Category: Uncategorized

Rock Paper Scissors Expansion

Rock Paper Scissors Expansion Low Res

Here it is. The official expansion set to the original Rock Paper Scissors as created by my 10 year old son and I on a long long train trip.

A wonderful Wiki story about a famous Rock Paper Scissors match…

When Takashi Hashiyama, CEO of a Japanese television equipment manufacturer, decided to auction off the collection of impressionist paintings owned by his corporation, including works by Cézanne, Picasso, and van Gogh, he contacted two leading auction houses, Christie’sInternational and Sotheby’s Holdings, seeking their proposals on how they would bring the collection to the market as well as how they would maximize the profits from the sale. Both firms made elaborate proposals, but neither was persuasive enough to get Hashiyama’s business. Unwilling to split up the collection into separate auctions, Hashiyama asked the firms to decide between themselves who would hold the auction, which included Cézanne’sLarge Trees Under the Jas de Bouffan, worth $12–16 million.

The houses were unable to reach a decision. Hashiyama told the two firms to play rock-paper-scissors to decide who would get the rights to the auction, explaining that “it probably looks strange to others, but I believe this is the best way to decide between two things which are equally good”.

The auction houses had a weekend to come up with a choice of move. Christie’s went to the 11-year-old twin daughters of the international director of Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department Nicholas Maclean, who suggested “scissors” because “Everybody expects you to choose ‘rock’.” Sotheby’s said that they treated it as a game of chance and had no particular strategy for the game, but went with “paper”.

Christie’s won the match and sold the $20 million collection, with millions of dollars of commission for the auction house.

Hank Williams III. He’s a full on cow-punk who seems to be trying desperately to tear down the Hank Williams mythology.

 

I feel for the guy.

Wailing Wall

Last weekend I was lucky enough to get an invite to a crazy, live, Nuit Blanche drawing night. Ryan Cassidy brought together a wack of  talent in his new studio to create a 4′ x 16′ black and white smorgasbord jam. This all-night event was in tandem with the renown Guelph Jazz Festival. Of course, being illustrators, therefore, being used to all-nighters, we were able to densely fill the masonite board well before 2 am. Guelph musician, Taylor Moran was there to provide the apt soundtrack to the apocalyptic drawing fever. I was so delighted to meet up with my old friend, Marc Bell who was also drawing. I haven’t seen Marc for 21 years! My other talented collaborators included, genius Gillian Wilson, hotshot Michael Byers, renaissance man Greg Pepper, gentleman Rob Tustall, master of tone Scott Mooney and my old friend and pop master, Jay Stephens. Marc and I looked at each other at the finish and thought, ‘That’s a great warm up. Let’s take down the piece and go again”. Lots and lots of fun! Thanks Ryan.

Kingsbury Music

Here’s one for my talented friend and neighbour, Shannon Kingsbury. Shannon is now offering singing lessons and classes out of her studio and has just launched her website. Her cool record is called, Luminocity.

Congrats!

Crazy for Manga!

Here’s the cover to a new comic/Manga Strathmore sketch pad from my good friends at Staedtler. They’re going into a second run of the pad and adding my newly illustrated ‘How-To-Draw-Manga’ single page on the inside of the cover. It’ll be released in the fall so I’ll hold off on posting the interior page until then. What do I know about Manga?  Big props to Paul Gravett for his essential Manga primer, “Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics”. A fantastic inspiration as always.

High Brow Hegemony

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This piece is for Anna Del Col and Beate Schwirtlich at University of Toronto Press (Higher Learning division). The central idea of the author’s text: The true meaning of democracy is something that we each possess as individuals yet can only be demonstrated through group cultural experiences (it’s a clumsy paraphrase). 

Below is the original rough concept. Though high in cool factor the final concept is much more current event but demonstrates the same basic content — better yet you can’t see what the audience/crowd is responding to.

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Immaculate Cookies

Every once in a while a piece of graphic design or illustration jumps out at you and stops you in your tracks.

In the small Spanish town of Ronda, there are a group of nuns in a convent who have been baking and selling the same recipes since 1662. The above image comes from a bag of their flat eccle cookies that were to die-and-go-to-heaven for. My wife, son and I ate them until our stomachs ached.

The nuns sold the goods through a revolving door at the side of the church. You could not see the sisters. You had to put your money on a lazy Suzan and spin it so the money side faced into the convent. A few moments of garbled spanish later, the platform would come back with the cookies on it. I’m thinking of the Jesus-whipping-the-market-people is the reason for this wonderfully concealed exchange.

The Latin in the design loosely translates to, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God”.

I love that the hand is holding a sword that morphs into some sort of grain.

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

Joe Heroun from The New Republic commissioned this portrait of Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney. “You again?”

Ooohhh-Bama. What a fun time we live in.

 

Have Been Like Old Times

My old bandmate, Michael Barlcay is up to something. Apart from being a rock star new dad, ECW Press is releasing a new edition of his tome of CanRock essential reading, Have Not Been the Same.

To commemorate that, a tribute album was assembled, featuring artists covering the music discussed in the book.  This includes Richard Parry of Arcade Fire, Kevin Drew of BSS, Jill Barber, Great Lake Swimmers, Cuff the Duke and more.  They tackle material by Sloan, Grapes of Wrath, the Hip, Art Bergman, the Rheostatics–hell, even Men Without Hats.

Look for the album at Zunior.com.  All proceeds go to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

I donated my services on the album artwork featured above. It’s super challenging to create an image that will work at a 1 inch scale. Such is the internet.

To purchase the album click:

HERE

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