Art

Martinere Speaks

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

One of the good things about having a well-read blog is that people send you content, so I do have something worth posting today after all. Italian artist, Maurizio Manzieri, has an excellent blog, and he’s just posted the first half of an interview with the 2008 Hugo-winning artist, Stephan Martiniere. I confess to knowing nothing about Stephan besides the fact that he does really great covers, so the interview really opened my eyes. I discovered, for example, that he was born in France, that he has directed award-winning animation shows, and that he has designed theme park rides. Read the interview, there’s more.

And if we can give the Best Artist Hugo to a Frenchman, why not an Italian as well? Check out the cover that Maurizio has just done for a new Kelley Armstrong book from Subterranean.

John Coulthart Interview

~ Cheryl

An excellent interview with John Coulthart has just gone online at Figment. It is, of course, illustrated with lots of examples of his work, and of other examples of good design he talks about. Most of the interview is about album covers, because the primary reason for the interview is that John is judging an album cover design competition…

Working on Spec

~ Cheryl ~ 11 Comments

The Hugo logo contest is proceeding pretty much as expected. We have a bunch of entries already (some of them rather good, to my untrained eye, but I’m intending to rely on our judges for expert opinion). Many other people have muttered about entering, and there’s a holiday weekend coming up so many people won’t have time to think about it for a few days. All well and good. But…
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Fan Artist News

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

One thing that surprised me about the list of Best Fan Artist nominees was the absence of Steve Stiles from the list. Now, thanks to Mike Glyer, I know why. Steve did get nominated, but chose to decline and encourage people to vote for Taral Wayne instead. Given that Steve has been nominated 8 times and never won, this is a particularly generous gesture.

Inside the Design Process

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

John Coulthart has a fascinating post up which chronicles the decision processes involved in designing a new book cover for Jeff VanderMeer. I often see people around the blogosphere complaining about book covers, and often an unspoken assumption behind the complaint is that no thought has gone into picking the cover. Doubtless there will be some people who don’t like the cover John and Jeff finally settled on, but the process of getting there certainly wasn’t easy or trivial.

I Iz Intellectual Snob

~ Cheryl

As you probably know by now, I don’t watch many movies, but I do know what I like, and what I like is superb visuals. I discovered last night at BASFA that the films of Akira Kurosawa are “masturbatory”, but being an intellectual snob I happen to like them, mainly because they look fabulous.

I liked Frank Miller’s Sin City too. There were certainly some rather dubious aspects to it, but it too looked fabulous. I haven’t seen 300, but I think I want to see The Spirit. Why? Here’s the trailer (thanks Nicola).

Stade Francais Calendar 2009

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

OK, so I know most of you won’t have bothered to read a post about rugby laws, but this one might be a little more popular. A new European rugby season means a new Stade Francais calendar. For the benefit of my straight female and gay male readers, I present cover of that calendar. And the totally awesome Warhol-inspired third strip that Stade has produced for this season. (The first strip is still pink and the second strip still blue with pink orchids, though the designs have changed). Click through from the pictures to the Stade web site to see these things in all of their glory.

Stade Francais Calendar 2009 Stade Francais Third Strip

Body Art

~ Cheryl

New Orleans is full of art galleries, but my favorite is one that only sells prints because the “canvas” that the artist uses tends not to stay painted. Craig Tracy specializes in painting on bodies, and yes, he is available for party hire. In the meantime he has created some stunning work which you can see on his web site. If Kevin and I hadn’t spent so much on food this weekend I would have been taking a print or two home. My favorite is Inferno.

Arrived

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

We are safely in New Orleans. Kevin has already blogged about the trip.

It didn’t take me long to warm to this place, and that wasn’t anything to do with the blast of hot, humid air that greeted us as we got off the plane. No, it was the airport. Most airports have totally predictable and very boring shops. Here, within a few yards of each other, I found “Creole Kitchen” and “House of Blues”. Food and music. This is my sort of place.

We don’t have much in the way of plans right now, so suggestions are welcome. Tomorrow we are having breakfast at Brennans and will be visiting the Arthur Roger Gallery because the Dale Chihuly exhibition closes on the 13th.

So far everything is going well. The only mild mistake I appear to have made in the packing is not to bring hangers. Yes, I know we are only here for 5 days, but if you can’t over-dress in New Orleans where can you do so?

Of course you can under-dress as well. The cover of the tourist guide magazine in our hotel room features an article about the burlesque revival, which I’ve seen various of my New Yorker friends getting excited about (mainly the lesbians).

Hmm, I wonder if it is dinner time yet?

John Picacio Art Tour

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

During the artists’ reception at Worldcon, John Picacio gave me a personal tour around his exhibit. I filmed it, and now it is on YouTube. The picture quality isn’t great, and clearly I have a lot to learn about shooting video, but hopefully it will be interesting.

Mr. Dog, He Dead

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Finncon is over, I have just come back from the dead dog party, which once again was held at a sauna out in the countryside. The lake water was a bit cold tonight so I didn’t swim much, but the sauna was great and the whisky I brought seemed to go down well.

In the car on the way back to the hotel Charles Vess was telling us about the Totoro Forest Project. Apparently there’s an exhibition coming to the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco in September. I hope to get to see it at some point over the winter.

Also we had a very Finnish experience. Just gone midnight we were rolling into Tampere and Marianna said, “let’s take the scenic route”, because of course there was still enough light to do so.

There will be a proper con report later. Hopefully I’ll get it written on the train back to Helsinki tomorrow.

Insanity on the Cheap

~ Cheryl

Those of you wishing you could afford $400 for the magnificent book, Artists Inspired by HP Lovecraft, may be in luck. The book is on sale for the rest of July. You can pick it up from Amazon for $276.50, but given that you are paying that much you might as well drop $295 direct to Centipede Press, because they’ll get to keep a much bigger slice of the cash that way.

Coulthart on Cthulhu

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Today it is John Coulthart’s turn to talk about the Lovecraft art book:

Calling this a book is like calling the Great Pyramid of Cheops a pile of stones, technically accurate but the words somewhat fail to convey the existential reality. This is the heaviest book I’ve ever come across, 400 pages of heavy-duty art paper at BIG size. (Amazon gives the dimensions as 16.1 x 12.6 x 2.3 inches or 409 x 320 x 580 mm.)

Which is, of course, one reason why it is so expensive. But it is lovely too. John has a bunch of illustrations in his post, include a Geiger double-spread.

Tentacles Galore

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s art column in io9 has a new feature on the utterly wonderful The Art of Lovecraft: Artists Inspired by Lovecraft, including a gallery of images from the book and interviews with luminaries such as Bob Eggleton, John Picacio and John Coulthart. On his own blog Jeff has added a few outtakes that didn’t quite make it into the io9 column. Tentacles everywhere. (And yes, it is Cephalopod Friday).

Genpets

~ Cheryl

Via the excellent Biology in Science Fiction blog (which you really should be reading yourself, it is great), I discover the wonderful world of Genpets. They have to be the next big thing in kids’ toys. This is from their marketing brochure:

The entire Genpetsâ„¢ line-up pulls its basis from a natural stage of evolution in the market. Our idea ties together the best of packaging with the best of products. Dolls and robotic toys quickly become tiresome, while traditional pets require a high level of upkeep. Genpetsâ„¢ however, learn and adapt. They are living pets, but better, modified to be as reliable, dependable and efficient as any other technology we use in our busy lives.

Yep, that’s right. Mass-produced, bio-engineered pets. They even come in a range of personality profiles so that you can pick one that is best suited to your kid.

Getting suspicious yet? OK, I’ll put you out of your misery. The information you are looking for his here. I’m just sorry it has taken me so long to find this. It really deserved a Hugo nomination, but we are way too late. Still, the artist is Canadian. Montreal folks – listen up please – I want Adam Brandejs (and hopefully the Genpets exhibit) at Anticipation. See to it, please.

Decidedly Strange

~ Cheryl

Thanks to Jeff Ford I have discovered the mysterious world of Suzanne Treister and her time-traveling alter-ego, Rosalind Brodsky. If you like weird art (including 3D stuff and some of the oddest vibrators you could ever wish to see) then Ms. Treister is for you. I have to stop, because I could spend all day browsing around the site and I’ve been unproductive enough today as it is.