April 29th, 2012

Coachella 2012 : Addendum

Three of the frognuts ventured to Coachella this year.  Not since 2007 has a group of us made the trek to this music and arts festival, with it’s desert sun, conjured grass fields, amazing shows and simmering human skin.  The post previous to this was a little photo summary of what we saw.  There’s physical and cash money costs to making the trip, but every couple of years a lineup for the show comes together that proves to be irresistible for a few of us.  The At The Drive In reunion did it for me.  Then as I read down the lineup list things kept sweetening the deal.  Overall it was a great trip.  I was impressed by the live shows of a lot of bands, laughed at the ridiculous things friends can say among themselves, tried out some good burgers, and managed not to get a sunburn or obliterate my senses.  I’ll leave you with an image of some notes I jotted down while I was down there. Some things in my notes will only make sense to the three of us, the rest might make sense to no one.

Coachella-Notes-Scribbles

Inside notes for inside jokes.

Posted by Bano at 7:11.

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April 28th, 2012

Coachella 2012

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April 27th, 2012

Painting: “1st Place”

This cartoon painting is called “1st Place.”  Watercolor on paper.  11″ x 17″.

About four weeks ago I received a text from my friend Freddie.  He asked if I was interested in contributing artwork for a silent auction.  The cause on the benifiting end of the auction is a non-profit community farm called Veggielution. Their purpose, as I understood it, is to grow and promote local, healthy food. I could get behind that.  But a big part of why I took on the assignment was because it was just the motivation I needed to produce some art.

Below is a picture of the sketch that I began the work with.

Above the sketch of the final composition you can see an initial idea I had about having a cybernetic bird feed on an engineered orange.  I decided not to go with that idea because….it felt forced and the composition was lacking.  I was also going to add a monkey to the last panel of the final painting, but decided not too because a monkey in the corner would draw too much attention too itself.

I had fun coming up with the idea for the final though.  I used the time honored technique of staring off into space until I came up with something.  And it felt great to finish a piece after having gone without doing one for such a long time.  Unfortunately for Veggielution there were no takers the night of auction, so it’s back home with me.  That’s alright, it just means I just need to keep practicing, even though I’ll have to say, I like how this little comic strip painting turned out.

Posted by Bano at 6:37.

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April 24th, 2012

Ken Robinson On Schools and Creativity

Great Ted Talk. I think it speaks for itself and I couldn’t agree more.

Posted by jav.e at 20:36.

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March 19th, 2012

Kazuhiko Sano Tribute Piece

I’ve posted an image of a tribute piece I submitted to a memorial project for Kazuhiko Sano, one of my teachers from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.  He passed away in May of last year.  Information on his passing and art can be found here.  I’ve been meaning to post a copy of what I did here at frognuts.

What follows below is the text I wrote to accompany the piece on the tribute project blog in October of last year:

I remember a day in the beginning of the semester when I took Kazu’s class. He had us all bring in portfolios of our work to review. He took notice of a small print of one of my digital paintings and asked about it…I let him know that It was a painting whose digital file I had unfortunately lost when my laptop’s hard drive broke. “You should do it again” he said. That statement stuck with me because he said in such a matter-of-fact manner. I hadn’t considered going back because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to re-capture what I thought was good about the piece. But that was something that I learned from Kazu, that you can’t let artistic fear and trepidation keep you from moving forward, and trying again and again to become better at what you love to do.

I also learned about the process behind his art, and how much he seemed to love contemplating the beauty in nature. I loved his dinosaur paintings, how his attention to detail and artistic vision could make the fantastical T-Rex seem real, and could bring out the otherworldly in faces and scenes that are familiar. I think about how his essence could be a part of the nature and history he so masterfully painted. This compelled me to try and carve his signature mark into stone, by chiseling away the negative space…so that it wasn’t like it was imprinted, but rather drawn out of the rock. How it looks like it was worked out by someone primitive, who maybe has not achieved a level of technical mastery, but who finds that the symbol carries deep meaning, and should be left for others to find, and through its beautiful design get a feeling of who it represents.
I feel very grateful to have been one of Kazu’s students and I thank him for all the lessons, wisdom and knowledge he has shared.

Posted by Bano at 5:34.

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March 4th, 2012

Journalism Matters

Recognizing that there is a lack of what is commonly referred to as Longform journalism, Matter a journalism project based in San Francisco is doing something about it by obtaining funding through Kickstarter and its community. What they are offering is the means and resources to bring thoughtful, insightful and in depth journalism online. Contrast that with what we have now, short paragraph reporting, press releases treated as news, and pages that place a huge significance on ads rather than on the story and it seems what they are offering is downright necessary to the future of journalism.



Posted by Fabian at 1:27.

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March 2nd, 2012

“Goldfish Salvation” Riusuke Fukahori

Incredible lifelike three-dimensional paintings of Koi Fish. Artist Riusuke Fukahori shows us what he can do with just containers, acrylic and resin. All I can think of while watching this video is how much patience he must have to produce such wondrous pieces of art.

“Goldfish Salvation” Riusuke Fukahori from ICN gallery on Vimeo.

Posted by Fabian at 8:22.

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February 26th, 2012

Manga Plates!

Fusing Manga style artwork with Sushi tableware is another one of those great ideas where you ask yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that!?”

You can see more plates here.





Posted by Fabian at 21:30.

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February 25th, 2012

To Do List

This was passed around at work. Ahhh, color, shapes, inspiration…

To Do List from Yaniv Fridman on Vimeo.

Posted by Fabian at 21:16.

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January 8th, 2012

Super Brothers: Sword & Sworcery

Recently, before the end of the year, I received a very generous gift from the higher ups at my workplace. Nancy Duarte and her husband Mark Duarte surprised everyone at Duarte Design with an iPad 2! Yayyyy!

I’ve had plenty of time to play with it and I’ve found many great apps for productivity and design but found myself having a hard time finding a game I’d be willing to buy. Now, maybe I’m too critical and just a bit snooty when it comes to movies, music and games but I expect the best experience possible from these mediums. Although there are plenty of games in the AppStore to the point of being overwhelming, and many look visually gorgeous, to me most lack substance. I find myself asking whether the game has an immersive gaming experience, is it unique, does it feel like care and thought was put into it, is the audio/music top notch, etc… It’s not enough for a game to look great, I’ve been fooled into buying those games in the past, it needs to feel as if the creators of the game was as immersed in creating the game as the authors of some of our best literary classics were. Too critical? I don’t think so, I mean why shouldn’t it be that way.

Enter Super Brothers: Sword & Sworcery. An experience in visuals and music. The visuals in the game are a throwback to the days of Atari, NES and Sega Genesis but with a clear design mentality applied. And the soundtrack, supplied by Jim Guthrie, who’s music I’ve never heard before but has now been added to my music collection, is enchantingly beautiful. The music is integral to the gameplay, in fact make sure you play it with a great set of cans. I mean it! The writing really brings the pixelated characters to life and the puzzles make use of the iPad in interesting ways. Everything comes together to make you forget that you are on an iPad and your movements and interaction with it become an extension of the game itself.

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Posted by Fabian at 22:32.

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