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Season’s Greetings: Holiday Cards

Catherine — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:54:06 +0000

I never send out holiday cards, but as a graphic designer, I really love looking at holiday cards from independent designers. Here are some of my favorites!

Letterpress cards by Inhaus Press, $18 for set of 6 // ‘Twas the Night cards by Rifle Paper Co., $10 for set of 10

Happy Holidays arrow cards, $17 for set of 6 // Winter cardinals holiday cards by Vandalia Street Press, $28 for set of 12

Recycled brown bag New Year’s card, $4 // Green ornate tree Christmas letterpress card, by Claire Short

Elegant letterpress Christmas card with rhinestone, $15 for set of 5 // Mittens recycled paper holiday craft card, $24 for set of 8 (great DIY idea!)

Keeping busy

Catherine — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:57:55 +0000

Idolatry, oil on canvas

My painting studios have been occupying (is it possible to say this now without making a Wall St joke?) most of my time, and it doesn’t look like my load will lighten up for at least another month. Nonetheless, I finally feel as if I’m getting closer to defining my aesthetic, especially as it reflects the concepts my art is primarily concerned with. Here is one in-progress painting that I’ve been working on. The black is a bit streaky due to lighting.

And here’s my uninspired go-to outfit when I have to get dressed in a hurry: a lambswool little boy’s sweater from Crewcuts (J.Crew) and a Zara skirt. I need to teach my boyfriend how to focus the camera!

Miu Miu Runway Gestures

Catherine — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 01:04:32 +0000

Gestural drawing isn’t typically something I do in my free time (charcoal is so messy!), but it is a nice escape from my usual meticulously-detailed figure studies. I decided to loosen up my artist hand a little bit with some quick sketches of one of my favorite shows from fashion week, the Miu Miu S/S 2012 show! Every season, the Miu Miu presentation is among the shows I look forward to the most.

Gina

Catherine — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:19:12 +0000

Gina, 2011, Oil on canvas

Upon crossing the threshold of my front door, it’s hard to miss the painting of Gina that now lives above my (new) couch. This semester, I’m taking a figure painting class in which we paint live models. For our first painting, my friend Gina was modeling for us. She’s such a great model, and while I was sketching out ideas for a painting, she cast this glance just beyond my head and I knew I had something!

And here’s Bunny in her art dealer pose. Of course as soon as we moved this couch into our apartment she claimed it as hers!

Opera rose

Catherine — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:20:38 +0000

Sorry for my absence – I’ve been incredibly busy wrapping up my summer and preparing for the school year. This includes cramming in freelance design jobs, gathering materials for my Sailor Moon Halloween costume, sketching whenever possible, finishing all of my reading projects (right now I’m reading A Passage to India), and drinking cheap liquor (for which I have been paying the price dearly the following mornings).

The above sketch is part of a series I did of haniwa-faced girls in classic nude poses. On sheets of Bristol board, I threw down some watercolor paint, then photographed the images and overlayed them. It’s the summer and I don’t have any specific projects, so mostly I’ve just been experimenting and having fun.

In fact, it looked like too much fun for Bunny so she insisted on helping when I wasn’t looking. I think Opera Rose just might be her color, don’t you?

Animation for Adults

Catherine — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 19:37:48 +0000

Many people write off animation as something exclusively for children or comedy, when the educated film world flocks to animation for inspiration, entertainment, and intellectual stimulation. I hesitated writing this article at first because I don’t want people to mistake my intentions: I love children’s animation! This post, however, is directed specifically at those who claim that animation isn’t a serious or mature form of art.

Often I’ve heard the excuse that people just don’t like animation, but I find that really difficult to believe. Contrary to popular belief, animation is not a genre, but a medium. To claim that one doesn’t like animation is comparable to claiming one doesn’t like music. While it’s possible, it’s highly unlikely that out of all of the different animated films and series out there, not one would appeal to a person. While I feel like some of this may be a result of close-mindedness, I realize that the most probable cause of such a belief is that people just don’t know where to look for quality adult animation. Hopefully, this list can serve as a good reference for adults who are willing to give animation a try.

Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon, 1997, Japan

Few directors create anime the way Satoshi Kon created anime. His characters aren’t cookie-cutter archetypes that all look relatively similar, but characters whose outward appearances wholly reflect their inward struggles. In Perfect Blue (my personal favorite of Kon’s films), Mima is a naive pop idol developing into a mature television actress, a metamorphosis that compromises her comfort and sanity. Upon leaving her career as a singer, she begins receiving threats via fax and mail from a stalker claiming to be her old, “true” self. Tortured by the pressures of her new career and this creepy fan who begins attacking the people around her, she loses her grip on reality.

What makes this anime truly special is not only the ambiguity throughout most of its duration, but the importance of the questions it asks related to the entertainment industry, and even more broadly, about the concessions we make in order to please other people. Kon uniquely uses the medium of animation to illustrate the tortured psyches of his characters, and for those who have seen Black Swan, you may notice many similar tricks embedded in its cinematography (most notably, reflections that interact with characters) taken straight from this movie. Aronofsky actually bought the rights to Perfect Blue to use one scene in Requiem for a Dream, so it’s no doubt was a source of inspiration for Black Swan. Actually, all of Satoshi Kon’s movies are visually and conceptually impressive – I highly recommend them, particularly Paprika, Millennium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers.

Rocko’s Modern Life, Joe Murray, 1993-1996, USA

Because I was about eight years old when Rocko aired on Nickelodeon, I really only appreciated it for the distorted colors and slapstick humor; the rest was completely over my head. Early last summer, however, I revisited the Wacky Deli episode on YouTube, and then watched the entire first season when Netflix uploaded it to instant view. I was completely appalled not only by the overtness of sexual humor (including Rocko’s brief stint as a sex hotline operator), but the maturity of the themes in the series. Although Rocko’s Modern Life was marketed towards children, it’s hard for me to consider this a show for children at all! With heavy commentary on middle-class culture, consumerism, and sex, only an adult could truly appreciate the things that make Rocko’s Life both hilarious and depressing.

Waking Life, Richard Linklater, 2001, USA

I first walked into Waking Life at the end of the movie, and wrote off the style and story as distracting and confusing. However, when my friend made me watch it again (from beginning to end), I found that the rotoscoping in Waking Life was completely purposeful, and the movie altogether thought-provoking. The story follows an unnamed narrator as he stumbles through multiple dreams in a lucid dreaming state, each time interviewing different people who contribute to his understanding of the nature of dreams and unconsciousness. Linklater uses different animation styles to distinguish between each dream, tailoring the effects to reflect the personalities of individual characters or responses to the narrator’s questions. Although some of the dialogue is insufferably pseudo-intellectual, the medium is so seamlessly fused with the content of the film that it’s worth seeing if only for that.

Cowboy Bebop, Shinichiro Watanabe, 1998, Japan

Because I consider this list introductory, I was hesitant to include any anime series: often they can get lengthy, with many “filler” episodes to pass the time. Cowboy Bebop, however, is different. Although there are many episodes that don’t advance the main storyline, each one is created as if it were a short movie, to be appreciated alone with fully developed characters (often unique to the one episode) and self-contained plots. Shinichiro does this masterfully: I’ve found myself crying at the end of an episode when I’ve only just met a character twenty minutes prior. The soundtrack, too, is classic- Yoko Kanno draws from Miles Davis as her primary inspiration, creating jazz songs that fit perfectly not only with the stories to which they’re attached, but can be appreciated on their own (a few of my favorite songs are What Planet is This and Piano Black). Some Cowboy Bebop episodes are available on Netflix streaming, and while I always encourage watching movies in their original language, Cowboy Bebop actually has a good dub! And as stated above, one need not dedicate themselves to this entire series to appreciate it (though you may not be able to resist after you start watching it). A few episodes that fly solo rather nicely are Heavy Metal Queen, Waltz for Venus, and Pierrot le Fou.

Madame Tutli-Putli, Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski, 2007, Canada

If the National Film Board of Canada is any indication, Canadians love animation, and they take pride in their dedication to it. Through their website or iPhone app, you can access a ton of really beautiful animated shorts: some stop motion, some computer, and some traditionally-animated. Madame Tutli-Putli is one such short that almost feels as if it were lensed with a video camera rather than animated in stop motion. Aptly summarized by the NFB, this short is about “[a woman traveling] alone on the night train, weighed down with all her earthly possessions and the ghosts of her past, [facing] both the kindness and menace of strangers.” The eerie, vintage quality of this movie created by the setting, props, and muted color scheme is sure to appeal to those who loved the aesthetics of movies like Amélie. Other short animations featured on the NFB website with a mature appeal are When the Day Breaks, Animando, and Ryan.

Cat Soup (Nekojiru-So), Tatsuo Sato, 2001, Japan

Cat Soup perfectly epitomizes the creepy-cute aesthetic very characteristic of Japanese art. In this 33-minute surrealist film, a cat Nyako falls ill, and as Death attempts to steal her away, Nyako’s younger brother, Nyatta, steals a piece of her spirit, saving her (just barely) from dying. He pursues Death and his sister’s soul across surreal landscapes, dragging her lifeless body behind him. Unpredictable, entertaining, and eerie is the quickest way to sum up this animation. Although it’s fairly hard to obtain a copy (legally), some video stores do stock it (Premiere Video in Dallas is one), and in the event that you’re able to snag it, I highly recommend it.

Triplets of Belleville, Sylvain Chomet, 2001, France

If Triplets of Belleville rings a bell, it’s because it was nominated for two Academy Awards in 2004 for Best Animated Film & Best Original Song. Although decried by some as “anti-American” for its obese portraits of New Yorkers (including an overweight Statue of Liberty bearing a hamburger in lieu of a torch), the film doesn’t spare the French either, laughing at their perceived dependence on wine and obsession with the Tour de France. While the director was French, Triplets was actually a collaborative effort between many international studios located in the UK and France – so its humor, while offensive and merciless, is ultimately good-natured. Because of the dark caricatures and heavy sexual undertones (such as the repeated use of the number “69″, for example), this movie is likely to scare kids when it isn’t flying completely over their heads. Furthermore, its minimal dialogue that alternates between English, French, and gibberish would most likely be too boring for the young or impatient viewer. If you consider yourself a fan of improvisational music, surrealism, and French cinema, you NEED to see this movie.

Other essential animation titles

In the interest of keeping this post within a reasonable length, here is a list of other animation titles that are equally as good as the aforementioned:

Neon Genesis Evangelion, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, 1998, Japan
Ghost in the Shell, Oshii Mamoru, 1989, Japan
Beautiful Dreamer, Oshii Mamoru, 1984, Japan
Moral Orel, Dino Stamatopoulos, 2005, USA
Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, all directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988, Japan
Venture Bros, Jackson Publick, 2003 to present

Everything but Fashion

Catherine — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 21:03:58 +0000

Often I’ve been asked where I look for fashion inspiration, and although there’s no simple answer, the short answer is: anywhere but fashion. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration; I do follow street style blogs, and on a semiannual basis I’ll look at a fashion magazine.

But everything I know about fashion can be attributed to things besides fashion. For example: I’ve no doubt that my penchant for big bows and full skirts derives from my love of Sailormoon, nor do I doubt that My Little Pony had a profound effect on my love of multi-colored hair. Hell, I even dyed my hair red at the age of 16 after an Evangelion marathon (and have kept it for the past six years).

Below are just a few non-fashion influences that have shaped my personal style over the years. What are some non-fashion sources that you look to for inspiration?

Michiru & Haruka, Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon

“The Artist’s Model”, Benes Knüpfer

“Space 3″, Aya Takano (via Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin)

Jacquelyn Jablonski by Thomas Lagrange (via Fashion Gone Rogue) (yes, I’m cheating a bit here! But really it’s the mood that’s inspiring)

My Little Pony: Escape from Katrina (via Tumblr) (yep, I went there)

The Holy Mountain, 1973, Alejandro Jodorowsky (screencap via film110)

“溶けちゃう”, けーしん

Samejima Mamimi, aka The Native Girl, from FLCL

Miwako from Paradise Kiss, Ai Yazawa

Chungking Express, 1994, Wong Kar-Wai

The Last Unicorn

Recent Obsessions

Catherine — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 07:20:53 +0000

cotton shirt by Helmut Lang, sweater dress by American Apparel

paintings by Andrew Wyeth, from his biography that I’ve just finished Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life

clothing rack purchased from Ikea (for $50!), which has proven most convenient

my new bottle of Chanel Blue Satin, which I spent months debating and researching before finally buying (I honestly never thought I’d spend so much on nail polish!)

Back & White

Catherine — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 23:33:53 +0000

Sorry that I’ve been absent for so long (again). Here is a charcoal drawing I did for my first drawing class a few years ago, based off of a photograph I took.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! As hoped, my holiday was full of amazing food – the traditional turkey, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, stuffing, etc, along with gumbo, french toast bagels, and (waiting to eat in a few minutes) french onion soup.

I also managed to buy a few clothes, which I hope to share within the next few days.

How was your holiday?

Mathematic

Catherine — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:40:11 +0000

Hand study for my figure drawing class, in pencil on Rives BFK.

Closeup:

The Process: