wondercon 2011 *update*

the incredible wierdness of wondercon continues, we are selling a lot of books and doing cool drawings in them!

and then these guys...

WONDERCON 2011

Ok. WONDERCON is this Friday. Thanks to Ben we have a table and even a map to get there. And we will be signing SKETCHBOOKS. Which means EVERY SKETCHBOOK sold gets a sketch from each of us; or at least that's what we try to do. So STOP BY!

table AA121

cape

PS monster

daily travel

i commute almost everyday, the drawings are usually very bad, i am either entirely too tired because it is too early, or too tired because it is too late. or i feel great because it is a good to time to go to work/home, but then the train is usually so full of people i can't get a look at anything to draw!

painter

most artists know this point of view so well, to the left and right a crowd of artists

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for me these kinds of drawings are mostly entirely exercises in composition,meaning i want to add a complex layer of shapes and play around with them organizationally. i wanted 3 focal points and a few overlapping design triangles.

design hierchy of focal points

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focal point 1- head ( interesting because it contains the only eye, most detailed face)

focal point 2 - the hand painting (interesting because of complex grided space)

focal point 3 - second hand (isolated shape versus large block of rest of image)

the first triangle/wedge shape is a top left down to hand and brush, containg 5 heads anchored by brush hand.

second triangle is formed by the main head, the brush hand and the relaxed hand. sort of upside down.

hopefully with these 2 overlapping patterns, there is a pleasant, yet not "in your face obvious" eye flow

in a drawing like this i try and pay careful attention to the meaning of everyline and every angle, as the lines and angles create the shapes. so even though i am designing angles and lines i am simultaniusly designing shapes.

it's amazing to think how much complexity and variety can be achieved with such simple means, even before going into value and color.

qucikies

what i'm reading now...

2011!2 months in already. so far this year i have read

the emperor of all maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Galapagos by kurt vonnegut

the dispossessed by ursula K leguin

the moon is a harsh mistress by Heinlein

which were all excellent and i highly recommend,

I am currently reading

1. Gilead by Maryilynne Robinson

i plan on reading the following books, possibly in this order

2. Angle of repose by Wallace stegner
3.short stories by Flannery O' connor

4. Candy by luke davies

5. babel-17 by samuel delany

6. the border trilogy by cormac mcarthy

7. Star Maker by olaf stapleton

8. Autumn of the Patriarch by gabriel garcia marquez

9. Walden by thoreau

10. a people's history of the united states by howard zinn

11. arctic dreams by barry lopez

12. intruder in the dust by william faulkner

13. A confederacy of dunces- john kennedy toole

14. the master and margarita by mikhael bulgakov

15. space trilogy by c.s. Lewis

16.Golem 100 by Alfred bester

17. the violent man by A. E. Von Vogt

18. the Idiot by fyodor Dostoevsky

19. camp concentration by Thomas disch

20. As I lay dying by William Faulkner

21.life of Pi by yann Martel

22. redwall by Brian Jacques

23. to the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

24. the famished road by Ben okri

i guess if i read em all in a year, it would be pretty good, after a short non reading period after high school my appetite for books has steadily increased. i find it helpful to have a stack of books ready to go, so i don't have to look for one when i finish a book and am hungry for the next one.

i will definetly make a post with table information for wondercon before it happens, our books will be for sale! and i will be sitting there drawing

-george

Great Art hidden in plain site in San Francisco

*All the following images are from google image search, I was visiting the Rincon annex murals the other day, it struck me that a lot of people might not know about it. Each city offers a lot of art, which is stuck there, it will never leave, perhaps the locals take for granted, because to visit is free and they have been around for decades. Here are 3 such examples;

1 - the Frank Brangwyn murals in herbst theatre.

Place Information

Frank Brangwyn Information

Map

In my opinion Frank brangwyn is the greatest muralist who has ever been, so if you live in San Francisco you should feel lucky that some of his masterpieces are located here.

Herbst theatre is a smallish theatre located on van ness st across from city hall. It is worth seeing any show here just to glimpse the 8 murals frank brangwyn painted in 1915. these painting have really found a home here, even though they were originally painted for something else.

Brangwyn was born in Belgium but is known as being a British mural painter.

Dean cornwell studied with brangwyn for a bit.

there are a total of 8 murals, 4 on each wall each set depicting the classic 4 elements, earth, air, fire and water.

2- Rincon annex murals

Place Information

Anton Refregier Information

Map

These murals are great, and it is free to walk in!

There are 27 murals, they are painted by a russian immigrant named anton refreiger in 1940 as one of the last depression era public works murals. A sort of golden age where the american government became a great patron of the arts through things like the WPA.

San Francisco has several WPA era murals, but these are in my opinion the finest.

3- Palace hotel - Pied Piper bar

Place Information

Maxfield Parrish Infromation

Map

The palace hotel is on market street. It is old and beautiful.

this is the maxfield parrish painting in the bar.

This painting is a real beauty. Since Parrish is such a forgotten American great, this painting is the only example of his work I have ever seen.

My mother took me here when I was ten years old to look at the painting, but she was asked to leave because children are not allowed in bars.

I hope this infromation leads some people to view these great works of art for the first time. happy new year and buy my book!