Posts Tagged art
In copyright, the most pertinent question..
Posted by zeruch in Uncategorized on August 26, 2010
…is not necessarily the following, but this is indeed a very good one to ask:
I can say from my perspective, no. That is, I believe in the idea of copyright and in the enforceement thereof, but not to the rather contorted degree some have chosen to push towards.
And given the explosion of new original creative works (as well as derivatives/mash-ups, etc) both under traditional copyright, the public domain, Creative Commons, FOSS licensing, etc, I am not the only one. Far from it.
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...
@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.
…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.
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).
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]
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.
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.
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.
Work in Progress: The Darkest Birds
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts on May 19, 2010
This is just a quick color test; the pencils were run through Inkscape then pushed to Photoshop to play in. The title comes from a song and lyric by Nine Horses (a trio lineup of Davis Sylvian, Steve Jansen and Burnt Friedman),
Here come the darkest birds. They’ve got their reasons
Vinyl Remix: Grace Jones
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Sounds, Visual Arts on April 30, 2010
I haven’t put one of these out in a while. The vinyl remix series lives on, this time with one I started working on in 2004-5, based off of the sleeve to the 12″ release of Slave to the Rhythm from the incomparable Grace Jones.
I sincerely love her late period music (her first few albums were pretty much pedestrian disco), which combined a keen pop sense with a weird mix of dub, jazz and avant-garde bits thrown in. While Grace gained celebrity for her completely larger than life appearance and brash behavior, her music really has become sublime with age. She collaborated with everyone from Brian Eno and Sly & Robbie to Tricky, Wally Badarou and Wendy & Lisa.
I quite like her voice in both its modes: stentorian talk-singing, and torchy chanteuse.
This has rice paper, acrylic ink, acrylic paint, halftone, alcohol-based markers, pentel brush pens, and God knows what else, processed via Photoshop and Inkscape.
Another reason why Pitchfork is played out
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on April 26, 2010
see more hipster robot webcomics and pixel t-shirts
…when DS can make these kind of punchlines with it.
Work in Progress: Imani Coppola
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on April 25, 2010
So I did the pencils for this in 2007 (using Cretacolor graphite ) referenced from an interior image on Imani Coppola’s debut record, Chupacabra, which sported the top 10 US hit Legend of a Cowgirl back in the late 90s. She recently popped back up with collaborations on Mike Patton’s Peeping Tom project and her own new band, Little Jackie.
Visually, she is a striking figure, musically she is just as odd since she wraps really accessible pop structures with very eclectic bits of ‘other stuff’ thrown in. What can I say, I dig a gal who can sing well, play violin nicely, be influenced by Faith No More *and* Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, and sport the most gravity-defying hairstyles imaginable.
I started adding paint and junk last month in small 5-10 minute bits, which has started giving this thing an interestingly disjointed look.
Mingus
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on April 22, 2010
On this day, in 1922, Charlie Mingus was born. A firebrand both personally and musically, he inspired everyone from Dizzy Gillespie and Henry Rollins, to Joni Mitchell, Q-Tip and Derek Sherinian.
The above was done in pencil, acrylic ink, acrylic paint, gouache, pigma microns, triplus pens + digital. An alternative version is here, and a different Mingus image I did is here.
the joint mast
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, FOSS, Technology, Visual Arts on March 20, 2010
Based off of some of the code (and really, it is barely that) generated portions of bikinis and mastuches this is less dark and more whimsical. it changes some of the analog textures as well as adds a flame fractal portion done in Fyre.
Bikinis and Mastuches
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, FOSS, Technology, Visual Arts on March 20, 2010
This one is a bit of a shift from recent work. It is based on textural works going back to 2003 (acrylics and screenprinting inks), and a few very recent experiments with a program called Context Free Art which by its own description:
“a program that generates images from written instructions called a grammar.” Basically its a kind of easier way to generate interesting images via code, albeit much simpler than some of the other things I am experimenting with, and so far am still very much in the rudimentary stages; Processing (Java based) and Nodebox (Python based). All of it is FOSS, which suits my interests philosophically as well as aesthetically.
As for the name of this work, it is dedicated to my old college roommate, who inspired the title from a random comment she made.
Ben Allison – Buzz
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Sounds, Visual Arts on February 4, 2010
Because I just finished a rather out of the blue freelance gig doing a quick turnaround interview transcription for a great writer (and musician) at Bass Player magazine, I think it is going to be Bass Week here.
But I am on an acoustic bass kick these days, so…
The first time I heard Ben Allison was from a copy of his solo album Riding the Nuclear Tiger (it was a promo copy in a cutout bin at Streetlight Records and just seemed so removed from the rest of the jazz section…I don’t think I had even heard of the Palmetto Records label until that album). It rocked my face from ear to ear.
I spent something like $2.95 on it. It was worth full retail, and I have been a devotee of Ben Allison ever since.
Buzz came out in 2004, but I didn’t pick it up until last year. Yeah, I can be a bit behind the curve at times. What can I say, there’s a lot of great stuff out there, and sometimes you lose track of things.
The title track is probably the one that has the most memorable melody line, and it just sticks with you – offering itself as this kind of mirth-filled , mid tempo jaunt. Green Al kind of shifts around in an almost jam band vibe, but with more suggestiveness and finesse than most jam bands could aspire to. The use of flutes on Mauritania gives its seven minutes a breeziness and self-assurance that straddles 60s Blue Note and 90s Groove Collective in all the best ways.
Allison likes to stay rooted in the jazz idiom, but will throw curve ball inflections of hip-hop and funk, gutbucket blues and squeed-out avant-garde digressions, but it stays pretty coherent — like he’s just playing with your head a little…keeping things just off kilter enough to make sure you are paying attention.
A lot of the album isn’t upbeat as much as it seem kind of just…content. Not in a lazy way, but in a self-affirming kind of way…a “hey, if you don’t feel like conquering the world today, you don’t have to, but if you do, go right ahead…just don’t stress yourself out doing it” way. It’s relaxed, without being a sonic sedative. Well played without being a technical showcase. Ben has it down.
The image above was done by me sometime in 2006 and is based of a photograph from his own EPK. It is pencil, acrylic ink, acrylic paint, triplus pens, tombo markers, gouache, water soluable colored pencils on bristol + digital
Illustration: Zeldyn v3
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts on January 18, 2010
I really think there is at least one other iteration of this still seeking to be coaxed out, but this was a nice stopping point for the evening, and allowed me to play a little with some pencil and ink lines that had started almost a full year ago.
I started adding paint and extra bits (the ‘wings’ are actually drawn in straight brush pen on a separate sheet and digitally added in (this was intentional from practically the onset). The source image is from Jessica/Zeldyn.
Pencil, acrylic paint, alcohol based marker, brush pen on bristol + digital post-processing.
the Martian Manhunter
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on December 9, 2009
So I was rummaging in sketchbooks and found a few pencil sketches of various DC Comics characters from 2002. I had this idea back then to re-design several dozen of them, but only four seem to have gotten beyond thumbnails, and those were the most conservatively kept to their known appearance.
I decided (at least with this one) to give them a quick ink (analog) and color (digitally).
I know the pose is somewhat odd (it looks like he’s doing a diagonal cannonball dive into an imaginary pool) but hey, it’s based off a doodle, and I still like how it turned out.
Comic book material (at least the traditional costumed hero variety) offer simple tropes that can easily be manipulated into many variations, and occupy a kind of guilty pleasure for me….at least they would, if I actually felt any guilt about not always working on “serious” material.
A Decade of Sourceforge
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, FOSS, Technology, linkedin on November 18, 2009
Today, Sourceforge turned 10 years old.
Tony Fusion94 Guntharp was the original project manager and taskmaster, Uriah Precision Welcome was the first walking swiss-army knife of system/network admins I ever encountered.
Of the original four (the other two being Drew Dtype Streib and Tim Perdue) they are the two I still am in contact with and still call friends. Uriah is the only one of the original four who remains at what is now its home, Geek.net
And that gets me to a first point, since it bears restating: Sourceforge was given life by those four men. That is the list. Four.
Anyone else laying any claim to creation is questionable, unless their name is Larry Augustin, who was CEO of VA Research (VA Linux) at the time that the original software archival project ColdStorage was expanded to what was referred to internally as Alexandria (it was going to be called Ptolemy). There was a small circle of other people in the company that knew what was going on in the middle office in the west wing of 1382 Bordeaux Avenue in Sunnyvale. It was VA’s very own skunkworks, and it was exciting.
I am proud to have been involved, if only mostly at the minimal level of being just someone to vet an idea, spur a tirade, or otherwise support an concept that I thought then (and still now) made an immense amount of both practical sense and offered the possibility of being something Bill Joy often referred to as “disruptive technology”. Even though the tech itself was mostly well known at the time (within FOSS circles at least), putting it together in that way was ambitious, it was ballsy, and no one knew better than to think it was not doable.
The amount of work effort was heroic, with people operating on a perpetual diet of caffeine, nicotine, honor and distilled hate for failure. The atmosphere was part M*A*S*H, McGuyver, the A-Team, and an Akira Kurosawa film with lots of angry dudes with katanas.
To know it is still going, and having carved a path that has helped indelibly change the entire software industry (which is something I think really gets overlooked in an age of “Forges” and forge-like sites like Launchpad, GitHub, Codeplex, et al) is not an understatement and it is amazing.
Something like that is worth noting, as are probably a slew of interesting stories about colorful personalities, weird happenings, and crazy adventures that surrounded the gestation, birthing and nurturing of it…which I will not tell in any detail here for reasons of both brevity and to not name too many names (some of which may not want to know how they bartered servers for Single Malt Scotch, or didn’t recognize that guy named Guido who wanted to host Python on SF.net, or who garnered the reputation for the worlds worst collection of plaid shirts since the invention of textiles, or who terrorized upper management the most over a litany of issues both technical and political).
Cheers guys. You did damn good.
New Illustration: I Will End You
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts on November 17, 2009
An old colleague from the VA days, Kevin was always a mellow, well-mannered dude. He also has a very dry, odd wit when he wants to. He works at Flickr now, and posts a lot of random photos as a consequence…which comes in handy when I need inspiration for a little light humor.
The original photo is a small, somewhat grainy iPhone image (the phone is what was originally in his hand) but there was more than enough detail for me to get an idea and run with it.
I definitely will do more work to this at some point, maybe adding pithy handmade text like:
Thus Spake Zarathusra
I Am Your Undoing
Todays special will be a mixed salad and YOUR AORTA!!!!!
Pentel brush pen on 96 pound bristol, with some acrylic ink and water soluable colored pencil for the heart coloring.
Economic Woes Hit Iraqi War Veteran and Artist
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Pop Culture, Visual Arts, linkedin on November 15, 2009
Peter and Jennifer Damon established the Middleborough Art Gallery, but the economy has forced its imminent closure:
When the Iraq War veteran returned to Massachusetts in 2003, he took up an old hobby, painting, to get the feel of his new prosthetic arms. But as he gained dexterity with his new limbs, Damon discovered that his artwork was more than just an exercise….In 2006, Damon and his wife, Jenn, fixed up an old building in downtown Middleborough, transforming it into exhibition space for work from Damon and other local artists….The couple will be forced to close the gallery this week…as the economy began to slump, so did sales at the gallery.
I wish I could do something for this guy right now, but ultimately all I can do is hope that his next venture (which he appears to already be planning for) is a roaring success.
The couple will be forced to close the gallery this week, but for the former helicopter mechanic and his wife, the venture is a launching pad rather than a failure. Peter Damon said his new role as a painter has given him a platform to raise awareness about veterans’ issues.
Art is often, in and of itself, a catharsis. A compulsion. It often offers more than the deceptively simple act of making “pretty pictures” and reading about someone like Peter Damon reaffirms that for some of us.
Work in Progress: Tammy Harrison
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Visual Arts on November 13, 2009
I will probably redo this, and start with normal pencils instead of a couple of passes with brush pens.
Yesterday I decided on a whim to scribble a bit and worked on an illo of Tammy, who I met many years ago at the Atlanta Linux Showcase (1998 or 1999, can’t remember which) and we’ve kept in touch over the years (well, I guess Facebook is not totally useless as anything other than a vapid timesink).
In a weird bit of synchronicity, she cut her hair short today.