Cassandradiaz Art: September 2009

Where the Wild Things Are stills

Io9 has posted a bunch of stills from Where the Wild Things Are. Holy freakin' cow this better be brilliant....and holy freakin' cow, it looks like it is.

Abbeys, Sargents, Jellies, and Apples

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We had a perfect and artful New England weekend. On our way up to Robert Wiener's annual Apple Fest, we decided to take a day in Boston to visit Edwin Austin Abbey's “Grail Cycle” and John Singer Sargent's “Prophets” murals at the Boston Public Library. We had wandered into the Library on a whim a few years back and were blown away by these murals. This time we came prepared..and we were still blown away.

Here’s a shaky-cam 360 of the Abbey room.

And, of course, a quick stop at the aquarium. I love aquariums. And their jelly fish exhibit is, as all jelly fish exhibits are, a must-see.

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The following day: Dave Seeley rounded us up, along with Jason Felix who was in for a Magic tournament. A quick stop to poke through Dave's studio. (A place no one with sensory overload issues should enter.) Then, over to pick-up Rick Berry. Rick had just finished packing up a crate of work to be shipped to the Lucca Festival where he'll be exhibiting and painting with Phil Hale. If you’re in Italy at the end of October, you should go so that we, who are far away, can be envious.

Finally, we were off to the main event: Robert Wiener's annual Apple Fest -- where we ran around Robert’s backyard picking, eating, and squeezing as many apples we could shake a strange, extra long, lacrosse-like stick at. Robert also has one of the most extraordinary collections of science fiction and fantasy art imaginable. It is overwhelming. After an hour or so you are left unable to absorb more and left realizing there are days, literary days, worth of viewing left. It was a fantastic time. A huge thanks to Robert! I wish it could be Apple Fest every weekend. 2010, we leave more time for the artwork and break out the apple cannon.

(Currently: Eating apples and peanut butter for dinner as I type....emmmmm.)

How To Skew A Dot Pattern with Adobe Illustrator

Here we have a great video tutorial for Adobe Illustrator explaining how to use the Free Transform, Shear, Skew and Reflect tools to create vector logo types and icons in perspective

Important shortcuts to remember:
*Mac OS
Cmd + Opt + Shift + Drag with the Free Transform Tool = Shear
Cmd + Shif + Drag with Free Transform Tool = Skew

*Windows
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Drag with the Free Transform Tool = Shear
Ctrl + Shif + Drag with Free Transform Tool = Skew

More about using the "Free Transform Tool" here.

10 HQ Geometric Pop Art Vector Graphics

A free vector set from Angie Bowen. Inside this pack you will find ten free abstract vectors that may help you achieve Pop Art style look in your design composition...

The artwork is saved in EPS file format, you can use any vector compatible editor to modify or customize it.

Free for personal and commercial use. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Download

Working with Spot Colors in Adobe Illustrator

An eye-opening material on issues with spot colors while using royalty free vectors from iStockphoto. "Picture this: You need an image for a project, and the deadline is looming. You download a cool illustration from iStock, place it in your layout and send it off to the printer. An hour later, the printer phones you back.

“Excellent,” you think, “my print job is done!” But nooo, the printer is calling to let you know that your file contains 15 spot colors, and if you really want 15 different plates made and run through the press, it’s going to cost you at least ten times more and take a whole week to finish. There goes your budget and your deadline.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!? Spot colors? How did those get there? And what are they, anyway?" Continue to full article.

15 Random Design Elements Free Vector Art Pack

Here we have a free vector pack that you can use for your design projects or inspiration. Inside you will find 15 random design elements some of which you might use as logo templates...

The set is saved in AI (Adobe Illustrator), EPS, PDF and SVG file formats, you can use any vector compatible editor to modify or customize it.

Free for personal and commercial use. If you post this vector art pack on your site, please make sure to include a link to www.vector-art.blogspot.com Download

Ross McDonald on illustrating Last Son of Tomorrow, wood type, and movie propmaking

Ross MacDonald is an illustrator, designer, letterpress artist, prop maker, and every art director’s dream to work with. Whenever we have worked together, Ross has attacked the assignment with excitement, often sending sketches along with all kinds of interesting and amusing backstories about the historical context of the type and images he is playing with.

When Greg van Eekhout’s Tor.com story “Last Son of Tomorrow” came in, it was a bit of a mixed blessing for me. I loved the story. It is easily among my favorites on the site. While every story is an opportunity to create a great image, I can’t help to feel doubly pressured to “get it right” when I feel close to the source material. After thinking about various artists, I kept going back to Ross. I’m glad I did. The image is simple and perfect. It works well before you’ve read the story and gains more depth afterward, as a good collaboration between pictures and words should.

Over on Tor.com, I asked Ross a few questions about his unusually varied career.

You had the potentially problematic task of illustrating one of my very favorite tor.com stories (so far). The image you came up with was so simple and perfect. Did you play around with other images or did you come to this pretty quickly?
It wasn't the first thing I thought of, actually. I started off convinced that the perfect way to illustrate this story was to do some kind of comic—5 or 6 wordless panels showing different scenes from his life. But something kept nagging at me—somehow it felt flat or pat. I learned the hard way that you have to listen to that feeling.

Read the rest of the interview on Tor.com. You'll be glad you did -- Ross is thoughtful and charming.

Dancing Girl Silhouettes Free EPS Vector Pack

A collection of vector silhouette illustrations of dancing girls in six different poses from WebDesignCreatives. You can use the artwork for designing a house music cd cover, logo design brainstorming or inspiration...

The artwork is saved in EPS file format, you can use any vector compatible editor to modify or customize it.

Free for personal and commercial use. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Download

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Seven Recording Studio Design Elements Vector Pack

A free vector set for Adobe Illustrator from Click Pop Media. Inside the pack you will find vector illustrations of A Cassette Tape, A Vintage Microphone, Two reel-to-reel recorders and speakers...

This resource is free for personal and commercial use. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

The artwork is available in AI (Adobe Illustrator) and EPS file formats. Download

Collaboration: T-Rex, Superdog and Girl

The Brief: I'll show you. I'll draw it and you copy [fig. 1]. It's a T-Rex trying to eat a girl.
The Critique (on sketch, after TAD's, no longer extant): I hate that girl. You erase her and I'll draw her as I like her. I want her to be brave. She's not scared of one thing cause that's me and I'm not scared.
The Critique (on sketch, improved by Art Director [fig. 2]): I think my drawing's a little bit better than yours.
Comments on collaborative painting, above: That's my bag, and that's a puppy in it. I'm not noticing the dinosaur, but the superdog [note the 3 eyes] knows what to do. She bites it on the neck and kicks it into a lava pool -- that's the volcano.
Job Status: Approved

What brings us together and what keeps us apart

I've just got back from Grottaglie in Italy where i was working on some installations and shots
for Fame Festival, such as the one above which i think is probably the biggest outdoor thing that i have done (big being relative, of course). For the last three months, urban artists from around the world have been coming to Grottaglie to produce street and gallery work for a show that opens on 19th September, and to eat great home-cooked Italian food supplied by the organiser's mum. You can read more about the festival and see more work by a bunch of great artists (such as Judith Supine, Lucy McLauchlan, Mark Jenkins, Dolk, Blu, Conor Harrington and many many more) by clicking the logo.

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