Anders Nilsen's Blog, page 28

Adam and Eve Sneaking Back into the Garden of Eden to Steal More Apples

I haven't been drawing in my sketchbook much lately as the dearth of recent blog posts will attest. Instead I've been preparing for a show I'm putting up at the Elmhurst Art Museum outside Chicago in a couple of weeks. The show is mostly a drawing show and includes the largest drawing I've probably ever done, a 5' x 8' monstrosity with the above title, which can be seen, dimly, in the background of the photo on the left. In addition to the drawings I'll be showing one painting and a 28 foot long hand made accordian book called Rage of Poseidon. It compiles a number of stories adapted from my sketchbooks, all stories of familiar gods and angels, including those of Isaac and Abraham, The Devil, Leda and the Swan, and one where Jesus tries to pick up Aphrodite in a bar. The stories are coupled with silhouetted imagery, a configuration I came up with a few years back as a quick way to create a slide show from the Poseidon story for a reading when Joe Meno asked me to read with him for the release of his book Demons in the Spring. I ended up reading the pieces several more times including at stops on the tour for Big Questions when it turned out that slide readings of comics, especially long silent sequences of sad and sickly birds crawling around in the grass exchanging curious looks was a little awkward.

Making the accordian book has been as  epic a wrestling match as figuring out how to make a 5'x8' drawing turned out to be when ones line is as thin and airy as mine. Between the two I feel like I'm being ground into the mat and getting my head stapled by Mickey Rourke. How do you fold a 28 foot piece of paper into 48 separate pages evenly? How do you keep the glue at the hinges from warping the paper? How do you attach the damn thing to its cover? I have been constantly reminded why I started out xeroxing drawings I didn't expect anyone to like on the cheapest paper I could find and stapling them together in a pile. It took an afternoon. In the process of making Rage of Poseidon I had to relearn how to screen print in order to make the covers (see above – the interior is archival pigment printing). I also found out that it's basically impossible to print accurately on both sides of a 44" piece of paper using an Epson 9880, but that it is possible to cut rolls of that paper on a chopsaw, though in the end that roll of paper turned out to be useless for other reasons.

To close out the post I'm attaching a few images of studies for the big drawing. The first two are of Adam and Eve and the general composition. These are followed by a number of studies of some hominids who make their home in the garden. These two also show up in a story in the accordian book about Prometheus. I can't get enough of that little guy with the cats.

Ho Chi Minh

Alas

He made some of the most beautiful drawings anyone ever has, and told deeply human stories. We were lucky to have had him around for his short turn. RIP Maurice Sendak.

Tonight

Fellow Drawn and Quarterlarian and master cartoonist Guy Delisle is in Minneapolis touring on his new book Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City. He's at Magers and Quinn on Tuesday. Recommended.

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Of apples and apple trees

My father drew this in... 1966? It recently came to light in the collection of an old football buddy of his from college. He doesn't know it exists as I write this and probably won't see it until he opens his email tomorrow. I think it's amazing, although he might want me to mention that he spent considerably more time and care on some later efforts, which might also be worth a blog post at some point. But anyway... today is his birthday. Happy birthday, dad.

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What?!

While we're on the subject of must-see comics happenings in Chicago next weekend, look at these shadow puppet stills from a piece by Sara Drake that's getting performed at Brain Frame next Friday...

...conveniently (or maddeningly?) scheduled one hour after the Quimby's event starts, and just a few blocks away. It's like a comics reading/performance/exhibition mini festival next week.

Zak Sally printed the damn thing himself

Zak Sally, John Porcellino and Dale Flattum are going to be in Chicago next week on the occasion of the official release of Zak's book Sammy, vol. I. Which is awesome. They're doing a reading at Quimby's on Friday at 7:00 and an exhibition opening at Johalla Projects on Saturday where you can see originals from all three (also at 7). You should go. Here are a couple images of Dale's stuff, (you should also watch his (already funded) kickstarter video here).