New Cover + New Techniques

It's time for another album cover!! It's been now quite a while since the last one. And this is the second album cover for my very talented sister, Ashia Grzesik.  Here is the work-in-progress of the first cover that we collaborated on.

For this new album, named "Diesel vs. Lungs", I decided to try two "new" techniques. The first was watercolor painting. I'd always been an acrylic girl, but wasn't getting the results that I needed with certain techniques. I wanted to do washes, and washes on washes on washes, and using acrylics for this was borderline dumb. I'd like to say that the adjustment to using watercolors was totally easy, but there was a bit of a learning curve, as you have to approach the layering in a different way, and get accustomed to the translucency and the malleability (or lack of it) once it's on paper. 

Here is a snippet of the background, pre-processing:

The inspiration for the background, as given to me by Ashia, was the city of Ostrava in the Czech Republic. It has earned the nickname “steel heart of the republic”, due to heavy industry there, and it remains one of the most polluted cities in the EU.

I also couldn't help but realize that after I had finished it, it reminded me - albeit loosely - of the hand-painted backgrounds of my all-time favorite children's cartoon, Krtek*, which hails from the Czech Republic (!)  Specifically, my all-time favorite episode of dear little Krteček, "Little Mole on the Town", which shows the transformation of a beautiful forest filled with adorable wildlife into a dirty, polluted city (!!!) 

Here is the entire 28-minute episode, which is totally worth your time to watch to the end.  But if you're ADD like me, just watch the first 5-6 minutes, which shows the adorable woodland creatures helplessly watch their forest home being torn down...so intense! {Please note: It may take a few minutes to load and currently, it won't upload with sound. Standby and pretend it's a silent movie for now and thanks for your patience!}
 
This isn't the first time that Czech cintematic talent has been featured by me...hmmm.


On to another element of the cover, a snippet of a spray of poppies:

The final watercolor painting was outlined by a dark brown pen, roughly à la Alfons Mucha (see a pattern here? ha!)  I felt like I was still reverting to old acrylic techniques while painting this, though, so looks like I have to keep working on my watercolor technique. Apparently, using watercolor pencils for years and years wasn't as big of a help as I thought it would be! And oh yeah, should have anticipated the paper buckling as much as it did with so much water on it ;)

More on the second "new" technique in a later post...

 * Have I talked yet of the genius of Krtek?? I smell a doozy of a great post idea.

A Tale of Two Jans

It may or may not, to all of my three readers of this blog, be obvious that I just post stuff that fascinates me. I guess the hope is that others will find it fascinating as well.  Although it may not seem obvious, there may be a common thread linking everything if you look hard enough...

Today's fascination is stop-motion animation from behind the iron curtain.  I stumbled upon this Czech stop-motion gem from 1988 by Jan Švankmajer, in a somewhat unlikely place: it is currently streaming on Netflix.  I also found it so very strange that it was stumbled upon literally a day after I came across this stuff.  We had started watching the movie, and the pace at the beginning was so slow, and with very little dialogue.  I could see how some people have a hard time watching European films. I myself found the pace sucking me in, holding me in intrigue. You realize that you've been entranced and haven't moved a muscle.  The over-the-top foley, at first almost annoying, ended up just adding to the surreal state.




Then, also popping up seemingly randomly, I came across Polish stop-motion animation By Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk. There are a few short films on You Tube, ranging from the late 50's to early 60's (!!!)

They can be pretty out there.  I am also really digging the music in this one...



If you see any similarities to Monty Python's Flying Circus, you're not wrong: their work influenced Terry Gilliam.  It also took me a minute to realize that this is the same Jan Lenica that was famous for his posters, some of which are on view at MoMA...

And this is a poster by fellow artist Franciszek Starowieyski that I am now obsessed with...

A bit about the fascinating history of Polish posters:

"By the end of the 1950's Socialist realism had been dumped in Polish art. The Graphic Arts Department at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts divided its areas of instruction into fine arts, visual communications, applied arts, and poster art. It helped, thereby, to establish what is known as the Polish Poster School.

Many of their posters were commissioned to advertised events, and that they did. But, almost always, there is an underlying dig at some aspect of society. It seems that the Polish poster artist will take any chance they can to express the frustrations they, and their audience share about the status quo. In America it would be like making a public service announcement for the American Heart Association in which President Clinton is the victim of heart disease. It truly would make us change our health habits, but it would also be a statement about the artist's dislike for the American Government."

 Source: http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/poster/poster.html

"There was much to divide these artists as every one of them had arrived at his own idiom, immediately recognizable, even from a distance. But at the same time there was something very important to link them together, something that made the Polish school something real and distinct.
This can be attributed to the fact that all of them were painting ambitious posters, expecting of the public an understanding of the signs, symbols and allegories. Polish posters were not only pieces of art, but also intellectual labyrinths and games of hide-and-seek. Posters referred not only to emotions, but to intellect as well. Viewers were required to think."

 Source: http://www.polishposter.com/html/posterart.html

I have yet to do some research into the surreal stop-motion animation. I will post an update if I find some good info.