When I was a kid, my dad used to take a pair of scissors to whatever breakfast (cereal, waffle, oatmeal, etc.) box we finished off and made a 3D animal out of it while we ate. He’d make any animal we asked him to: rhinos, turtles, fish, alligators, birds… as long as we could explain what it should look like, he’d make the box version of the animal. Taking my dad’s bizarre box creatures a step further, my entry into the converged art contest is the Quaker Girawolf:

OK, that last one was *obviously* Photoshopped. Here’s his natural environment.

From the rear, he’s a bit bow-legged, with a “hint of brown sugar”.

Look at those pointy teeth…and rosy dimples.

From farther away he looks a bit like a Chihuahua. Fail? or WIN?

So yea, you know you can do better than this. Enter the contest for a chance to win a Flip SlideHD and tickets to the conference. If art isn’t your thing, pick your favorite submission and write a fun, creative and/or interesting description of said animal.

YOU CAN DO IT!!1!!

American Artifact is an independent film from Producer/Director Merle Becker about the rise of American rock poster art since it’s birth in the 60s. Being an art history nerd, promo poster art is something I’ve always found fascinating. There’s a lot of great info about the film and the featured artists on the website, so I’ll just let the trailer do the talking.

I’ve read news articles about many of these artists and a book about “Hatch Show Print” – a studio featured in the film – so I’d really, really like to see this documentary. The premiere screening will be on June 20th in San Francisco. Wonder if they’re planning any screenings over here in the Southeast.

This probably requires a little explanation. While I was cleaning the office last weekend, I came across a sketchbook that I used when I was a kid. I’m guessing the first few drawings are from 7th or 8th grade and the last few marked pages are from my senior year in high school. For me, browsing through the pages of this book is like reading an old journal. In it are loads of experiments in pencil drawing, charcoal, watercolor, stippling, colored pencil, and even some aerosol airbrush. Artistically, the contents are mediocre at best, but it was astonishing to see how engaged I once was in learning how to make art.

As I was flipping through that tattered old Mead Sketch Diary, I came across several pages containing collages of cut and pasted typographical compositions. They’re all fairly simple and rough, but that was intentional. At the time I was in my sophomore year of high school and had a very specific source of inspiration: a local zine called Delusions of Grandeur. Each photocopied issue was filled with music reviews, poetry, drawing, and witty collages of random typographical nonsense. I’m not really sure who was behind it, but it rocked.

So that’s it, really. I was inspired by something I thought was cool and wanted to do it my own way. I think that’s a lesson we could all use to re-learn every now and then. I’ve scanned the pages from this section of the old sketchbook and I’ll try to post a new snippit every week or two. I thought this particular composition was interesting as the phrase “User Friendly” has become a lot more commonplace since the mid-nineties.

When I was a kid, I spent many a weekend at art shows and craft festivals helping my mom run her booth. My mom was a crafter. She used to make all sorts of poured ceramic things. She even made her own molds and had a kiln in our garage. She hasn’t done much of the commercial crafty stuff since she hurt her back, but she’s got a lot of skill.

My dad is a cabinet maker, which is an art in and of itself, but he also has a lot of other creative outlets. He can make any kind of animal you can imagine with a pair of scissors and cereal box. Yes, a cereal box. Giraffe, turtle, lion, otter, fish; it doesn’t matter, just give the man a small box and he can make one. He also does a lot of painting. Some of his paintings, like the picture above are traditional oil on canvas or wood. My favorite though, are his 3D paintings. He cuts up small pieces of wood, Plexiglas, driftwood, and rope and glues them on a surface to create river and ocean scenes with docks and boats in realistic perspective. He’s an all around artistic guy and has what I like to call a “popsicle stick” sense of humor. One which my wife tells me I’ve inherited as well.

My sister Jenna is an education major at UCF and wants to be a teacher. On the side though, she enjoys photography and pottery has won a few awards with her art. She’s a very creative person and I’m sure that will rub off on her students someday.

Then there’s my brother, Jered. Jered is a Registered Nurse stationed at Travis Air Force Base in California. Very few people know that he has an artistic side as well. In fact, he just emailed me some of his MSPaint artwork this morning:

Aren’t those great??? Click on each for the refrigerator-door worthy 1024×768 versions. I love my artistic family.

Hands down, no doubt about it! FileYeti is a much better name for a file management app than SumoFile or BrontoFile. A yeti can kick some sumo @S$ and eat brontosaurus for lunch.

Ever since I installed the BGChanger that Russ wrote, I’ve been on a constant quest for more images to put in my backgrounds folder. Some of my favorite wallpaper sources include dlanham.com, veer.com, vladstudio.com, shiftedreality.com, savinoff.com, pushby.com, goodbrush.com, and bearskinrug.co.uk.

Know of any others that I should include in my list?