Tell us your story about this picture...
Let us know below.
Illustration from Gang Stories available on Amazon.com. The story in which your child gets to make up 4 stories about 4 stuffed animals adventures during the night.
Friday, August 5, 2016
Ellen Raskin: Illustrator of the Week
Little Nobody
Sometimes I think she is the little nobody. Several times I have looked up the illustrator of my favorite book as a child Moose, Goose, and Little Nobody. What kept me from finding anything at first I thought it was Moose, Goose, and the Little House... which they are looking for Little Nobody in his gable. I am glad to see she did several books. Thanks to the site listed below I can now go off and find the rest of her books. It has a complete list of her picture books and chapter books. It is the best bio I found on her yet.Below are some examples of her work:
https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/authors/raskin/bib.htm
Where Does Your Imagination Bring You!
Hmmm....
Where does your imagination bring you? What is on the other side of the door? Would you walk in? How long has the door been there? These are all questions you can ask. What are the answers? Share your answers below. Does this illustration create a story in your mind? Share it below with us.
Cheers,
Chris
Illustration from Mr. Pelinger's House & Intergalactic Roadshow available on Amazon.com.
Monday, June 20, 2016
Cosmic Play: New Album by Chris Dowgin
Incense and Peppermints...?
Have a listen. My first album of flute and piano was released this week. It is music to ease the soul in a hectic world. It is entrancing. Music from simpler times. Cosmic. Pulling traditions from traditional Japanese music and Native American. A blending of jazz sentimentalities of Jaco Pastorius and Classical tastes of John Cage. Throw a little Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, and Peter Gabriel and you will have my ice cream Sunday of inspirations.
Available at Open Mics around Salem and at Salem House Press.
Only $5
Available at Open Mics around Salem and at Salem House Press.
Only $5
Limited Time Preview:
James Bama: Illustrator of the Week
Cowboy, Indians, and a Savage...
James Bama is another artist I had admired throughout the years within the Greenwich Workshop catalogs my mother got over the years in the 80's and early 90's. I am always surprised to find one of their artist in another venue. Sometimes their work was starring me in the face on books or movie posters I owned, never knowing they were the same people from the catalog. Speaking of which I do have the Turn Me On Book below...
Bama’s activities during this period were highlighted by artwork for the New York Giants football team, the Baseball and Football Halls of Fame, the U.S. Air Force and The Saturday Evening Post. Fans of pop culture may know him best as the artist who portrayed Doc Savage on sixty-two memorable book covers. Then Bama decided it was finally time to do what he most wanted to do. He moved west to Wyoming, where an artist “can trace the beginnings of Western history; see the oldest weapons, saddles and guns and be close to Indian culture.” He sold his first Western fine art painting soon after the move. The distinctive work of James Bama combines tradition with modern realities. In his much-acclaimed studies, Bama shows the contemporary West preserving its traditional culture. His portraits of inhabitants of the plains and mountains capture the true character of the West. Today the paintings of James Bama are part of many prestigious collections. Bama has been represented in major exhibitions throughout the West and has been presented in one-man shows in New York City. Bantam Books published The Western Art of James Bama in 1975 and The Art of James Bama in 1993. Jim was inducted into the Illustrator’s Hall of Fame June 28, 2000. Through his portraits of real people of the new West re-creating their history and heritage, Bama pays homage to the Old West and is renowned in yet another realm of the art world.
Bama’s activities during this period were highlighted by artwork for the New York Giants football team, the Baseball and Football Halls of Fame, the U.S. Air Force and The Saturday Evening Post. Fans of pop culture may know him best as the artist who portrayed Doc Savage on sixty-two memorable book covers. Then Bama decided it was finally time to do what he most wanted to do. He moved west to Wyoming, where an artist “can trace the beginnings of Western history; see the oldest weapons, saddles and guns and be close to Indian culture.” He sold his first Western fine art painting soon after the move. The distinctive work of James Bama combines tradition with modern realities. In his much-acclaimed studies, Bama shows the contemporary West preserving its traditional culture. His portraits of inhabitants of the plains and mountains capture the true character of the West. Today the paintings of James Bama are part of many prestigious collections. Bama has been represented in major exhibitions throughout the West and has been presented in one-man shows in New York City. Bantam Books published The Western Art of James Bama in 1975 and The Art of James Bama in 1993. Jim was inducted into the Illustrator’s Hall of Fame June 28, 2000. Through his portraits of real people of the new West re-creating their history and heritage, Bama pays homage to the Old West and is renowned in yet another realm of the art world.
For More Info:
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Early Musician
Can You Play Jethro Tull...
My parents did buy me a Casio PT80, I only learned Greensleeves (which sneeks out on the flute at times). Though the only one that stuck was the flute. Well the piano snuck in last year.
Cheers,
Chris
Chris
Saturday, June 11, 2016
Joe Petagno: Illustrator of the Week
Iron Horse We Ride...
To honor the passing of "Lemmy" Ian Kilminster we look at the art of Joe Petagno who created Snaggletooth. He also helped design several Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd covers.Petagno was born in Portland, Maine and left the United States in 1972. He worked with Hipgnosis before meeting Lemmy in 1975. He designed "War-Pig" (aka Snaggletooth, The Iron Boar, The Bastard, or Little Bastard) for the band's Motorhead album and has continued to design the majority of the album and single sleeve covers for the band. Petagno refers to Motorhead's mascot as The Bastard (or Little Bastard). Joe Petagno came up with the concept after studying skulls of wild boars, gorillas, and dogs.
For more info:
Aubrey Beardsley: Illustrator of the Week
Such a Gaunt Guy...
Aubrey Beardsley (21 August 1872- 16 March 1898)
Aubrey was an English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic.e was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis.
For more info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Beardsley
Biggest Collection of Illustrated Fairy Tales
Grim, Eat Your Heart Out...
Surlane Fairy Tales
Here is a treat for you. This website is filled with fairy tales from around the world with several illustrators works exhibited. You can read the European version of Cinderella and then the Japanese next. Many of the tales are annotated and come with a comprehensive list of illustrators who illuminated them. It is a gorgeous site.
So Now Go Check Them Out:
http://www.surlanefairytales.com
Henry J. Ford: Ilustrator of the Week
All Those Tails...
Henry J. Ford
Henry Justice Ford (1860–1941) was a prolific and successful English artist and illustrator, active from 1886 through to the late 1920s. Sometimes known as H. J. Ford or Henry J. Ford, he came to public attention when he provided the numerous beautiful illustrations for Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, which captured the imagination of a generation of British children and were sold worldwide in the 1880s and 1890s.
I always loved his work in the colored fairy tales books of Andrew Lang. I hope you will too!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Justice_Ford
Free Download of his illustrated books:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/26630
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/26630
Ted Talks and The Journey of the Hero
Once Upon a Time...
Enjoy these animations about the pattern from the famous Ted Talk series.
How to Build a Fictional World
How Fiction Can Change Reality
What Makes a Hero
Paint Dancing
Pretty Darn Cool..
I learned it from watching That's Incredible in the 80's.
Friday, June 10, 2016
Creation of a Beautiful Illustration!
Look at all of the colors...
This is a pretty cool watercolor video of the process of illustration. Have a look and tell us how you liked it below.
Brandywine Museum
Pyle, Parrish, and Wyeths...Oh My!!!
Find Out More:
Vikings of Salem, MA
A Furore Normannorum Libera Nos, Domine...
Vikings in Salem? Yes.
There is a reason why Salem State University's mascot is a Viking. Also a glacial erratic shaped like a head is called the Norseman Rock on Bakers Island. There was an Orkney prince who believed Salem was Vinland or maybe even Norumbega.
Prince Henry Sinclair sailed from Isle of Orkney with two Venitians and a cast of characters of Norwegian descent in a Knarr, a larger Viking Ship used by merchants, might of sailed into Salem harbor. They were following ancient maps that described access to Vinland through a point marked by two islands in the harbor with two rivers heading inland. Some say he was dissuaded by life in Europe and he was looking for a Utopian (Translation in Latin as no where.) society he could find in Vinland.
He first lands on Oak Island off Nova Scotia. Some say the famous "Money Pit" was created by his band to hide treasures of the Templars. In March 1314 with their grand master executed by the French king the Templars went into hiding throughout Europe. It was said that the French respected the Old Alliance between them and Scotland and settled around what became the Rosslyn Chapel in Roslin. By June of that year they provide Robert the Bruce with the calvary to defeat England at Bannock Burn.
The Sinclair's were a Norman French family. In 911 Rollo a Norwegian war leader was forced by his Danish men to kiss the feet of Charles the Simple of France in Saint-Clair-sur-Epte which created the providence of Nomandy. The first duke being Walderne Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, or the holy light of the well. At that time before the Battle of Hastings the Saint Clairs were dukes of Orkney. They would be later granted Roslin in 1068 by William the Conqueror. In 1390 Prince Henry would build Roslin Castle and Rosslyn Chapel. Eight years later he sails to find Vinland.
Oak Island was one of the first pairs of islands next to two rivers heading inland. Not convinced, he sails south. The next location he finds fitting the description was Salem, MA with the Two Misery Islands and the North and South Rivers.
Eben Norton Horsford took it seriously. He built a Norumbegga Tower on the Charles River, Erected the Leif Erickson Statue in Cambridge, and had a hand in the Viking ships on the Longfellow Bridge. He believed Naumkeag was an old Norse name for Salem.
So the story goes the group of Vikings sailed into Salem and ventured inland. Eventually arriving in Westford, MA. Here Sir James Gunn from a Viking pirate family that settled in Scotland dies. They created an effigy of him in a rock that you can still see next to a grammar school in Westford. He would become the Westford Knight.
Sinclair's adventure's might of even been chronicled by local Indian tribes. Glooscap a Mi'kmaq god might of been Sinclair. Mi'kmaq pronounced MicMac sounds Gaelic. When Leif Erickson and his group traveled over here they did notice some Natives to be taller, wear white robes like Irish monks, and speak a mixture of old Norse and Gaelic. Later Mi'kmaq would be called Red Vikings during the Taratine War because they attacked the coasts in fleets of boats. One battle happened in Naumkeag in 1622.
So did later day Vikings travel to New England in 1398, making two trips before Columbus sails the ocean blue? They even say Columbus was following old maps of Vinland too. Possibly given to him by Templars.
So who knows, they might of ! What do you think?
So who knows, they might of ! What do you think?
Crazy Legs at Lowell Folk Festival
What's That Nigga On....
At times I have found out that through dance you become the sixth instrument in the band. As a dancer you keep a second rhythm. You and the band feed off each other making new compositions as you go. Sometimes you provide the inspiration for a band to do miraculous things when they started off with a lackluster crowd. Afterward, the place gets jumping and the band hits the spot.
I have been called Crazy Legs, Dancing Guy, That Guy, the Salem Dancer, and the Dancing Viking. I inherited the icebreaker role from my aunt Gloria. It's genetic. My Uncle John on the other side also dances as much as I do a week and he is in his eighties.
I have seen people videoing me for years, even before YouTube, but I only found 3 videos of me dancing. There is rumors that there is years of Salem Access TV shows of me dancing at various festivals? So if you find me dancing, post your videos below in the comments. My future kid could blackmail me in the future or have an understanding of who I am through the years.
So if you see me, come out and dance! It will do your soul GOOD!!!
Cheers,
Chris
Gustave Dore: Illustrator of the Week
To Hell with Him...
Gustave Dore
He is one of my favorites and also one of three artists who I enjoy immensely that would die on my birthday, 01/23. The other two being Dali, and Durer. Today he is most famous for his angels and his work illustrating Dante's Inferno. He also was the inspiration for the look and feel of Terry Gilliam's Baron Munchhausen.
So check him out and enjoy!
Paint Dancing
Slam Dancing, Sword Fighting, Keystone Cops, and Painting...
For twenty years I have been dancing and painting behind live bands. What I have found out is throughout the performance the audience are creating in their minds several images before I finish. They end up doing far more work than I do. Before I am done they have created 20 separate paintings in their mind for every time they look back and pay attention to what I am making they create in their mind another image of what the finished piece will look like. Even after I am done, their different experiences and attitudes still interprets my finished piece different than my intention. Which is Awesome. The painting takes a life of its own after I give birth of to it. Paintings take their own life like children do and then you let them go.
Dance Painting is great. I get to dance back and forth to the music and apply the paint as I go. Is it more dancing or painting, who is to say but it is definitely gestural... At times I have straight men or women paint with me. Once I had a model in a bikini pose for me. For two hours I would not let her move or almost breathe. What the audience had seen which she couldn't was I was drawing stick figures which had nothing to do with her. Than at the end of the performance I painted her head to toe. Her boyfriend thank me the net day and I have heard she still treasures the shorts I painted her in to this day 20 years later. I also had another person I painted with who I shared the canvas with. We slammed dance and wrestled to get space on the canvas, painted each other, slapped one another with brushes, dropped kick a corned beef and cabbage at each other, and painted over each others' work.
It has been a fun time. Keeping look in different venues and parks this summer, you might just see me there. Plus I am still hoping for someone to catch me painting and dancing at the same time in these picture. But for now, I can only hope...
Cheers,
Chris
For more info on Chris and his illustrated books visit www.salemhousepress.com. Plus you can email him at chris.dowgin@salemhousepress.com to book him for your venue.
Thursday, June 9, 2016
How an Illustration is Made
So That Is One Way...
Well my mom had always said I was warped. Here might be my backwards odd way of making illustrations. I tend to scan in the different steps of my illustrations just in case I screw up, as an offshoot you get to see the process to make the various books I have written. Some people like the process of art better than the finished piece. Each to their own...
So enjoy the sketches below from A Walk Above Salem.
Cheers,
Chris
Chris
Sketches and illustrations from A Walk Above Salem, the final book in the Salem Trilogy. For more info on Chris and the Salem Trilogy visit www.salemhousepress.com.
Jon Tenniel: Illustrator of the Week
Off With Their Heads...
Jon Tenniel
Jon Tenniel was the lead illustrator of Punch, creating over 3,000 caricatures. Then on top of that he is the original and still the most respected illustrator of Alice in Wonderland. Others illustrating it is like someone trying to out do Gene Wilder in Willie Wonka... Take a look!
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