OPEN SOURCE MONSTERS 02

Good morning. Did you miss me? I’m back from the East Coast and I’m finally caught up enough with my work that I can post for you once again. (Please forgive the two week absence.)

Let’s catch up! A great many of you sent excellent, excellent Open Source Monsters. Instead of posting them as a separate gallery, I thought I’d put them front and center right here on the blog. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did:

02aguilar
02arndt
02berkes
02charlotte
02cheyenne
02danielle
02emily1
02emily2
02emily3
02inanna
02james
02julia1
02julia2
02julia3
02maleen2
02pene
02rausch
02schlter
02sousa
02weitzel

How cool are you guys? These are brilliant monsters. I can’t wait to see what you do with the third ink blot.

Here’s my own take on Number 2:

Osm02

Over the last few weeks I’ve been busy watching Eric at FWIS work wonders on the 344 online store. We’re almost ready to go live. Right now, it’s a sales permit from the State of California that’s holding us up, but I’m hoping that I’ll have everything lined up for you shortly. Here’s a little teaser screen shot of the home page:

Store344

In other news, I had a great time judging the BoNE Show for AIGA Boston last weekend. I saw lots of beautiful work and between me and Luba Lukova and Kevin Krüger from SamataMason we pruned the field down to a really spiffy show that should be fun to behold. If you’re in the Boston area, please stay tuned to the AIGA Boston site for updates. The BoNE Show Monster went—by way of a raffle—to Adam Larson of Lemon Magazine.

Here’s a photo from the Meet The Judges event, featuring Kevin, Andrea (from AIGA Boston), yours truly, Luba, and Christi (also from AIGA Boston). From all those smiles you wouldn’t know what swift and savage judges we’d turn out to be.

Boston

Note also that this event took place in the visitor’s lounge of a nuclear reactor. All our dosimeters were bright yellow by the end of the night, which means we were glowing, but not too much. Except for poor Angela. As you can tell from her orange tag, she got an extra dose of radiation, because she had to set up the event before we got there. That’s what I call selfless dedication to the cause.

That’s pretty much the news for the week. I’m working on the next ink & circumstance column for STEP. I’m slated to illustrate a section header for an upcoming issue of New York Magazine, as well as the fall term catalogue for UCLA Extension. I should have lots of fun stuff to show you in the next couple of days.

For now, it’s time to go to sleep. (I’m trying to be a bit less of a night owl. We’ll see how that goes.)

I hope that you’re headed for a brilliant weekend
and that you’ll enjoy two more bonus weeks of Daylight Savings Time
(Offer valid in the United States only.)
Please don’t let the long silence fool you:
344 STILL LOVES YOU

5 Comments

  • Inanna
    16 March 2007 6:34 am

    Welcome back from bean city.
    What great monsters from Ink Blot Two. I think you should do something with those in your store, don’t you? I spose it’s too tricky to get releases, but still – some of those are just wonderful! And all of them are fun.

  • 16 March 2007 5:42 pm

    What fabulous pictures everyone drew! But especially Nancy Pene and her ladyvase.
    Nancy, you rock so very, very hard and that is an amazing piece of artwork. I hope you do try to put it in clay. Here’s my story about it.
    After Pandora opened the box, the gods decided they needed to stash this woman somewhere safe (never mind that they’d given her the box themselves. Gods aren’t known for an overabundance of brains.) It had to be perfect, though. Just right to function as a combination prison and terrible warning.
    They discussed a cave. (Nah. Nobody would be able to see her suffering.)
    How about a rock with an eagle tearing at her liver? (Duh! Totally been done before.)
    Marry her off? (Dummies, she’s married already. But talk about a combination prison/terrible warning!)
    They finally slapped her on a vase and knocked off early to go to Italy for pizza.

  • Danielle
    16 March 2007 6:15 pm

    I think Arnd’s monster is my favorite, but all of the monsters shown blew my mind! They give me tingly feelings inside knowing they’ve all come from the same blot of ink. Magnificent!
    ‘hope you get more sleep! And I REALLY hope the radiation won’t twig with you!

  • Molly
    20 March 2007 10:24 am

    I just love the work, yours and others! I homeschool and plan on using this as an art lesson. My oldest son already creates detailed monsters and creatures, so this will be a great way to expand his art expression!! Thank you! You are bookmarked!

  • stacy
    21 March 2007 8:14 am

    I am enjoying submitting my own versions of the monsters, but I have to say that this round I keep coming back to Emily Wong’s angry penguin? That is just great.

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