Archive for category Aesthetics
Labor Day Weekend Recap
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About on September 7, 2010
Friday:
- Extended bike ride through some areas of the Vasona trail I had not scoped out before
- Dinner at B & Vine to commence the unwinding process; a nice bottle of Malbec and a lot of bruscetta. Given its affordability and food/wine selection, its a local winner. Just watch out for nights where they don’t have the jazz trio, as they allow some guy who looks like a cross between W.C. Fields and a Furby to sing very badly arranged cover tunes.
Saturday:
- Finally saw the Expendables. Good, insane, action-movie fun. No complex plots and subtexts…just a lot of dudes punching, shooting and blowing things up while evading swarms of bullets, other explosions, and buildings falling over (mostly from explosions). Highlights include Mickey Rourke being himself, and any scene that Terry Crews does or says anything.
- Picked up the Bill Bruford autobiography I had been wanting to read for a while. So far, it is a really enjoyable read.
- Dinner at Contigo, which included some of the best porcine edibles ever, a bottle of Los Bermejos from the Canary Islands, and Blue Bottle coffee ice cream.
Sunday:
- Went biking around urban areas, tried to by an Evo 4G (out of stock), picked up some wearables at the local mall (life is too short to look shabby) and some taiyaki at Sweet Breams (life is too short to eat badly). Of note, the proprietor of SB now has a Kozik toy in the store that she has named Poirot. I find this amusing, and wonder how many people grok the reference…when I ask her she says “so far, you’re it.”
- Dinner at Zucca in Mountain View. Lots of fish going on (mostly salmon and mussels). Male host was exceptionally lame (weird, curt fellow with a penchant for mumbling while surly). His female following act was much better; cordial, pleasant, and good pronunciation skills.
Monday:
- Swam.
- Read.
- Lounged.
- Did not labor. At all. Whatsoever.
Datapusher “Less Stress” Mix
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Sounds on September 6, 2010
The description is that it’s “melodic drum n bass” but I am not sure what that really means. What it sounds like, is a submerged, floating world of synth layers and stalking beats. Includes cuts by Makoto, Seba, Hobzee, and Silent Witness among many in the nearly two dozen selections Datapusher mixes together for this set.
Work in Progress: Xiao
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts on August 23, 2010
A quartet of iterations, with the first likely release still a bit off. It’s Xiao (aka Debra Beretta)
Barefootage
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts, linkedin on August 23, 2010
The remaining pieces are up at the Barefoot Coffee Bar, and so far the response has been positive. Thanks to Steven Lorenzen for his coordination (and banter on the merits of various Linux distros) this go around, and to Kate Saturday for always having been a keen supporter and easy person to work with.
Pictured here is some extra shots of the second wall I occupy, the bars in house phonograph (which I am far more impressed with than you might suspect) and some developmental pieces that almost made it onto the walls.
Developmental sketch: Danielle
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts on August 18, 2010
The advantage of having worked at an art community site is that you can do things like doodle your former boss (in this case, the head of A&R at DevArt, Danielle Ward) and you don’t get in trouble or funny looks for it.
Done with an unknown brand of Japanese brush pen on Wausau 96 pound off-white bristol. This will definitely evolve over time, as I have a few ideas on the next layers of media that will go on this.
Sketch: Mark Holub of Led Bib
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Sounds, Visual Arts on August 15, 2010
I was reading a great one page write up in Jazzwise about how the In a Silent Way album by Miles Davis changed drummer Mark Holub’s life (it changed mine as well, hence the interest). The profile image is this campy number of him with a newsboy cap and an unlit pipe that I started working from.
I did not get very far, but it was a brief but fun diversion. Ballpoint pen, Tombo brush pens, some gouache, and a small amount of color touch-up in PS CS3.
BTW, his band Led Bib, is really a great bit of electric jazz-rock noise that deserve your attentive ears.
Outside Lands
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Out and About, Pop Culture, Sounds on August 15, 2010
Day One
- Missed watching The Pimps of Joytime (even though I wore pants most suited to such an occasion) and only heard the last moments of Gogol Bordello (but those moments were very full of win mind you).
- Lunch was from Farmer Brown’s Little Skillet: fried chicken, waffle, red velvet cupcake. Not very healthy, but that is not what you at that for.
- A mint mojito iced coffee from Philz. I do not usually do coffee any way beyond plain black, but this was a pleasant departure.
- Dessert came in the form of a bittersweet chocolate number from Three Twins Ice Cream.
- The Rebirth Brass Band was quite impressive, including a cover of LeVert’s Casanova that goes well beyond the arrangement limitations of the original. The growth of a kind of regional sub-genre in New Orleans that merges second line jazzy brass with hip-hop and soul inflections is something anyone can enjoy casually, and for more studied ears brings new things with additional listens. Not sure if I like these guys as much as Youngblood Brass, but they are pretty close.
- Big surprise discovery for me was Beats Antique; part burlesque/belly dancing sideshow, part electronica meets middle-eastern expedition (think electric oud, clarient and accordion in the lineup), part percussive dance party, all awesome.
- Dinner was some “Argentinian BBQ” from Primo’s Parilla, and it was mad good. This was followed by more coffee -this time plain black, this time from Sabores del Sur.
- Wolfmother was ok, but oddly reminded me of Billy Squier live a lot, but when they did a cover of Riders on the Storm by The Doors they really came alive.
- Tokyo Police Club surprised me; they are still a tad dull in terms of stage presence but they sound much better live than they do on record.
- Bassnectar; not a lot to see, but you can certainly feel the vibe (mostly from the low end) they bring to an event. I love dirty, skeezy synth bass and monolithic breakbeats, and they provided an ample amount of both.
- Thanks to my buddy Vishal for the ride back into town and for hanging out during part of the Cat Power and The Strokes gigs.
- Outside the venue were scads of very haggard hippy wannabes selling “Ganja Candies” and the like. These people look less likely to “Make Love Not War” and more like “Make Scam, And Run”. Smelly little patchouli punks.
Day Two
- Only stayed a few hours; both K and I were pretty tired from yesterday I suppose, and just didn’t have the gusto for a full second day of OL.
- Al Green was a bit of a disappointment, with the venue just not suited to the kind of soul revue he does best. Singing tunes like Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman wasn’t what we came for either. When he did sing though, it is safe to say that the Reverend still has chops and knows how to take the stage.
- Chromeo was excellent. Pat Gemayel’s use of the talkbox may put him as the only true sonic heir to Roger Troutman (and I am not saying that casually).
- Phoenix sounded quite good, as did Garage a Trois (the latter of which really comes off as some strain of Zappa meets the MC5 meets Ornette Coleman on major psychoactive drugs) which I kind of ex[pected. The surprises were how engaging The Temper Trap were and Janelle Monae wasn't (she also was annoyingly late). Amusingly, the very diva-esque Monae was later spotted in full regalia roving past us on the back of a dusty golf cart. It was an interesting juxtapositioning of random with WTF.
- Tacos from El Huarache Loco, jambalaya from Anchor & Hope, and more Philz coffee. All good, son.
- Sadly, I left the storage card for my camera back home, and have no images from the second day. Ah well...
DevArt 10th Bash
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on August 10, 2010
The Missus and I left for Los Angeles late Friday evening and arrived at our hotel room sometime just before 3AM. Sleep came quickly, and morning involved a slow start and meandering pace up through lunch.
Speaking of lunch; to the woman who was our waitress…your perfunctory service suited our needs, but whatever weird eyeliner you had made you look like a heroin-addicted raccoon. Stop that.
Arriving at the House of Blues shortly after opening we were greeted secondly by my old boss, Danie, but first by Llamas. Not Lorenzo…just llamas. Two of them.
To be honest, I was much happier to be greeted by Danie, but the llamas were ok too. Got nothing against llamas, but Danie is a lot more likable, and she doesn’t spit arbitrarily.
While there were several panels, the one that I thought was the most significant was the public debut of Muro. A month ago I was at the DA HQ and got a sneak-peek at it with Angelo and Zack and I was floored. That being said, the polish and final additions they put in that months time were notable, and the final product is -and I am not prone to saying things like this often- something that changes the landscape not just a bit.
Seeing Stanley Lau do a quick demo with it also made me want to pull out my Pepper developmental sketches and complete at least one of them, maybe via Muro.
Most of the Bash was spent just catching up with old friends, and making new ones. I had not seen Danie or Richard or Bryan in ages (at the DevArt Summit at the Palladium in 2005), and I finally got to meet Keir and Stykera (who I now know is a fellow fan of Andy Patridge).
We ate “dinner” (read: bar food) with Spot, Penguino and Silvein, and cruised the floor running into ever more interesting folks (which admitedly is kind of expected and part of the reason you go in the first place). Also, nice to meet y’all (Mel, Rin, and anyone I may be missing).
The entire House of Blues was under DA control, and it was laid out with art and tools to make art (as it should be), with print galleries, Muro-stations (including a few using the Wacom Cintiqs) and an arts & crafts room. Of note, the third floor VIP Lounge is an amazing place with really cool crown moulding and stained glass. This was a great venue to have this kind of party in.
It was an incredibly well planned and executed little soiree. Kudos to everyone involved and my own thanks to everyone who attended. I still feel like DA is a real “social network” of people with a core set of interests (instead of just an aggregation of stuff), and I still feel like it has much more to offer than any of the comparable options available.
Looking forward to the eleventeenth bash.
Of note; spent the taxi ride home talking with the cabby (Armenian apparently) who really hated Turks and felt compelled to tell me about it in lurid detail. There was also something about St. Sargis, Kurds, and the beauty of the Russian language. I was not inebriated, however he may have been.
Also of note -and I wish I took a picture of it- was a huge sign on the freeway with a phone number and the words “I NEED DIRT“. Now realize this was in an agricultural area. There is lots of dirt there. I am wondering if the fellow with the sign just expects some random dude to call him and exclaim “NOW do I have some plenty heapin’ good dirt for ya!” or maybe “Sir, I do believe I may be -as a classy purveyor of fine soil products- be able to provision you with the dirt you seek.” but the sign was very LOL. Seriously, how do you arrive at the point in your life where you need to announce that, with your phone number attached, on a large sign at the shoulder of a major traffic artery.
Random Bits for 2010-08-09
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Out and About on August 10, 2010
Dinner and a local jazz trio at the CODA supperclub (they took my request for some Headhunters), a bird caught during the morning commute, and one of my more recent works printed door-size.
@Barefoot Coffee Bar this Month
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Out and About, Pop Culture, Visual Arts, linkedin on August 5, 2010
While I have been suffering some logistical snafus all around, I managed to get part of a display up at Barefoot this evening.
I’ll be showing all of August, and I may rotate some pieces out midstream (I will definitely be adding some more in later next week), with most of the work being more recent items, as well as some developmental sketches.
VoTD: Rita Redshoes
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Sounds, Visual Arts on July 31, 2010
A Portuguese artist that sings primarily in English, Rita Redshoes (aka Rita Pereira) has a fun, earthy alt-pop sound.
The video has some quirky choreography that reminds me of stuff Toni Basil may have done in the 80s.
Album review: Vernon Reid – Mistaken Identity
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Sounds on July 30, 2010
I wrote this initially a long time ago for my original music blog, but figured I’d report it here and clean up a few formatting errors (and add a picture).
Vernon Reid
Mistaken Identity
1996 Sony550/Epic
Produced by Prince Paul, Teo Macero & Vernon Reid
Personnel:
Vernon Reid – guitars (both real and imagined), whispering
Masque:
Don Byron – clarinet, bass clarinet
DJ Logic – turntables
Leon Gruenbaum – samchillian tip tip tip cheeepeee, theremin, melodica
Curtis Watts – drums
Hank Schroy – bass, fretless bass
Additional personnel:
Lawrence Fishburne, Sekou Sundiata – spoken word
Graham Haynes – cornet
The Crazy Baldheads – percussion
Beans, Chubb Rock – raps
When I first picked up and listened to Mistaken Identity, I had been anxious for years. The album was Vernon’s debut with his name only on the marquis, and it had been delayed over 2 years. Rumors were few, because no one had any idea what on earth he had planned. By the time it made it to shelves, no one knew what to do with it.
Had this type of album been released in 1969-1970, it would have been placed on the same footing as Bitches Brew or A Tribute To Jack Johnson, by Miles Davis. This album is a colossal explosion of power, a calamity of finesse, and an atomization of primal force suited up in the finest arrangements.
It was also an album released to no promotion, by an artist who had been laying very low for a few years, and in the beginning of the era that we have now in terms of the music industry: if we do not know how to categorize it, we will ignore it.
And no one would have known what the hell this thing is. I love this album, have listened to it from every perspective, and still have my doubts as to what it really is.
Just looking at the line-up, you have a mix of some of NYCs finest underground avant-garde jazz and funk players, some serious heavy hitters in the production chairs, and a cross section of stylists brought together into one mans kaleidoscopic musical tour de force. No style or method was taboo, and nothing was played safe. This album is one of the 10 greatest albums in my collection of thousands, and is one of the top 5 of the 1990s as far as I am concerned.
Vernon came off the then dissolution of his band Living Colour, and took fragments of what he had done within LC (as well as his various session work and his stints in bands like Defunkt and Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society) and produced a form of Attention Deficit inspired sound collage and frenetic collisions of spiralling aural chaos. This is an album for someone that wants to sample all the sections of the music store in one go, but in a way that everything works.
This album works, both in that many tracks work on their own, but that in their wildly divergent characters, they actually produce a rather interesting collective result. It is King Crimson and James Brown and Bad Brains and DJ Shadow and Nirvana and Eric Dolphy and Zappa and Blaxploitation films and Stanley Kubrick musically interpreted paranoia and the kitchen sink and some of the adjacent plumbing as well as the main line back to the city resovoir. There is some underground hip hop, campy spoken word interludes, biting situational skits (including one as a bonus track), strange noises, serrated riffing, angular solos and the only time that clarinet and industrial have been melded in a way that works. This is the ultimate indie album.
The album was never followed up with a successor. Vernon’s sophomore album, while very impressive in its own right, was a much more straight ahead, linear affair. The closest you get to a natural heir to this is his debut under the Yohimbe Bros. moniker (with DJ Logic oddly enough), Front End Lifter.
…me.Works in Progress
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Out and About, Visual Arts on July 19, 2010
So, I have my slot for next month at Barefoot, and want a lot of new stuff to be there; trying to finish as many random things that have been floating for week and months (and in a few cases years) in the next two weeks.
Inception
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Film, Out and About, Pop Culture on July 18, 2010
10 observations about Inception
1. It isn’t as original and groundbreaking and cerebral as Bladerunner, as jarringly flashy as The Matrix, or as epic as almost any Kurosawa film, but it borrows all the right elements from all of those and gives us what is possibly the most intriguing film of the decade.
2. The casting of this film is the best outsized cast since Soderberg made the Ocean’s franchise work magic. DiCaprio may be the leading man, but it’s the net chemistry of this ensemble that makes the film work so well. Some are obvious; Ken Watanabe commands attention in any scene he is in, and Tom Hardy is a complete scene stealer, and even smaller roles -Pete Postelwaite stands out- are properly defined and portrayed. But Ellen Page is a great foil as a female who is talented and intelligent but not set into the Angelina Jolie uber-babe or the totally helpless naif, and Cillian Murphy as the neutral hue of eveyone’s interest were unexpected yet exactly appropriate. Even Tom Berenger, whose presence was a total surprise, was suited to his part.
3. Moving from #2, Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are bound for great things. Those guys are serious contenders for being new iterations of of Pitt, DiCaprio or Ledger.
4. The literal tone of the film; I rarely see films with subdued color palettes look right. The Book of Eli and Children of Men were rare examples used correctly in a dry, bleak way. Inception does the opposite and makes every scene seem both crystalline in its clarity yet very lush. This is a truly beautiful film without just being insane eye candy.
5. It isn’t complex for it’s own sake and it doesn’t insult the viewers intelligence. That is an amazing feat by itself.
6. It is the first film that makes me want to go back to the theater and see it again right away. That is rare. Part of that has to do with the possibility that I could reinterpret different parts of the film differently even though I’ve seen it already.
7. The film was way too overhyped. That is not to say this isn’t an epic, amazing film, but that what it was portrayed to be was a standard no one could meet (or arguably should meet). A film cannot be so many things to so many people without suffering depth or breadth. Instead we get a compacting of what is generally accepted working for major blockbusters and wrapped in layers of interesting stuff. Some of it is quite inventive and the film should stand by its own defined territory.
8. Michael Caine, even if he only speaks a handful of lines, is a pimp. The man can do no wrong.
9. I like that the use of CGI was kept to a minimum, and when it was used, it was seamless. It felt so natural in the way it helped the viewer suspend disbelief that my normal habit of pondering all the ‘faults’ I was actually fully immersed in the alternate realities director Christopher Nolan constructs and reshapes almost arbitrarily.
10. Inception does not need a sequel, but it deserves follow ups in more films that try to do something other than bombard the senses with expensive retinal amphetamines or dull the senses with rehashing old franchises or making insipid rom-coms or anything with Dane Cook (who frankly should never be allowed in front of a camera or microphone ever again).
Work in Progress: Jesidangerously
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts on July 16, 2010
Just something I got around to beginning to rework from a previous attempt (at least a year ago).
Ryuichi Sakamoto – Out of Noise
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Sounds, Visual Arts on July 14, 2010
I have had this on rotation intermittently since it was first released, and it occupies a really nice pivot in the relentless explorations of Sakamoto. It bears earmarks of his cinematic scores in spots, the minimalism of his collaborations with Alva Noto, and even some of the more subdued moments he has recorded with David Sylvian, but it sits well as its own statement.
The opening nine minute Hibari is an almost Steve Reichian bit of taking a seemingly simple motif and repeating it with never ending subtle variations until it takes on a melancholic kind of pulse. A lot of the electronic drones and washes have a certain grit that prevents any new-age flatness. If anything, the lushness is hidden behind a thin veil of the aforementioned austerity. Closing track Composition 0919 is also very Reich-like, but is arguably the only aggressive, staccato cut, and it closes the album.
Depending on how your ears arrive at it, this album could be music for nocturnes, or a soundtrack for elegaic winter mornings. In the Red really made me think of the latter; like it’s something I should have playing while drinking black coffee while looking out a window into a gray morning near the shore of some rainy beach.
Tama is the closest that the album comes to something sounding more sinister and menacing than sad or plaintive. It is held together by a lot of found sounds and minor key swells, and it would be very suitable for a David Lynch film.
For all its austerity, I find myself never getting irritated or bored with Out of Noise; the tone of his piano performances, and the fluidity of his phrasing is some of the best in his long career. The arrangements he chooses are emotive and rich, even when at the most ambient and seemingly ready to dissipate moments. Some of the emotional capital is tucked in loosely under pithy, occasionally scattered snippets of sounds and pads. It is graceful music, sometimes -I find shortsightedly- called “cinematic” (a term seemingly used by most others for tunes that people think belong in an art film but aren’t symphonic/classical enough for their tastes otherwise) when really its probably better to say that under the right environment, it becomes narrative music, making you tell a story to yourself…out of the noise.
Jojo Mayer v2
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Sounds, Visual Arts on July 9, 2010
This one may end up colored/painted/thrashed or I may leave it this way; I started drawing one head shot and then scads of hand/stick/drum/cymbals to overlay but so far this is the only configuration that has worked.
This is Jojo Mayer, who is probably the greatest technically accomplished drummer since Buddy Rich,and whose musical span is pretty wide: Screaming Headless Torsos, Nerve, Me’Shell Ndegeocello and others, covering an approach that is both hypertechnical, yet accessible and not overtly flashy.
Here is a sample of Nerve: [link]
And here with Depart: [link]
A Stone on the Corner
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Out and About, Pop Culture, Sounds on July 8, 2010
Halfway down the first leg of my commute on the Vasona trail last week, I burst my back tire and had to hoof it to the Lightrail station. But before I got there, I sidetracked on a whim to On The Corner Records, where they had stacks of vinyl and cd’s from a purging at college radio station KSCU (Santa Clara University).
As I filleted through the selections, I noticed the person the proprietor was having a conversation with sounded very familiar. So familiar I felt compelled to wedge into the exchange and “ask a stupid question”…was he who I thought he sounded like?
It was, in fact, exactly who I thought it was…Greg Stone.
Yes, Greg Stone, of Stone Trek, was hanging out at On The Corner. Stone Trek was the radio show I listened to uninterrupted the longest; from about the age of 12 to my early 20s, I gorged once a week on a buffet of prog and jazz-fusion, which included my first exposure to bands like Giraffe, Marillion, King Crimson, Gamelon and Allan Holdsworth. Greg seemed to know everyone in those scenes and could get them to visit and/or play unreleased or bootleg material regularly. Somewhere I still have a live version of Giraffe’s This Warm Night on a TDK cassette that I consider a personal favorite, recorded off his radio show, as well as bootleg GTR, and other esoterica.
We ended up talking for the better part of an hour about his salad days at KOME, the more recent run at KFOX (abruptly brought to a close for reasons that make no sense, since he was #1 in his time slot for rock stations in the area) and about random bands like Pete Bardens, Genesis, and Kevin Gilbert.
It was one of those really strange moments when someone you listened to religiously on the radio -no face to the voice for all those years- all of a sudden materializes in a rather startling way. In a cool way actually, but nonetheless totally randomly.
New illustration: Mekanixa – Miss Boux v5
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on July 6, 2010
Steampunkish robotic fun.
I still do not think I am done with this, but I want to work on the other variant I have on the desk (as well as a few other working pieces, including one for a friend’s home)
This is a radically reworked bit of biomechanical madness, with the reference model being Andrea Boux.
I would not have even gone down this route initially, as I planned to do a more traditional portraiture, but when I noticed the electrical socket on the wall of the ref image, my head kind of wandered in this direction.
pencil, acrylic ink, gouache, granulation medium & some digital post processing.
Giant Robot needs You
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on July 5, 2010
I don’t buy very issue, but I have been a spot reader of Giant Robot (along with Hi-Fructose and Juxtapose) for many years. The print business is a tough one, and GR is in need of some love.
Work in Progress: Miss Boux
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts on July 3, 2010
This has two tracks it could go (and I may fork the main image and do both along parallel lines) and the reference is Andrea Boux. This is basically a pencil + processing in Inkscape and PS to play with certain lineweight/color combinations.
VoTD: Afghan Whigs – Debonair
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Sounds on June 27, 2010
Just because Ty Wenzel reminded me recently of how good Dulli & Co were one of the highlights of the 1990s. This was their first appearance on Conan. For more, hit up Last.fm
The Darkest Birds 2010-06-26 v4
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts on June 27, 2010
As previously hinted at here, I have ‘finished’ an iteration of The Darkest Birds.
The title comes from a song and lyric:
Here come the darkest birds. They’ve got their reasons
This uses acrylic ink, acrylic paint, pigma microns, an iridescent black ink that later proved to be a problem, water-soluable colored pencils, gouache, pro-white on 96 pound bristol + PS CS3.
This is also the first image I worked through almost exclusively in 600 DPI range. Prior to this, for the last 7 years or so, the max size I could work with comfortably (and even then I pushed it) was images scanned at 300 DPI. This new workstation (8GB of RAM and a large swap partition and a 64-bit OS) is exactly what I was needing.
There is also another WIP pubbed here.
Vinyl Remix: Leonard Froen
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on June 20, 2010
I’ve been tooling around with a lot of abstracts, but took a weekend break to finish something that had been lying around for at least 5-6 months (basically about once every other week I’d work on it for about 10 minutes before bed…getting nowhere slowly. Then I just kind of sped things up the past few days.
I have this habit of doodling afro-clad people in my notebooks, memos, margins of napkins (even on the tablecloths at certain restaurants, like this) and in this case, I kind of merged that habit to the head of revered songwriter and rather peculiar-voiced Leonard Cohen.
The 1967 album this was sourced from has been effectively obliterated under acrylic ink, acrylic paint, alcohol-based Posca pens, gouache, Pentel brush nib pens, graphite, acetate, torquing in PS CS3…and an afro. The finished iteration is at DA, and here are a bunch of the variations that led up to it.
Weekend Travelogue 2010-06-06
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About, linkedin on June 7, 2010
Saturday was a brief meet up with Angelo & Sasha from DA, which is always pretty interesting (the DA folks are almost inevitably up to interesting things), and then a serious plundering at FLAX with the missus. I picked up numerous pens, brushes, some acrylic paint/ink, two mid-sized hardbound sketchbooks, a 6B grade graphite pencil (how often do you see those), and a pen by Koh-i-noor whose color was labelled as “Gangrene Green”. Lunch was next door at DeLessio, which has some great casual dining. Really funky, busy interior and a patio area.
Sunday started off great; The Missus and I met with the Flemmings for brunch at the Village Pub in Woodside, where I had the greatest breakfast chow in memory (Meyer Lemon and Ricotta Soufflé Pancakes and some maple pecan syrup). After that there was some cruising around the Skyline area; it never ceases to amaze me how just under the nose of the masses tumbling up and down the industrial/urban chute that is the 101, is a tucked away semi-rural universe of scenic vistas and trails and things to do that don’t involve surgically attaching a Blackberry to your thumbs or updating a microblogging feed about the dangers of losing your weekend to off-hour demands from the office.
Which reminds me, Sunday started great, and then proceeded to get really not-so-great. A fire caused a 70 minute power outage near my office, which in turn caused klaxons to go off and I had to assemble my little elite team on their weekend (and mine) to help make sure things don’t go thud for too long. It took hours to run checks and fix a few problems that cropped up. Good going folks, you were solid as always.
subZERO Festival
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About, Pop Culture, Sounds, Visual Arts on June 5, 2010
Yesterday was the 3rd annual SubZERO Festival. It was also Drawing Day 2010. I scribbled with a brush-tip pen in a small sketchbook while commuting up in the morning, and on the way to downtown SJ.
Ate at Eulipia and reminisced about the remains of what once was 10 feet above me (the Ajax Lounge). Eulipia still has a passable, but largely staid menu at this point. What it does have is location and aesthetics, as I ate street/patio-side and watched some of the live music, a fashion show and various species of pop culture casualties stroll on by.
I ran into Avery of Corpus Callosum (he was hauling a rather large bass drum, pictured below) and he told me that besides their stage gig they were also doing music for a puppet show. Bear in mind, I’ve seen ‘puppet shows’ done by CC and its associates, and they are quite impressive in style and substance, but any puppet show involving a 12 foot puppet robot operated by three people with teeth made of knives is worth seeking out.
Stopped in the Anno Domini Gallery, which is now my favorite spot down in SOFA these days; they had some great stuff overall (I had never heard of Dimitri Drjuchin before, but I am happy I know of his work now), but of particular interest was a show of Bob Dylan inspired material done by the uber-alpha illustrator Barron Storey.
It was the closest to the days of the old SOFA Street Fair that I had seen in that area since the days of the first SOFA Street Fairs (read: before it turned into a pay-at-the-gate for a lite, sanitized version of what it started as).
I wish I had taken more photos, but the camera battery went kaputski.
rd.io
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Sounds, Technology, linkedin on June 3, 2010
Been playing with the just launched rd.io for the last 90 minutes or so. There are things I’m not sure I like, things I definitely like, but so far nothing I definitely dislike.
Futbol Fever
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on June 1, 2010
Sister Petronia Euclid v5
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts on May 30, 2010
As usual these days, I’m on the fence about this one; parts I really like, parts I am exasperated with.
I initially debated putting an ornate halo around her head like some of the religious artwork of the Dutch masters and Portuguese Manueline era (think Vasco Fernandes). Who knows, I may yet to that to this.
As for the title, there is -also per usual- a musical reference in there. I will let you ponder as to what it might be.
Materials: Pentel brush pen, pigma microns, acrylic paint, gouache, pro-white, final processing via PS CS3.
