IF: [Nature is my] Influence

Greenman, Q .Cassetti, 2011, pen and ink, manipulated in Adobe Photoshp CS5“I trust in Nature for the stable laws
Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant
And Autumn garner to the end of time.
I trust in God,—the right shall be the right
And other than the wrong, while he endures.
I trust in my own soul, that can perceive
The outward and the inward,—Nature’s good
And God’s.”

Robert Browning

Love is in the Air!

Block one: I do not wash my socks for they cause me to stick to walls. Block two: I am Spider Fellow, and I have an extra pair of limbs, I am hugging your back [possibly ass] and and am pouring [the word is lovko, which is in a sense clever for a physicial action. And its true... it is very lovko..] from http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2006/07/10/the-history-of-pop-culture-bayeux-stylee/Remember my rantings on Lubok (Russian Folkloric illustration)?  To put it mildly, it rocks my world. The illustrations are funny, woodcutty and often twist the content a bit to exaggerate the idea. Very witty, very Russian and a tad perverse.

Here are the  two links: Lubok>> Sunday Doings>>

And the terrific blog, "A Journey Around My Skull" had an entry on Lubok work as well>>

Lubok-Russian inspired (Russian illustration style) basing these illustrations on current comic book/ science-fiction content. Riza.ru>>Very inspiring to this pen wielder. Brilliant.

cold here


Just bundled up a few confabs of bits and pieces. I figure if today is mid January and Valentines Day is mid Feb, another week of whaling on love et cetera is okay. I do have a printer deadline to meet...so one more week and then I need to choose and go. I was, in my dreamy haze, thinking about type, about type bars integrated with images that could be a nice part to go with these pictures. I def have a bee one. Want to do another that really focuses on the skep. I would like to do a bird one and another a rabbit one. Am getting pretty excited by the methodology that evolving from the inked drawings to scan. Then, the scan becomes scrap, like chapbook scrap that I can monkey with> clip from> add to and recreate new imagery from. Plus, as it is all out of my hand, it all goes together. I have been pouring over floral catalogs and thinking about how that integrates with my valentines.

Need to get on some logo designs that a client needs in another week or so. Need to get some kid work done (scheduling, research etc). Things are slowly winding up--and by the end of the month, we will be in full swing.

Got a great book on Jose Guadalupe Posada ( Jose Guadalupe Posada, Ilustrador de Cuadernos Populares) from Alibris yesterday. First off, I have discovered this new art publisher in Mexico who puts out extrordinary books with beautiful production (Editorial RM, Mexico). The style and level reminds me of the old beauty, FMR (Franco Maria Ricci) my absolute favorite mid nineties magazine from Italy with wonderful eccentric content, all beautifully printed, designed and written. Many of the images are silhouetted on a matte black field so the extrodinary nature of the images, the objects are showcased. This is a little book that focuses on Posada's non political work, his more domestic, softer content--chapbooks, songbooks, advertisements. As it says in the translated Introduction:

"In fact, we preserve a more initimate Jose Guadalupe Posada, a master illustrator concerned witht he commercial appeal of this covers, a skilled publicist and forerunners of Mexican graphic design, who took pains to win overe a broad sectior of the population and made it possilbe to acquire a beautiful engraving for a few centavos".

With all the significant writing translated for us--I look forward to absorbing this in the next week or so. Time is moving fast. Need to go.