OUTPUT
Last year we had a fantastic little get away meeting up with friends in Coonabarabran. I did some quick mini perspective studies of building around town. It was nice inserting art into the moment rather than hunching over my drawing board alone after the fact.
Across the road from our accomodation was a ‘top shop’ that had seen better days. Seeing it in person and imagining it’s lifespan brought up a sort of nostalgic, melancholic catharsis that I wanted to capture. I finally got around to it this month.
My art swap with the talented young artist Freddy continues. It turns out we both love zombies, here’s what Freddy gave me to work with.
I used to spend hours copying art from The Walking Dead comic series. I love how they did away with the internal monologue that comics usually lean on for exposition. They did so much with just subtle changes in body language, expression or changing viewpoints. I also loved how consistent the art style was committing to the high contrast black and grey for the entire series. However that’s not very exciting for a young artist so I took inspiration from another big comic book influence Francesco Francavilla, I love this artist’s sketchy high contrast work with flat complementary colours.
They say write what you know. I used to work as a consultant for government agencies and have seen a zombie or two in my time.
I drafted a design for my banjo all the way back in 2017 and transferred most of it to the banjo back then except I didn’t have the right colour or markers for the background, until this month.
And here is some of the work I’ve done for Cypher Brewing Co this month.
INPUT
It’s that time of year when you’ve passed the stress of Christmas and we’re inevitably travelling up and down the east coast visiting family and friends. These interactions always make me a bit introspective about how my life has been changing compared to the people I value which inevitably influences my art.
These were my favourite movies this month. Nosferatu was so beautiful, every frame a painting, I’m already an Eggers fan so was probably always going to love this movie. It has so many good homages to the original Nosferatu movie, old Dracula movies and also Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel. My interpretation of the movie is that it highlights the view of women’s sexuality from a patriarchal society’s gaze. It’s set in 1830s Germany but we still exist in a highly patriarchal society and the messages still ring true.
Maniac Cop and Maniac Cop 2 are such terrrrible movies, so bad they are good. If you’d like to know the premise of the movie they had a rapper explain it in the end credits listen here.
Wolfman was not what I thought it was going to be, it has also copped so much hate. If I separate it in my head from my favourite werewolf movies (The Cursed, Dog Soldiers, Werewolves Within, The Wolf of Snow Hollow) I can still appreciate it. I feel like it did a fantastic job of showing someone being disconnected from reality, it made me think of someone going through dementia. It had some awesome practical effects and had a message about cycles of trauma and fathers passing anger down the genetic line.
Here’s the music I’ve been into this month. As always a pretty eclectic mix:
Click the image for a track. I’ve been inspired to get better at Jazz on brass after seeing the Harry James Angus gig last month, Howard Johnson is a mad man, can’t get enough.
Click image for a track. Imperial Triumphant are definitely an acquired taste, not really sure how to describe them, maybe avant-garde-black metal-jazz? Their music just has layers that you can peel back the more you listen to them, extremely talented musicians and super creative.
Click image for a track. The Callous Daoboys not only have the best band name they also have catchy tracks that are a fusion of mathcore, emo and nu metal and they’ve just released new music. Stick to the end of the double music vid and cop a rare triple arf.
I’ve been absolutely ripping through books this year. I’m trying not to spend time on youtube or TV series and I’m already off socials so I’m trying to spend this time reading or making art instead. Download Storygraph and hit me up @pduthie. Here’s what I’ve read this month: