Postcards: Nectar of the Golden Life

I'm working on my drawing.  Specifically drawing objects from in and around my apartment.  I was given this green glass bottle as an object of artistic inspiration, and I decided now was the time.

 I tried to find a background and lighting condition that gave me that light passing through glass feeling.

Sometimes I'm brave enough to start putting down color without outlines, but today was not that day.

After that, I was just chasing a feeling.  An aesthetic.  More implied narrative than a bottle floating in space.  So I went searching for quotes, and eventually this one:

“The missions were always changing- sometimes collecting jars of rain, paper bags of hiccups, adopting lost moonbeams and folding them into cake batter. Or perhaps investigating glittering slug trails left in the moonlight, finding the owners of abandoned buttons, or playing the sousaphone for caterpillars still in their cocoons.”
― Michelle Cuevas

 

 

Postcards: Cave Os Veritatis, or something

 The Mouth... of TRUTH!

I've had images like this sitting around in my inspiration collections for a while.  I didn't really have a plan for it.  So then when I had no plan for a card, I just started drawing it.  I just went for it.

 Then it was time to add more, so I added the bird guy.  It felt like it needed something, so I added the floating symbol from a Gerald Brom painting above his head. 

 

After that I just kept messing around with text to give it some depth and texture.

 

Not bad for no plan.

Postcards: His eyes are open.

 Whoa, this one was another "please just lets get something done" card.  The skull was just floating around in my collage materials; I think it is from when I used the human and elephant skeletons to make a cyclops.  The skull replaced the head of the dude on the scooter from a scooter ad.  "His eyes are open" is from a kids book, I think.  If I am remembering correctly it was a simple sentence book, with things like "This is Bobby.  His eyes are open."  That put me on the hunt for eyes, which I found in a cat food ad.  After that, it just felt unbalanced, so I added the "Celebrate" from a catalog.

A Field Guide to Memory: Excerpts

 

 A Field Guide to Memory

A narrative journalling game about a cryptid researcher who goes missing in the field. How will you, her protégé, carry on her legacy?

Field Guide to Memory is a journaling game about legacy, wonder, cryptids and the vastness of a human life, designed by Jeeyon Shim and Shing Yin Khor. Your mentor, the beloved and illustrious cryptid researcher Dr. Elizabeth Lee, has been officially declared dead five years after she went missing in the field.  You will end the game with a physical artifact you've created yourself - your journal - in collaboration with us: your own field notes and documentation of your relationship with Dr. Lee. You will continue her legacy.

I loved reading the in-game letters, and then adding the letters to the journal so the reader can go between the correspondence Robert is sending and receiving.  I also started doing research on kangaroo rats while working the horned rat drawings & collages into the journal.

I also ended up researching other cryptids and eventually other mythological creatures.  Batsquatch is real; I did not invent it for this project.  I, of course, then had to look up various animal tracks and maps too.

The game took me to around here, but only filled about a third of the journal I had chosen.  So I did my best to keep Robert researching and writing, but without the benefit of the prompts.

I researched early descriptions of animals by naturalists, like that description of a cuttlefish, as well as cryptids and mythological creatures.

I tried to cover the difficulty of researching creatures known by multitudinous names.  Pill bugs, as it turns out, have more than a few.

I had a good time working in bit of my life, religion, cartoonists, and internet nonsense into the entries alongside the actual research.  I did a few fold out pieces, but I should have done more; much like the inserts, I think they add to the veracity of the narrative, or some other set of art-y words.

In my search for horned beings, I discovered Furfur, which led to Furfur's fun facts.  I was pretty pleased with myself.  While it's just terrible in its authenticity, the inscription around him is based on actual cuneiform, even if completely illegibly.

Some of my favorite spreads are the most... nonsensical?  Ridiculous?  These are all ideas swirling loosely around the concept of unicorn, but they look like a rhino puppeting Punch talking to... Guy Fawkes, I think.

 

Postcards: We Must Play Inside Today

 

 

 

I'm trying to get the ol' postcard machine rolling again.  I don't have a strong direction, so I'm just sticking with... rules?  guidelines? to have anything resembling a plan.  I recently went through my collage supplies, and ended up pulling some phrases out.  "We must play inside today" seemed like a good place to start.  "We" suggested to me multiple figures, and since I've been been mostly working with animal collage late I went that route.  I cut out a couple, and then replaced their heads with animals.  Simple stuff.  I want to try sticking to black & white figures on color backgrounds or color figures on black & white backgrounds; I looked for a color background for my black & white subjects.  The big mouth adds to the foreboding sense of the "inside".

I just added the timely warning because I liked it.

 

Postcards: The Return?.. or... Bison Man Is Dapper

 Check it out!

It's been a minute, but I'm trying to get postcarding again.  I've sent out a ton of not-made-by-me-cards, but this is an honest to goodness Rob original.

Higher Res Photos: Pheasant Branch May 2021