Getting Frosty

Another annual favorite that my 4-year-old watches constantly is the 1969 "Frosty the Snowman" by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. who did a bunch of my favorite classic holiday animations. From Wikipedia: "This special marked the first use of traditional cel animation (as opposed to stop-motion animation) for Rankin/Bass in a Christmas special. Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass wanted to give the show and its characters the look of a Christmas card, so Paul Coker, Jr., a greeting card and Mad magazine artist, was hired to do the character and background drawings. The animation was produced by Mushi Production in Japan, with then-Mushi staffer Osamu Dezaki among the animation staff." Read more about the artist Paul Coker, Jr. here and here. Now that I have seen other images by Mr. Coker, Jr. I am sure the title font is his hand-drawn creation. Definitely a '60s style and the ink blobs and sketchy line work belong to his other work for sure. It just looks like it was outlined on the back of a napkin. I love it! Merry Christmas!

I typically hate animated gifs on web sites, but I couldn't resist. (below)

Frosty the Snowman Graphics provided by MySpaceGraphicsandAnimations.net

Christmas fonts

Every year, one of my Christmas traditions is to watch old TV specials. I now have several on DVD so I don't have to rely exclusively on TV programming. One of the things I love about the classics is that the ones who produced them were real artists. I recently took a closer look at the opening title sequences of some of my favorites and was amazed at the precision, beauty and artistry of the hand-lettered fonts. Below are samples from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Notice it aired in 1964... or did it? Anything else important happen that year for historical context? The Beatles were getting huge, I know that. Look closer at the Roman Numerals. "1164" Did anything cool happen that year? haha! I'll post more screen grabs from other favorites. I hope you enjoy this little nugget of nostalgia!

Studies in Expression

My wife has been trying to get me to do "pretty" paintings for decorating. I also promised a painting for the newly remodeled room where our Bible study group meets at church. In researching decorative art that my wife thought was nice, I came across a painting style at Springfield's First Friday Artwalk in November that reminded me of some I'd seen in art history classes.

The "Abstract Expressionist" style was what I would look at and Mark Rothko is the painter who I found most fascinating with his color studies and heavy shapes. It looks easy- like "my kindergartner could do that" kind of thing, so I decided to try to reproduce one of his works.

Once I got into it, I realized there is a lot going on and I found myself frustrated that I could not get the colors or shapes just right. First of all, I was using acrylic paints which is good for all the other stuff I do, but for the kind of soft blends and indistinct edges oils would have been better.

I was trying to reinterpret his painting using his shapes and basic color scheme, but shift the emphasis. There are many ways to do this in color theory and I ended up trying all I could think of. A sharp edge, white, hue, complementary colors, shape, etc. I was amazed at how much I had to mix colors and how much I had to care to make it work. You can't use just any green on just any orangey-red background. There were even reasons for certain outlines and highlights. Amazing. It was like having a Color Theory test all in one painting. Enlightening!

One reason I was drawn to his painter was his philosophy that Rothko saw art as a tool of emotional and religious expression. Since I was going to hang this in a church, I thought it fitting. Plus, it is not too distracting. Hopefully somebody finds it inspirational.
Thanks Mark Rothko for your inspiration to me!

My Favorites of the year vol. 2.2

These are my favorite movies from the past year: June 24-June 24. I don't get a chance to go to theaters much, so these are mostly rentals. I can get a wide variety from Netflix and the library so some are classics that I've discovered this year and some are recent blockbusters.

I finally sat down and spent some time with Charlie Chaplin and I was not disappointed. He was a creative genius in many ways. From character development to acting to dance to music composition to directing to writing and producing, he did it all and was the most important actor for the first half of the last century. I enjoyed learning about his life in the special features disks and the movie "Chaplin" with Robert Downey Jr.

If you see something missing from my list that you think I should see, comment and let me know. I'm always up for a new cinematic experience!

MOVIES:

Modern Times – Charlie Chaplin
City Lights – Charlie Chaplin
Gold Rush – Charlie Chaplin
District 9
Gran Torino
(500) Days of Summer
Sherlock Holmes
Star Trek
The Blind Side
Year One
Knowing
Surrogates
Iron Man
Eagle Eye
Yes Man
Cloverfield
Ghost Town
Gandhi
Cinema Paradiso
Attack of the 50 foot woman
Them
Plan 9 from Outer Space
On the Waterfront
Traitor
Die Hard
Lucky Number Slevin
Annie Hall
La Femme Nikita
Birdman of Alcatraz
The Odd Couple

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My Favorites of the year vol. 2.1

Yesterday was my birthday and last year at this time, I took stock of the year's preceding entertainment that I found amusing, inspiring, and all around great. So I decided I would make this an annual tradition and make a few lists of my favorite bits of whatever from the past year. I have broken these lists into three parts: music, movies, and artists.

So this week I've scoured my iTunes library to see what I've added in the past 12 months that have made me smile or inspired me while working. Maybe you'll find something new from my list to enjoy in the coming year. The other lists will be coming shortly AND I reserve the right to add to these lists as I remember items. Enjoy!

LaLa.com- R.I.P – I heard a lot of music through you this year, but Apple bought you and shut you down.  I hope iTunes learns something from them.
The Black Keys – Brothers

MuteMath – Armistice

Needtobreathe – The Outsiders. I love this guy’s voice. They rock AND have some mountain instruments for texture.

The Heavy – The House that Dirt Built. That song "How you Like Me now" from the Kia commercial is still cool to me.

Sufjan Stevens – all his stuff is amazing and will probably be on my list every year whether he has a new album or not.

Instrumental Movie soundtracks. It’s like modern classical music. Makes good background music to paint to.

Regina Spektor – Far. She is also a perennial favorite.

Owl City – Ocean Eyes. Kind of a guilty pleasure, but I just think it’s fun music.
Matt Kearney – City of Black & White

Sara Watkins from Nickel Creek finally came out with a solo album

Punch Brothers. I heard them in concert on NPR last week. They make “genius” fun. I plan to get their new album ASAP so they will be on my list next year for sure.

Imogen Heap – Ellipse
Ingrid Michaelson – Girls & Boys

Fiction Family – guitarist from Nickel Creek and singer from Switchfoot come together and got me through some tough times last year.

Switchfoot song “Always” came out just before my daughter was born and it helped me look forward to her first day of life

Wynton Marsalis – Christmas Jazz Jam. My favorite trumpeter made an incredible Holiday album
Wynton Marsalis – Mr. Jelly Lord. Old timey jazz and Dixieland
Harper Simon, son of Paul Simon. Enough said.

Broken Bells is a collaboration between Danger Mouse and James Mercer of The Shins

She & Him – Volume One & Volume Two

Brooke Waggoner – Go Easy is so beautiful, like a more serious Regina Spektor
Remedy Drive – song “Heartbeat” gets my blood flowing
Toby Mac – Tonight
The Classic Crime – The Silver Cord. Just plain rocks!

RUN D=MC2

A branch of my wife's family in St. Louis ran as a team in a 5K race this summer. The race was to benefit the Saint Louis Science Center where my wife's cousin works as the PR & Marketing Manager. They asked me to design a T-shirt in the name of team unity based on the name they had come up with. The cousins are products of the '80s and way into music so I combined a spoof on RUN DMC's logo and the universal rep of science- Mr. Albert Einstein. The glasses and huge gold chain were added to make him fit into the rap group's persona. I could have added a fedora, but it would have covered up the crazy Einstein hair he is (partly) famous for – I mean he did other things besides have electric hair. I think.

We changed the theory of relativity! So sue them. It's ALL relative anyway. Did you even notice?

This was a very fast, fun, and free design that paid off big in comments like "that is hilarious!" by me mostly. I also got a first run printing of the T-shirt so now when I work out, I can feel smart AND hip!