Fantastic News!

My ever reliable PC has broken again! It's amazing! Probably the best thing to happen to me ever! I wish I'd broken it before now!

All of the above is obviously sarcasm. My computer has indeed broken though, and now work progress will slow down considerably, great. And I bet it'll cost loads to fix it. It might mean however, that maybe the next time I make an entry here, I will have lots of work to show all of the two people that read this! Wow!

'Lovely Mermaid'

Here's the mermaid from my Desolation Row sketch coloured in. I like this style, not sure if its right for this though. I was influenced by my friends' animation Smokey The Monkey

Ideas

Been doing some thinking about what my 'final piece' could be.
The last verse of Desolation Row is:
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row
This could be interpreted as everything that has happened in the song has been told to the singer through letters. Therefore I could make an image for each verse and put them all in envelopes along with a letter containing the words of the relevant verse.
Another idea I had was based on one of my rough assembly sketches I knocked up. My use of one point perspective made me think of old paper theatres and 'peep shows'. I think this could be a really good way of showing the song in a new and interesting way. I have a tutorial tomorrow so I'll see what my tutor says. Only problem is, I'm not too sure I want to do this song. I like it a lot, but the problem is I don't think I have explored the subject enough really...


My rough

Some Sketchbook Work

Laughing calypso singers, a lovely mermaid and Ezra Pound and T S Eliot fighting in the captains tower

Spoon-feeding Casanova, the Phantom of the Opera in the image of a priest, and a fisherman holding a flower

The riot squad is restless, they've got nowhere to go. Painting the passports brown, the blind commissioner with his hand in his pants.

Postcards of the hanging, sailors in the beauty parlour and the tightrope walker

Einstein disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk, and a jealous monk sniffing drainpipes

Crazy Tutorial

Today, I had the craziest tutorial I've ever had, and ever likely to have again.
My tutor told me to look at the work of 'Wille Guthrie' not Woody Guthrie as I'm pretty sure he meant, he also informed me that meerkats have bigger brains than mongooses, so that although essentially the same creature, the meerkat is better at making relationships between things and as such is a more sociable animal. Also to influence my style, I should look into the combine harvesters and tractors of 1930s America. Needless to say, i didn't take much from this tutorial, but it was entertaining although baffling. Oh and he tried to do a Bob Dylan impression.

ANYWAY, here's another piece of work from Visual Narratives where we had to draw a poem in a way that represented it best. It was meant to be an onomatopoeic one, but me and George (whom I worked with) chose 'Mental Cases' by Wilfred Owen.

Research 2

Luckily, part of my research for this project also includes listening to a lot of Bob Dylan music. I need to decide what song I want to illustrate. Today I realised quite how good 'Desolation Row' was. LOTS of imagery that would be good to illustrate.
Here's the song in Deezer form:

Discover Bob Dylan!

Research 1

So, research. This is proving hard. I have been poring over the internet fervently for the last coupla days looking for material that I can use for my project. Mostly I have been looking at the sixties and everything connected to them. Its very hard to find anything particularly useful, especially regarding typical examples architecture from that period.
This is one of the best photos I found, though it looks a bit too fifties actually:

I also found this photo which sums up the sixties quite well, but isn't really too useful, but I thought I'd include it anyway:

Anyway, I'm going to go and check out some old newspapers at the library as soon as I can and see what they can throw up.

Sixties Research

After talking with my tutor about my project, I have realised I am rushing into this project a bit too fast without thinking things through.I need to analyze Bob Dylan's songs more and find one where the lyrics can be easily put into pictures. The song I choose also needs to have enough 'actual' things in it that I can study with observational drawing.
I am also going to research the 1960s so I can make my work more authentic in both content and style. I shall be looking at as many sources I can. As such, I emailed Paul Rogers asking what reference he used for his book. Surprisingly he replied:

'Hi Joe,

Thanks for the kind words about 'Forever Young' and good luck with your
project. I looked at a lot of books about New York in the sixties and
read as much as I could on Dylan's life. His book Chronicles is
fantastic for insight into his ideas and influences. Magazines from the
period can also be a good source for the way things looked.

Best Regards,
Paul Rogers'

Nothing specific, but still good to hear back from him. I owe him one.
Any progress will be posted here!

Speaking To Some French Girl Who Says She Knows Me Well

I'm developing an idea for my Visual Narratives work based on illustrating a Bob Dylan song. Not sure which one yet, so I'm exploring his songs and imagery. Here is the french girl from 'Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again'

Style Study 2

Another one. Like the looser colouring stlye on the pole he's holding. Will develop this further

A Style Study

I have been looking at the work of Paul Rogers, as he has a style that I admire, and I hope to learn from studying his work
Its from his book 'Forever Young'

Illustration

As part of my course this semester we have the chance to join another course until we break up in the summer. I have joined Visual Narratives, which is a fancy name for Illustration, but more aimed at telling stories, perfect for animation. I have been doing it for little over two weeks now, and it's OK, but a bit arty for me when I've been used to the practicality of animation. The brief is very open and I can do almost anything I want, but I have no ideas as yet. I shall work on it...
We have done some interesting work so far, one of my pieces involved drawing a foam banana puppet 40 times. Don't ask.
Here's one of them, I like how there's no normal pencil lines, just colour: