MAN OH MAN (after man): the art of dougal dixon

dougal dixon's book man after man had a profound effect on me the first time i looked through it. i was probably about 13 and was killing time at the southdale library and picked it up off a cart of books to be reshelved. it really blew my mind--what bizarre and wonderful illustrations! but stupidly, i paid no attention to the author or the title and never saw the book again until late last year. thanks to sean's sleuthing, a used copy found its way into my possession, and what a great reunion it's been! some scans:

covers IIII

covers III

compared with one and two, this third installment's maybe the best one yet. all but one of them came from a certain vintage shop in hollywood, one dollar each.



this first one was just the tip of the iceberg. greater treasures were in store.












this is a perfect example of a whole genre of cover art i like to call "stock landscape photo with font."






windy johnson and the messengers. not these messengers though : (



would you believe that this record by the lundstroms came from a goodwill in minnesota?






the last one wins the prize for... most inappropriate typography?

the art of gregory s. paul

this is the first of hopefully a few posts on scientists who are also accomplished artists. gregory s. paul is a paleontologist and dinosaur illustrator extraordinaire. his book predatory dinosaurs of the world is a fave since i was like eleven.

permian swamp life comes alive!

i hadn't seen anyone try to draw a dinosaur's muscles before.

a sampling of dinos in various mesozoic climates from portland-esque, to frozen, and then to really very hot (that velociraptor is panting in case you couldn't tell). the point being that dinosaurs were warm-blooded. i love the carnage in the background on that bottom one. also note the velociraptor's feathers, something that was still fairly controversial in '88 and are all over the place in Paul's artwork.

i'm hoping to get my hands on paul's other dino book. his wikipedia page says he's got another in the works too. can't wait.

the summer of 2009

it was a whirlwind summer seemingly with no time for blogging. three weddings and sadly one funeral, bachelor party after bachelor party, cabin trip after cabin trip, heat wave after heat wave, camping trip after camping trip, and countless swimming expeditions across three states. snapshots are collected for viewing in the summer 2009 collection in my flickr. thanks to everybody who helped make this summer one for the record books.

the waylon group™

i have a horrible confession wlog readers. i have been seeing another blog for the last three months. the blog in question is a sexy one intended to document the rise of The Waylon Group™, a fake company i started as a project in my studio practice class. since the term has now concluded, i thought i'd finally share the fruits of this project here with you. in business we call this kind of crossover "synergy." among other things, this project included setting up a very rudimentary and somewhat incomplete website, a number of power point presentations given on a variety of business topics, setting up an office, buying some (not) really expensive art for said office, having an in-service day for the class (replete with a guest speaker, team building exercises, box lunches, and certificates of completion), producing a short and really awful video on success, and running a fake charity (read fake tax shelter) on the side. you may view the waylon group flickr set here.