Nick and Nora

Apparently it's been over two months since I posted anything on here. Oops. The Ely is over and done with. No more sweating over type placement and shards of glass. For anyone who hasn't seen my Ely pieces on my website or at the show, here you go:







And now for something completely different.
I recently (and by recently I mean within the past month) watched the movie The Thin Man and fell completely in love with it. I absolutely adore William Powell and Myrna Loy. They are amazing together. The actual story isn't completely spectacular but the writing and the humor is great and there's rarely a time when one of them doesn't have a drink in their hand. I enjoyed the movie so much that I decided to use it as the basis for one of my self assigned projects. This piece is a little different from the way I've been working. I decided to try using a pencil drawing instead of just the line drawing that i usually do in ink on newsprint. I think the results are different but good. The pencil drawing gave me a chance to put more detail into my drawings while still getting a rough textured look.



For anyone who doesn't know the story, it takes place in the mid 30's. Nick Charles (William Powell) is a retired detective, married to Nora (Myrna Loy) who's very rich. Even though Nick is retired he still takes on cases here and there and together they solve mysteries with their dog Asta.

Here's a video if anyone is interested. I highly recommend the series. So far I've only seen the first two movies but there are six altogether.



Also, you can see a very young Jimmy Stewart in the second movie (After the Thin Man) which makes it totally worth watching.

i'll make this short, maybe not.

Quick update. I re-did the Ely Poster. Or rather, i revised it. Fixed some of the lettering, brought out the texture more and fixed the hands to make them a little more feminine and less like amorphous blobby things. Also changed the coloring a little. Not sure if thats for the better or worse. You can decide that for yourself.


Next is something i finished a while ago but haven't gotten around to posting. You know how artists are, so scatterbrained. This is the first Ely piece that I did. The O. Henry book cover. I'm extremely happy with it and thats probably the last time anyone will ever hear me say that about one of my pieces. The Dorothy Parker book cover on the other hand... well It's been a struggle to say the least. anyway, here it is

I'm incredibly pleased with how this turned out and I wish I could say the other pieces are coming together just as well. Hopefully this weekend I can get them all sorted out and have something new to post.

Heres a link to a short story by O. Henry. Everyone (or most people) know the story of "The Gift of the Magi" which my cover is based on so instead I thought I leave a link to my favorite O. Henry story.

http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/o_henry/38/

I'm constantly amazed by the endings to his stories and this one gave me hope that there is such a thing as destiny. (as cheesy as that may sound)

update

I meant to update this thing the first week of winter break but i forgot/put it off and now its the last week of winter break so I might as well get on that. Heres a few things i did but never got around to posting. Brace yourself, its kind of long.


^^ this one is an album cover for Badly Drawn Boy. Its not so much of a band as it is a stage name. Damon Gough is Badly Drawn Boy. My idea for the design came from the album title as well as the band/stage name. The technique (style?) that I use seemed to fit well with the idea of being "Badly Drawn" which is what I focused on. Dividing it into three sections contributed to that as well as the title of the Album "One Plus One is One"

heres two of my favorite songs from the album incase anyone is curious.



The next piece is an album cover for The Pernice Brothers called "Live A Little".

I'm not particularly satisfied with it. If I had the time I'd change the lettering and the colors a bit. This one was kind of rushed. The lettering looks too much like something on a 60's poster for The Doors rather than an album cover for some indie band from the 90's. I was hoping the colors would be enough to get away from the 60's but in the end all I see is peace signs, bell bottoms and big lapels. Lesson Learned. The idea for the design came from the first track on the album called "Automaton" and the background was inspired by the lead singers voice. The way he sings is very breathy almost likes he's gasping for air but in a less dramatic way. I wanted it to look almost like wind.

heres a song from the album. excuse the video. i'm not sure if this is the actual music video or what it even has to do with the
song.



and last but not least here is the poster that I designed for the Senior Thesis Show. Keep in mind it needs revising. there'ss a bunch of things i intend to fix so for now this is just a rough piece.


When I got this assignment I had a lot of trouble coming up with an idea. The teachers told us not to draw any art supplies or any images of people painting or drawing because it was too obvious and they want us to think outside the box. I tried thinking about what the Ely means to all of us. It's a rite of passage, it shows how much we've grown in the past 4 years, by this point we are all a bunch of art making machines. Then i realized that the Ely is when we put all of our work on display. We expose ourselves. So there it is. A woman exposing herself. At first I was afraid that it wasn't a good idea because when people see a poster of a woman in an open trench coat they won't think "Art Show" But Tim said it didn't matter. The point is that it grabs peoples attention and as long as it doesn't look cheap or trashy then its fine. I made sure this anonymous woman looks classy.