Room Interiors in Ink
I still have to watercolor these, draw the exterior of the building in which they will be housed, and glue them on to that building. But this is the layout. Click to enlarge.
The posters have been distributed throughout the land!
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Pegasus Bookstore in Berkeley, Calif
Two Puzzle Pieces with Ink
I've (mostly) inked these two pieces for my larger drawing. These are the two larger pieces - the rest should go pretty quickly I hope. I was thinking that I wouldn't need to watercolor these - but I'm afraid it'd going to need something when it's 'done'. Those large plants are Titan arum flowers that is considered one of the largest flowers in the world. It's frequently referred to as the "corpse flower" because it smells like rotting mammal flesh. From Wikipedia:
The titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum (from Ancient Greek amorphos, "without form, misshapen" + phallos, "penis", and titan, "giant") is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world.
Why I don't animate
I just found this DVD of an animation I made out of my Brooklyn apartment in 2000. Patrick Heliman did the sound from recordings of his Brooklyn apartment radiator hissing. I used a 1960's Bolex 16mm camera mounted on a 2x4 above a table in my studio apartment. Some of the drawings for this film were from a book I editioned (15 of them) called Taught. I used an old, manual shutter release about 50,000 times to make this dumb thing, and consequently wrecked my right arm. Because of that I still use a computer mouse with my left hand. At about 8:28 is the start of another one I did - but for some reason it't not all there. I'll look arounf for it.
New large drawing - pencil layout
Since I can't get to the studio very often since little Will was born, and I need to complete a large 4 ft. x 5 ft. drawing for my May 15th show, I'm trying something new. I started by drawing the layout of a floor in a building - but just the walls. Then I traced the shape of each room and copied that onto the same type of paper (with the grain of the paper going the same direction and the large piece). That way I could take each smaller piece home (room by room) and work on it whenever I have a chance; an hour here, 20 minutes there. When all of the rooms have been inked - I will glue them onto the large piece in my studio. I have no idea how this will turn out - but I know that I'll end of with something.
Gus Twintig's Blog is Up and Running
T
he official web site for The Clock Without a Face is up and running (sans the 'clock' video - which should appear shortly). My wife and I built the site, with flash animation by the awesome Julian Birchman. ALSO - there's an amazing mini-documentary video that gives the fascinating true-ish history of the cursed clock.
And(!) Elizabeth Bird of the School Library Journal gave the book a kick-ass review today. I'm stoked.
test drawing for The Clock book
This is a 22" x 22" tester-sketch I made in order to figure out how to make drawings for The Clock Without a Face. It will be included in my May show at Adam Baumgold Gallery.
Final postcard image
Actually, this might just be inserted in an envelope to promote the show. This is the final.
The Book is Finally REAL
I just received three advance copies of the book (ships to stores on May 1) - and it finally feels real! I'm super happy with the printing/binding/feel of the whole thing. Yippee! Pre-order here.
New Ternky Towers poster
I think this will, somehow, sometime, be turned into a letterpress print. Probably. At the very least it'll be (part of) the announcement for my show at Adam Baumgold Gallery this May. And I'll watercolor it, eventually.
pen and ink
I think this will, somehow, sometime, be turned into a letterpress print. Probably. At the very least it'll be (part of) the announcement for my show at Adam Baumgold Gallery this May. And I'll watercolor it, eventually.pen and ink I will also probably use this as the basis for a very large 5' high drawing - with an added exposed floor in the middle.
Eight Mini Crashes in Graphite
These 5" x 5" studies are for the Agricultural Reader 4 (mentioned in this previous post).
more crashes are posted here
Litho Proofs are Ready
The proofs for the first print to promote the book are ready today. The awesome folks, led by master printer Phil Sanders (pictured in red had below) at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in Manhattan are hand printing (2 plate lithography) an edition of 175 of these.
completed prints on drying rack
Phil Sanders, master printer for RBPMW
images for making the litho plates
litho plates set on printing press
pre-trimmed prints drying themselves
Internationalisticness
BangArt magazine from Italy has a feature on my crash series. I can't read Italian - so I hope what they said inside isn't mean.
BEASTS! has been published in Chinese, for, uh, CHINA! See the freshly designed cover below by the editor and hugely talented designer Jacob Covey, below (Frantagraphics art director - the best name in comics publishing).
My contribution for BEASTS! was The Loathly Worm:
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....and finally, my crash drawings will be featured in the March 2010 issue of a Russian glossy magazine focusing on "toys for men" (I'm assured that it isn't naughty - but instead translates more closely to "fancy cars for rich men").
Poster - line art (pre color)
This is the poster I designed for the book, which is going to given away to the "raddest" American bookstores in (those that are independent, cool, and sell McSweeney's lit). We were originally going to do a crappy color copy poster, but then we thought, "yuck." Next we thought producing a glicee print. But since I'm a complete snob and not too down with computer/ink-jet prints with fancy names, we thought - SILKSCREEN! But then I remembered I'm friends with Phil Sanders - the master printer for the venerable Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. They primarily work with etching and hand-pulled lithography. I'm a sucker for fine-art printing - I studied litho and etching in undergrad and grad school - and my dad used to deal in antique prints. So we went with 2-color lithographs - in an edition of 150, and maybe an alternative edition with different colors of 100 after that.
It'll be in newsprint-colored paper, made to look kind of blue-printy - in blue ink, while the title in the center will be a bright, emerald green. That little scroll on the bottom of the frame is left blank because I plan on writing the name of each store inside of it. I think we are also going to make a special edition of 12 with gold ink for contest winners (or something along those lines - Charlie Bucket-esque). 
The particular frame for this one is an alternate one that I drew for the back cover:
- but didn't use because my initial measurements for it were wrong, wrong, wrong. Duh, me.
Last Crash Drawing for a While
This will likely be the last crash drawing for a while (too many other things going on) - but positively not the last one in the series. I feel like I'm just getting started with these (waterolor - ink - graphite). Anyhoo - this is the last one of many to be included in The Agriculture Reader 4, where I will be the featured artist. It is really a highly polished, beautifully produced poetry and literature hand-bound magazine/zine with letterpress covers by the same publisher, x-ing books, who published my Alphabet City series.
Ad for the Believer
This is kind of an advert/score card that will be in an upcoming issue of The Believer Magazine for The Clock Without A Face. 
Drawing an ad for a magazine that the amazing Charles Burns is a regular contributor to is pretty intimidating. This isn't in color yet - but it will be. The score card part of the insert (which will be printed on the opposite side) will be explained once the book is released in May - though suffice it to say there will be genuine treasre(s) involved.
This has been deemed TOO GROSS FOR PUBLICATION! It's not going to be printed. Oh well. I think I went too crazy with the conjunctivitis.
The crashes are back
I just finsihed this 14'' x 18'' graphite drawing today. It's nice to get back to these after working on the McSweeney's book since last summer. More to come...(links to other graphite, ink and watercolor crashes)
