I’m working on another poster for Dr. Browne. (see my first one here) It is based on an analogy about a Hedgehog and a Fox by Sir Isaiah Berlin (who, incidentally, also is the progenitor of one of my favorite ideas, the idea of “positive liberty” and “negative liberty”)*.

The hedgehog and fox analogy is fairly simply: Berlin’s fox is a creature who knows something about an expansive range of subject matter- a generalist. Alternatively, the Berlinian hedgehog knows a great deal about one specific thing- a specialist.

So in trying to create an image to represent this idea, I made several doodles of hedgehogs and foxes… but I ended up with the following two characters. I’m not sure if I’ll use them, but they’ve been fun to make.

Here they are:

Agent Hedgehog sees extremely far through a tiny narrow scope.
Agent Fox cannot see as far, but is resourceful in any environment.

Any suggestions?

-Tom

* The distinction of “positive liberty” and “negative liberty” is rarely made in the U.S.- But I find it tremendously important. Essentially, it binds liberty (or freedom) with means.
In other words, being free doesn’t amount to much unless you also have the tools to accomplish what you wish. Many phrase the distinction like this:

Negative Freedom is Freedom From
Positive Freedom is Freedom To

Example: We have the Negative Freedom to go to Hawaii on vacation. There is no law preventing us from flying to Hawaii.

If we had the Positive Freedom to go to Hawaii, the government (or someone) would provide us with airfare, plan the trip, get hotels, etc..

For instance, public education is a Positive Freedom. Not only are there no laws preventing education- there is a school in every area, and it is free of charge.

Now, there is certainly a gradient present here. This is not a case of “either/or”. Pos/Neg liberty exists on a scale.

In his brief stay on this world, Egon Schiele managed to overturn many cultural and social notions of painting and art. Schiele’s work is raw and erotic- even by current standards. In the early 1900’s his paintings ended up landing him in prison for “obscenity”. I find his work wonderful- particularly the oddly skewed nature of the figures. I wish I could more eloquently describe it for you, but perhaps just looking at the work will do a better job:

Self Portrait with Hand on Cheek, Egon Schiele, 1910

Seated Female Nude with Raised Right, Egon Schiele, 1910

Self Portrait with Winter Cherry, Egon Schiele, 1912

Striding Torso in Green Blouse, Egon Schiele, 1913

Sinking Sun, Egon Schiele, 1913

And my favorite:

Seated Woman with Bent Knee, Egon Schiele, 1917

Recently, a friend of mine came across the blog of animator Chris Harding. After a few minutes of reading the blog out-loud (in a less-than subtle way of catching my attention) my friend aroused my interests and I began to read the blog, too (sometimes out-loud as well).

Chris Harding is quite an inspirational animator. His approach to animation as the vehicle of an idea yields work with thought and direction- rather than being some aggregation of punchlines and plot twists. Here is one of his films:

View Harding’s animated short: Learn Self Defense

I’d also like to share some passages of his that I found particularly insightful:

The only way for me to motivate myself is with ideas. If I’m in love with an idea enough, and I can’t communicate that idea by any other method I feel the strong need to animate it. -Cold Hard Flash Interview

What are animated shorts good for in the world? Maybe they make someone laugh for a couple seconds, but so does an ill-timed fart. I hope in the long run there’s a little bit more value to this work than a puff of gas and noise. If not, we should all go be paramedics and put ourselves to better use. - Present Magazine

If you know me you’ve probably heard me quote this from Bertolt Brecht:

Organization

Mr. K. once said: ‘The thinking man does not use one light too many, one piece of bread too many, one idea too many.’

And here is Chris Harding’s take:

The whole goal with short films is to distill an idea down to its essence without being simplistic. So you keep honing until you’re left with all the necessary information, and not one speck more.

So as you see, I was right all along… ;) Well, at least another person out there sees things similarly. I’m thankful that Chris maintains a blog and I hope to see more work from him in the future.

If you want an inspired laugh, read Chris Harding’s About page. It is quite fun (and delightfully satirical).

-Tom

So I have this tattered copy of “Scary Stories” by Alvin Schwartz. I’ve had the thing since I was very young, and to this day it grips me with fear.

I don’t recall ever actually reading it… (maybe one or two stories, but I thought they were boring- for very young children).

The reason the book is so memorable (and the reason I am writing a post about it) is decidedly due to a man from St. Paul, Minnesota. His name is Stephen Gammell… and he terrifies me. I think the first time I opened the book (probably in Kindergarten) I turned to the page below and curled up into a ball.

But despite not having the courage to open the book again, the small toddler version of me bought the damn book- so that I could take it home and be too scared to open it there.

Eventually, I did open the book again. And found the illustrations still terrified me. But I also found that the illustrations were magnificent. Here are a few more of Stephen Gammell’s drawings:

This next character appears in multiple pages throughout the book. I’m not sure if there is some particular significance to him, but here he is eating some bloody looking cereal:

I am very intrigued by the way strands of goop seem to stretch off of every mark. The drawings become very tangible- like I might get some on me if I brushed my hand over them…

Stephen Gammell has had illustrations in a number of other books. He won the Caldecott Medal for his work in “Song and Dance Man” by Karen Ackerman. I highly recommend checking out some of his other works (They aren’t all so gruesome).

Sweet dreams,
-Tom

I’m lucky enough to be working with Dr. Browne to possibly be publishing a set of animations to accompany a 1700 page book his wife is writing. I am going to be representing the choices involved in going between Federal and State court- all with squirrels.

I’m really excited for the project- I love the idea of taking dry academic material and making something engaging with it.

So here are some of my drawings of the squirrels. I tried to really break it down to shapes.

My rough squirrel concept:

Stern Squirrel:

Beaming Squirrel:

Eating an Acorn:

Walking:

Running:

Hope you like it,

-Tom

I’ve been working for one of my professors, Dr. Browne, (to whom I owe much of my growth over the last 3 years) making posters of his favorite ideas. The first assignment was to illustrate the inter workings of Aristotle’s description of the human brain. The concept is referred to as “Aristotle’s Who We Are”. I thought about describing the concept here, but I suppose my artwork is supposed to do that- so have a gander:

The whole thing:

Breakdown (Click to Enlarge):

I’m still struggling with color usage and drawing, but I’m-a keep working at it.

Until the next post,
-Tom

While I’m talking about Czechs…

I took a trip to Prague this summer to see my family and had the chance to see a photography exhibition called “Geometrie Nahoty” (Geometry of Nudity). The photographer’s name is Pavel Brunclik (Pah-vel Broon-tsleek) and I was immediately taken in by the imagery. I’ve always been very interested in human anatomy (while I was in Prague I also went to see the astounding Bodies exhibit). I tried to sketch a few of the photographs but I did not do them justice. I managed to find some images online of the gallery photos, so have a look:

The lighting was pretty neat. I believe models are all ballet dancers and it looks like they were really pushed to the limit physically for some of these poses. They really inspired me to draw. I tried to draw a few of the figures from the photos while I was in the gallery- here are two of my quick sketches:

That is all, for now…

-Tom

This post is spurred by a recent post about Czech Animator Jiri Trnka on Animation-treasures 2 by Hans Bacher (Where I graciously made a mess of the comments board :-/). In any case- as some of you may or may not know, I am from the Czech Republic. Not only that, but I am hoping to return sometime (from my current home in Ohio) to attend graduate school in animation. Czech Rep. has a very rich history in animation and art, and I thought I’d post something today about one of my favorite illustrators.

The man’s name is Petr Sis (Peh-tur Seess)- in english he is “Peter”- and he is a children’s book author (among many other things). Born in 1949, Sis lived through some of the less favorably remembered times of Czechoslovakia (mainly Soviet occupation), but he managed to lead quite an extraordinary life (and still does). Sis’ work ranges from awarded films to major book illustrations and Sis has appeared in several major publications. (Read more about Petr here)

Anyway, I just wanted to share some images from his books, which I always found quite captivating:

I find Sis’ graphical style quite magical. It certainly has something to do with growing up with his books- but I think Petr’s work is well worth some examination.

Until next time,

-Tom