Skip to main content

for illustration friday ... {vacant}

It's the straw man who worries me (there's something vacant in his eyes).; mixed media on canvas, 22 x 28 inches. The string series continues.


* * * * *

I have a persistent headache today ... caused, no doubt, by the oven cleaning that I've been doing on and off all week (C set it on fire last weekend, trying to roast pumpkin seeds) ... the fumes and attendant stink. My hands are like old erasers. Even as I type this I'm leaning in, stretching my head away from body, as if distance will diminish the pain. Did I mention our furnace went on Tuesday?

* * * * *

C's been bugging me for a week to watch this: it's a Russian version of Winnie the Pooh. And man, it's a trip. Because while I have no idea what Winnie is actually babbling about, he does seem to be suffering from some kind of depression – his eyes are like little round discs of confusion and fear. Add to this the constant plunking himself down on the ground, the long monologues with the open air, a stooped, defeated walk and, worst of all, feet that don't seem to be attached to his body. Piglet gives him a balloon and all he can do is collapse in the grass and wonder at his existence. Eventually he uses the balloon to try to get at a bee hive (it's always about the honey, isn't it Winnie?) but all it does is make him a target for the bees, and Piglet has to shoot him down with a pop gun (not before nailing him in the ass first).

* * * * *

This is called Nobunaga's Ambition: a strategy game about unifying 16th-century Japan. Basically, it's an armchair-general geekfest and yes, I'm hopelessly addicted. You should watch the intro movie just to check out the weird segue with the fan dancer, which has absolutely nothing to do with the game.

* * * * *


And finally, a very cool little video from a very uncool big company ...


... and an ad campaign that was pulled by a big (and again, uncool) company because it was ... too funny?

Comments

  1. when it rains it pours.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You certainly get the vacant stare right (it's there in your other work). If it's any consolation (about the oven), I just let my milky/fish chowder boil over and can look forward to hours of fun scraping the muck of the stove top.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautiful entry, rough times - baking soda takes some stuff off ovens, but it is an investment in time. I burn pans a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  4. oh my gosh, there are so many things to comment on in this post. Starting with the last, fun clip! The vacant eyes, well done. And stay away from the oven cleaner. I hear vinegar when the oven is slightly warm does wonders.

    ReplyDelete
  5. this scarecrow is marvellous, yes it is definitely the oven cleaner, potent stuff that yuk!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the indisputable weight of the ocean

People are always telling me that my work is too dark. So I've put up this sunnier story, but even it has a shadow, as its original publisher – a fine Atlantic Canadian literary magazine called the Gaspereau Review – is no longer in business. ---------------- It was a simple enough thing and that thing was simply this: Edmund Kelley was a gentleman. Of course his mom called him her 'little gentleman', as in 'Oh Edmund, you are my perfect little gentleman,' which did seem to hold to a certain logic that these type of things often follow, considering her affection for him and the fact that he was, after all, only ten years old. Still, Edmund himself was not particularly fond of the diminutive aspect of that title. Gentleman was enough; gentleman summed up the whole thing rather nicely, thank you. He was definitely a more refined version of your average child. He lived in a state of perpetual Sunday m

Oona Balloona (doesn't care about new tables)

Well, it's Friday, and since I'm pretty depleted in the chit-chat department, I might as well put up some pictures of Ol' Giggles At Ghosts before Grandma starts sending me hate mail. Man, what a goofball. At this rate it's going to be, like, eighteen years before she has gainful employment and moves out of the house. I mean, come on . * * * * * C is especially crazy and frantic today. About two months ago she decided that she no longer liked our dining room table (take that, dining room table! no more BFF for you!). Since then she's switched the dining room and kitchen table (and all the rest of the furniture in the house -- about thirty times, but that's another story) as a provisional solution while she scoured area stores for an upgrade. And she thought she had found one, on Wednesday, at JYSK ( Whatever , I said). But when she ordered it, JYSK called back to say that they were really low on stock, and that the stock they did have was damaged, and

some paintings to keep you company

  at the stations of seeing ; mixed media on cradled wood panel, 24 x 30 inches.   $350 local.     At the Stations of Seeing I expected something on the level of poetry moving the machinery within but instead it was wreckage and difficult instructions Recursive Procedures for Life Structures and that sort of thing. IF—THEN—ELSE where the option is optional CASE, which is multi-situational DO—WHILE the function is zero BREAK and LOOP again and again until failure. please CALL, if you can, or while you are still missed. . . . I went away for awhile, for various reasons, and now I am starting to come back. Where I finally end up is anyone's guess, but one of the stations on the path of that return is a willingness to sell my art again; this post is about just one of the larger paintings I currently have for sale for clients and customers in the Kingston area. A good place to start. The prices for these works are lower because the transaction is personal, easier — come by my stud