Goodbye Kitty and Friends

I loved the graphic line and vintage clip-art pieces thrown in; strong black and white with brilliant color... © Bill Mayer 2010 The Lady in the Kimono was a simple illustration that went through several concepts before I landed on this one. The Idea was to do a kind of traditional Japanese lady in a Kimono holding a little iPhone. I had been playing with the black and white drawing with the collage elements worked in. Most of the time, the collage elements actually have more to do with the concept, but in this case it was just decorative. I loved the graphic line and old clip-art pieces thrown in. The diference in this and the stamp drawings was that the drawing came first and the other elements came later. With the stamps, they were always the first thing on the page and then I would come back and draw over them. I guess it works both ways. The Hanging is another little collage illustration: taking a somber image and using contrasting collage pieces to bring humor into a rather bleak subject. Lee is not going to like this one, either... I can't show thumbnails or sketches because this is just a little thumbnail itself.... "Goodbye Kitty" After Yuko Shimizu © Bill Mayer 2010 I did this little Cat piece trying to solve a little problem with a nice rat illustration I had that had no concept, just a nice rat.. Seemed natural to pick another celebrity cat to use. My first thought was Felix, and then Lee mentioned Hello Kitty... seemed like a great fit but after wrestling with how to make it work with the rat, I just decided it worked much better on its own. We were walking down to the Brickstore Pub to meet some friends, so I doodled this on my napkin to remind me.... Goodbye Kitty... Seemed like such an obvious idea, although Yuko Shimizu designed Hello Kitty for Sanrio, so for sure there needs to be heavy credit to them... all I did was add pink blood.... This little drawing I came up with at the same time as the cat. Most of the time, when I am laying there thinking of little ideas I just roll over, go back to sleep and forget about them, but this time I actually sketched a little hieroglyph in my sketchbook to remind me. I love the traditional wood cuts from Japanese artists of the ninteenth century. This little drawing was influenced by one of Kiyomitzo's, but instead, the beautiful girl is replaced by an Ogre and the patterns woven with Japanese corporations. An attempted metaphor for the the new direction of a more aggressive Japanese business climate? There are snakes under those Kimonos... and they have teeth... Close up of the head so you can see the corporation names woven into the drawing... " The New Japan" © Bill Mayer 2010 I tried to make the hands ugly and distorted, with long nails and little piles of skulls of the competition lying around hidden under the robe. And on my ongoing quest to get the portraits better, here's a little "Leaky Man" of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange. I always loved those old cartoons, where the guy gets shot in a few dozen places and walks away, only to drink a glass of water and have it spout out from the bullet holes... old clichés never die... seemed so appropriate.

Death Of The Mouse

I loved this little cat, I originally drew it on top of the butterfly girl, and wanted to think of a little concept that would utilize it. Lee and I used to have some great cats over the years... Pumkin, Bottle-rocket (who we were convinced is a stow away on a Russian frieghter) and Persia, a tiny little grey cat that sat on the top step and talked to marshmellows.... Alas all have gone to that great cat box in the sky. I thought of a nieghbors cat who used to bring little presents home, some times dead sometimes alive, and some times in pieces... I love poking at Disney when ever I can so, I used the "Mouse " with the tiny voice... I guess you could read into a conceptual meaning of this about Disney's fall from grace, but for me it was just funny... This little drawing has been rolling around in my head for a while . This whole little series is somewhat spawned from the little variation of the style I did for Y&R on a new business pitch. My Grandson Forest was in the studio putting together a new CD cover and left the little "Parental Advisory" on my desktop. I just couldn't resist. Lee hates the whole idea of confronting death. I asked her if you could know it was your last day, would you want to? She finds this whole discussion depressing. I don't know why I have an obsession with death... Honestly I don't think about it that often. I do, however, find it interesting, the use of such a somber subject in contrast with an innocent style to create playful irony... I really loved the strong blacks and vivid whites, graphically works so well. I just had to try to push out a few of these to see if there was somthing there worth marketing. Some of them worked pretty well. As usual the ones with the strongest ideas work the best.The background was put in with a halftone screen in photoshop. I don't usually like such obvious photoshop filters but in this case it worked pretty well.

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

the good On a side note: Obama was blue, because he started off as the multi armed Indian God, "Kali." It was going to be another little gouache portrait, with the necklace of skulls, and the heads of "The Axis of Evil" on His belt. A very time-consuming illustration abandoned temporarily for paying work; And maybe abandoned permanently now that someone did the same thing (kind of) on the cover of NewsWeek. the bad.. Been trying some more caricature illustration, something that always gave me trouble. Looking through my book the other day, noticed there was not much in the way of caricature. Not from the last few years anyway, I think it's because all of the work I do, I draw from my head. So, I wanted to take a little time and try something that's not a bug or a monster... Here's a little thumbnail page of the gouache sketches, and some enlargements to follow. Practice, practice... in the words of the the great Conan The Barbarian, (from Nietzsche, I think) "If it doesn't kill me it will make me stronger" All Illustrations © Bill Mayer 2010 For the love of a good line.... While working on a new business pitch for Y&R, I did these little New Yorker-ish line drawings. They wanted a kind of New Yorker direction... and I'm not sure that I can actually show anything from the new biz stuff... But these were a few of the drawings that spawned themselves while waiting for input from the art director. Always loved black line and solid black, so strong, graphically. -bill

"Lady Gaga"

The other day, I was playing around with doing some little gouache portraits. Have not been called on to many of them lately, and they were never a strong suit for me, so a good thing to practice on. I picked a sort of Pop-Surreallist style for this little portrait of Lady Gaga, because it seemed to fit conceptually. Sort of the new madonna in a way. anyway, thought I would share. Always good to try something new. Gouache on Watercolor paper, 5''x7'' © Bill Mayer

Staying Sharp #4

Okay a great way to stay sharp. take an object from your studio and do ten sketches :10 min.... The keys are so dull and cold let’s try something a bit more ….festive….. Candy Corn works for me. Right brain thinking....So it's a little exercise I started when I was in art school...Doesn't have to be brilliant, ( and sometimes there not) just a great way of staying fresh and keeping the ideas flowing. Honestly this little set of drawings only took :10 but then another 20 minutes to scan them and figure out how to post them....but you get the idea.

Staying Sharp #3

Okay a great way to stay sharp, take an object from your studio and do ten sketches :10 min.... for me; ( insert some lame joke about unlocking the creative psycy) ...So a key works..... Right brain thinking....So it's a little exercise I started when I was in art school...Doesn't have to be brilliant, just a great way of staying fresh and keeping the ideas flowing. Honestly, this little set of drawings only took :10 but then another 20 minutes or so to scan them and figure out how to post them....but you get the idea.