Road Rave...

This portrait /caricature of The Raveonettes was inspired by their new cd- 'In and Out of Control'. The darkened, zig-zagging car alludes to the title and also the mood of the cd , which like their other releases has a very 'noir' quality. The Buddy Holly bobblehead, is a partial reference to the origin of their name as well as their influences.

Hopper in Mexico...

While visiting Saltillo, Mexico in the 1940's  Edward Hopper painted these beautiful rooftop scenes of the town. Illustrator extraordinaire Federico Jordán recently posted many of them, and also included photographs of some of the sites as they exist today. 

Thanks for sharing these online Federico.

Eye Spy...

Some conceptual street art from Madrid. Spy creates truly inspiring urban art that can be playful and/or political. His constructions and installations are done with a "careful attention for the context of each piece and a constructive and non-invasive attitude."

Nighthawks...

A nice little typographic video of the Tom Waits song "Nighthawks at the Diner".

An Artistic Type...

Artist Jeremy Mayer uses parts from old typewriters to make these amazing sculptures. All his pieces are made mechanically- no solder, welding or glue is used. Take a look.

Negative Thinking...

I was instantly drawn to the graphic images of L.A. based photographer Charlie Bidwell. His generous use of negative space sets off the iconic signs and roadside architecture he beautifully captures on film.

D.C. and back...

F Street

New Deal art ("Paper Workers") by Douglass Crockwell at Smithsonian Gallery

My son Rust(on right)and his friend Jake in front on Nat'l Portrait Gallery with some random joker in the background trying to add 'bunny ears' to the photo.

Went up to DC this past Saturday with my friend and fellow illustrator Kelly Alder for a craft show where he was selling his Pop Idiot T shirts. Also wandered around some and saw 2 good shows. One was a photography exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery and the other was paintings from the New Deal next door at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Back in Richmond that night for dinner with friends. Happy birthday Liz!

Dynamic Dames

One of the more prolific 'pin-up' illustrators of the 40's and 50's was Peter Driben. His voluptuous vixens graced the covers of many of the popular magazines of the time like Pep, Real Screen Life and New York Nights as well as book covers and advertising jobs. 

Volume Two Thirty...

This whimsical book-clock is one of the best clock designs I've seen in awhile. It might be time to clear some space on my bookshelf.

If you're a book lover here's the perfect chair. :)

Blue-prints

Earlier this week I was doing a search for architectural blueprint references for an illustration I'm working on and saw an out of place, but intriguing  silhouette image in the search results. I came back later to find out that the blue silhouette image was part of a series of super-sized photograms by artist Robert Rauschenberg that he made using large sheets of blueprint paper. 

Rand-om

Simple and beautiful. This Paul Rand design for IBM is one of my all-time favorite graphic images. Rand did a lot of the design for IBM during the 70's - 90's. This piece was used on a poster for an in-house conference in 1991.