recently Netflixed it. The promotional stills looked fabulous- gorgeous patterns and intricate color schemes adorn this Middle Eastern Fairy Tale. The colors and backgrounds in this movie are amazing. But, when I actually started watching the film I cringed for the first 15 minutes. The movie is computer animated and the figure animation is very stiff and looks like a video game. I immediately debated turning it off, but opted to start working on a project and multitask while half-listening to the story.
However, I'm really glad I started paying attention again because though it took me a while to get around the cardboardness of the characters, their voices (Arabic is such a beautiful language) and the story became very engaging.
The tale begins with a wealthy European boy Azur, being raised by an Arabic born Nanny. The nanny has a son, Asmar, and the two little boys grow immersed in two cultures- English and Arabic. (In the English dub the boy is clearly British, but I imagine it's French in the original film) The Nanny is a natural storyteller and feeds the boys tales of a quest saving a magical and beautiful "Djin Fairy." These stories captivate the boys, and both fight and quibble with each other, vowing to one day out wit the other and succeed in the quest.
Many years later, long after the Nanny is brutally swept aside and banished back to her native land, Azur's travels "far across the sea," to visit the land of his beloved caregiver and try his hand at the quest. Once he arrives, he finds that not only is he not alone in his efforts, but prejudices and superstitions stand in his way. (His blue eyes are deemed bad luck so the boy travels the countryside pretending to be blind.)
Based on a variety of Middle Eastern Fairy tales, this movie is a beautiful and simple morality tale about celebrating different cultures and the importance of sharing a worldly heritage and just plain gettin' along! (So much so that entitles state, "This film was made in Paris by filmmakers from all over the world, and we all got along!!," followed by a list of all the different nationalities of the artists.)
If you can get past the bad mouth syncing and not so graceful movements of the characters, the backgrounds, voices, story and visuals hopefully will draw you in.
My last post was in Feb! This blog is really outdated. I'm going to try to get it back on track and at least fix the html on my template and stuff...but once I start teaching again this fall I'm hoping it won't go back in to disarray. I think I will get a website going again once the book gets closer to publication, and then things will really start to heat up.
I had to take a long pause due to stinky health issues, but things are getting back on track slowly and surely.
I'm much better at updating facebook than this blog or flickr so I'll just push some of the files posted on FB and plant them here for an update!
It's been a crazy year and I have learned a lot about myself which is always a good thing.
Miranda's face has changed again a little bit but I'm not sure if I'm happy with it. She has been a very tricky portrait to pin down. I have a lot of ideas about what she should look like but I haven't quite gotten there yet!
I lost some art for the book when my hard drive got ...um erased. So today I worked on making another treatment for the title page. It's slicker looking I think, but It wasn't fun having to go back and redo when I need to go forward!
