The Reluctant Dragon

Lastly I'll talk about the background picture I chose for the blog.

This is an Illustration by Mr. Maxwell Parrish. I love this not only for it's technical ability but the humility that shows in the dragon. I guess it's mentioned in te title, but there's a strong emotion I feel from the dragon. The soft palette of the colors also really enhances the gentle aspect of the piece.

In a sense it also makes me with we lives in a times where kids still toy with the concepts of fantastic imaginary creatures.

Pom Poko

A couple weeks ago when I showed my teacher my short film about the fox, she told me of another film.

She said it was an Akira Kurosawa film called Dreams.

She said in the film, there was this one bit about a fox wedding. The story was some boy sneaks up upon a fox wedding, which is one of the most private events that people aren't supposed to get the privilege to see and they only happen when the sun shines through the rain. I thought this concept beautiful so I looked up the movie and found the part. This supposedly stems from an old Japanese legend.

Ratboy

When I was in colombia this summer, I stumbled upon this movie while flipping channels.
It was entertaining enough, but the makeup for this ratboy was absolutely incredible.

I waited for the credits to roll when I saw it was the infamous Rick Baker (Men In Black, Planet of The Apes, Star Wars, Wolfman) who designed the makeup and then I thought "Well I'd hardly expect less on his part"

In the film I very much admired the childlike innocence with how the Ratboy treated the world.
As fr as the makeup, it gives Ratboy the attributes of a rat. People fear his looks but he's also somewhat endearing with his big dark eyes and crouched movements.

Fox

This is a short video that I made for my visual thinking class.
It's myself in fox makeup that I made myself (I made the mask and painted it and applied it and further painted).

It took me a whole trial and error process to do the mask itself, so it was about a weeks worth of work.

This is part of a series I'm doing about glimpses of the imaginary and hypothetical lives of animals, sort of like a voyeur of their privacy and finding how it coincides with our own private behaviors.

Also it's about the importance of simple pleasures and small details in life.

For me it was begging the question "When does necessity end and pleasure begin, and is this something that animals experience without our knowledge?"

Sam Weber

During my sophomore year at School of Visual Arts, I had a class that I think I under appreciated at the time so I didn't invest much work as I wish I would've now. These things happen. Often.

In any case, the last class consisted of the students visiting our teacher's shared studio space.

When I saw this man Sam Weber's work, I was muddled in thought for a few seconds.

WHY HADN'T I LOOKED HIM UP EARLIER ON?

This man is an illustration BEAST. He's incredibly dexterous and his work isn't large scale and is very attentive to detail. These are things that I achieve for in my own work and aspire to hone, things I feel people underestimate in art, and his take on it blew my mind.

What he was working on at the time we visited were pieces he was commissioned for to use in an illustrated edition of the book Lord of The Flies by William Golding.

I looked up his website and found that image.

He did all this in ink and acrylic, in the excellent technique of layering.

I sometimes come across his work in bookstores and often find myself looking it up.
I only had a couple conversations with him when he was my teacher, but I have much more to say now and I wish I had more opportunity. He makes me want to do so much, and now that I remember how enthusiastic he was I wish I felt the same then.

His website is http://sampaints.com/.
Check him out, he is truly incredible.

-Jennifer

Welcome to these days

This is my first day on the new blog.

Happy to be here and at this point I'll take the time to explain the blog.

I'm highly interested in animal artwork, but in an unconventional way.
I'm mostly going to be posting my own work, but trying to find other works that I'll find insightful or that I might admire in the sense of achieving a sort of bridge between the humility and sensitivity of humans and animals.

I hope this to be a good trek for the both (or all) of us.

-Jennifer