Archives: Roger De Muth
Posted by: roger (24 posts)
August 17, 2008 4:19 PM
For the birds.
For the birds.
When you look at something long enough, eventually the plan becomes so obvious that you wonder why you didn't see it earlier. "What the hell does that mean?"
Ideas and plan for arbors and Chinese Pagoda to be built in the Fire Swamp.
See earlier post for an explanation.
About 5 years ago, we purchased the property across the street from our home.
Someone before us bulldozed all the trees and left them in a huge clump and then tried to burn them. Dirt and stumps don't burn well.
Anyway, we cleaned it up and took 16 dump truck loads of stumps away.
Here is one of the dozens of drawings I've done and the plan. It is turned 90 degrees from the panoramic photo below of the site.
In the drawing on the top right is a R.O.U.S. (rodent of unusual size) as my homage to the 'Princess Bride' -one of my favorite movies. I'd like to make large topiary rats and place them thoughout the woods some day.
After I do a million drawings of something, I know it intimately, and can proceed with the construction. I culled cedar trees from the property to build the chinese pagoda and arbors. Fall is a good time to start Chinese Pagodas in New York State. Good Feng Shui.
I must have a lot of time on my hands, or forgotten how to sleep. Sleep is for wimps anyway. Stay tuned.
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Here's my newest book that should be on the shelves in September. It's won the Wacky Award from Publisher's Weekly!
Here's a clip from the publisher's Weekly: Most Impassioned Plea to Embrace Vegetarianism:
Please Don't Eat Me by Roger DeMuth, in which a fish begs not to become an entreé (Blue Apple)
For autographed copies, please email me, or check your local book store.
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I shot 1500 pictures of Joan Green's Garden recently for a book project I've been working on. This is an oak on her property. I stole the neighbors views to shoot this image. It's a composite photograph made up of dozens of images stitched together.
The garden is incredible, and was recently on the Open Days Garden Conservancy tour along with my own garden. She sets a new standard in garden care.
Try this when you get a chance: Photoshop CS3> file> automate> photomerge , you'll like it. It changed the way I shoot photos. Take a look: www.mrpanoramaman.com
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I like Old San Juan. It's old. This is in the town square where the taxi drivers sit waiting for their next fare.
The fort has been around since the 1600's and everything else around it was ancient too. I did some paintings on the bus that are some of my favorites.
On a painting... I take notes on the back of the art, note colors, details etc, and then paint it in the hotel room or when I get home. I use a dip pen, and sepia india ink. Sometimes with a pencil sketch underneath or if I feel confident, then right to ink.
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Here's a drawing with overpainting of writer Lewis Beale from a photo in the NY Times.
It looks like a thousand cat scratch brush strokes forming the face. I thought I stumbled onto something and that if I did thousands of cat scatch portraits they would all look as nice as this one. It was going to be wonderful, and every drawing I did would look incredible, and it was a formula that was going to work... every time. All my drawings would be incredible. Life was SOLVED!
Oh, well. you know the ending. A happy accident. Life has returned to normal. Each good drawing is a struggle. A fluke in the sketchbook of life.
Anyway, if you see this drawing and like it Lewis, let me know. It's a favorite of mine.
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Every now and then you get a good drawing. I like this one. Keep drawing, everyday. It makes your brain work better. Smear your drawings with coffee, orange juice, sparkling water, or soda. You'll like them better.
If you're hungry in the desert someday, you can eat them too. They'll taste good. Who says art isn't functional?
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I take my moleskin with me everywhere. Here's a page with drawings from a lecture by Tracy Kidder. A few members of the audience are in the circles around the page.
I did this drawing of Kanzi the Bonobo Ape who was part of an article on intelligence in National Geographic. Kanzi can speak several languages, type 60 words a minute, uses Photoshop CS3, and works on a Mac. Hey..................... just kidding and wanted to see if you are paying attention. He really writes code on a PC.......... now STOP it, Roger.
I devised a clever method of doing drawings to illustrate what I was talking about while in Portugal at the top of this sketchbook page. Pictionary was my way of talking in Pictures. Unfortunately, the only person I met that spoke English, was a Chinese Man working in a Chinese restaurant in Evora. I'm not sure whether the words he told me were in Chinese, or Portuguese.
Kanzi wherefore art thou?
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I like Moleskin Sketchbooks because they have a small pocket in the back, where you can put your train tickets. I put all of my notes on the last two pages of my moleskin books because I can find things instantly. Not that I can read the small type though.
On the right page is a great quote from Matt Caserta, a former student- " How come you attract all the crazy ones?" Oh, animal magnetism Matt.
There's a drawing of Ray Beale on the right page at the Chocolate Shop in Cazenovia.
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We drove down highway 1 from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo this past year. It was nervewracking travelling south on Highway 1 because we were on the ocean side of the road. I compensated for the scary view by driving on the mountain side of the road until traffic came along.
San Simeon is William Randolf Hearst's house that he bought in Europe and then reassembled on top of a California Mountain. At one time he owned a piece of property 300 miles square. The house was up on top of a mountain, cold, and lifeless. The bus ride to the top was equally scary.
This drawing was done of the woodwork in the large front Cathedral room. I felt trapped on the tour and couldn't wait to leave. One second of listening to a prepared speech leaves me gasping for air. No more tours for me.
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This is a drawing of Thomas Edison I finished recently. I went to his creative workshop when I was a kid a million years ago. He's an inspiration to all of us. A workaholic that produced hundreds of patents, inventions, and clever things.
His workshop was in East Orange, New Jersey. I'd like to go back and see what I missed.
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This is a drawing I did from the obits page of the New York Times. They always have the best picture of a person on the Obituary Page. Nice stories too. Elizabeth Tashjian owned a giant gothic house in Connecticut, and ran the "Nut" museum from it. Admission was one "nut".
Eventually, power of attorney was used to evict her from the home. Anyway, here's to Elizabeth Tashjian. She emigrated from Eastern Europe, and didn't understand that a "Nut" could also be a person too. Oh, well, nobody's perfect.
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This is a drawing I did of Victor Yushenko after he was poisoned by the KGB by putting Dioxin in his Vichysoisse.
I think I ate in that restaurant once, and I'm not going back.
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John Soane was an architect and collectiholic and lived just down the street from Sotheby's auction house in 1790. He loved Greece, Rome, and once in awhile Egypt.
We can appreciate it today thanks to him, because he bought everything.
In fact, he filled his house with so much stuff that it's hard to walk inside. When the giant alabaster sarcophagus from Egypt arrived they had a party that lasted 3 days.
I have modeled my house around his. Except, I'm an Uncle Wiggly fan.
Stop by his house in London when you're there next. You'll be glad you did.
This is a drawing of a Roman Schard from inside his house. Well done, John.
Valerie Holzworth is one tough lady. She's British, and made a statement about the poor dental care she was receiving. In retaliation to British Health Care, she extracted 8 teeth with a pair of pliers and one strong glass of spirits. Well, she showed British Health care, didn't she?
I'll have a beer thank you. No spirits for me.
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This is a drawing in my moleskin of my friend Ray Beale who is one of the best portrait photographers I've ever met. He also taught me more about color than anyone else. Interesting, since most of his work is black & white. Ray recently went on vacation in New Orleans. He flew over 2,000 miles and stayed a day and a half and then returned.
So much for vacations. Here's the quote about being an artist: "It's very interesting being legendary when you can't even make a living & the public has never heard of you" Florine Stettheimer.
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I like Lisbon, because nobody speaks English there. It's more fun that way. How great to have 2 hotels named the "Metropole"! Isn't that great?, and one is like miles away in a totally different direction. Isn't that great? Anyway, once you figure it out, it's even more fun. The "Real" Metropole has a neat marble bathroom and located in the old section downtown. Everything is still in the stores from a 100 years ago. I was able to get Rotring pens that haven't been sold here in 20 years. I love Lisbon. Go there.
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This is a spread from my moleskin sketchbook of a small shop in Cazenovia. I've shot some interesting panorama photos inside the store. Amanda finds "Objects D'art" for my Museum of Art Supplies. My studio is filled with ancient tubes of dried up paint, brushes that nobody can use anymore, and paint trays made for the Queen of England.
Well, maybe I exaggerated a bit. Hey, wait a minute... I forgot my pen point collection.
While in Philadelphia last March I had only a couple of hours to spend at the Mutter Museum. Perhaps one of the scariest museums I've ever been in. Each turn is filled with medical abnomalies, jars filled with grotesque oddities, deformaties, dusty, sepia-toned formaldehyde jars from two centuries ago with sliced faces, dangling eyeballs and double bodied heads. How does a jar filled with formaldehyde with the label "Moist gangrene of the hand sound to you? The museum is an artist's paradise.
Zoetrope Studios and Francis Ford Coppola owns this great building in San Francisco. Most of the outside of the building has a beautiful copper green patina. The Iron frame of the building was standing during the 1906 earthquake and survived intact.
I did this drawing in my moleskin sketchbook while at the MacWorld convention.
This is a spread from my moleskin which I carry with me everywhere. It's the small size Moleskin book with heavy paper. I draw each page with a Lamy Fountain Pen, and then smear the ink with a wad of napkin dipped in coffee, water, or whatever I'm drinking.
This page was finished while waiting for tickets to "O" in the cancellation line at the Bellagio. Incidentally, the show is incredible, I'd go again in a minute.
Viva Las Vegas!
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I just wanted to thank Jon Keegan and the Invisible Man for allowing me to be a guest artist. I'm thrilled, and hope my birthplace of Passaic, New Jersey will be proud of me.
( I was in a street gang in 2nd grade, and the only member brave enough to lick rocks, but that's a story for another day.)
I've been teaching Illustration at Syracuse University for 29 years ( wow, that was quick.) and been a freelancer forever.
I'm currently working on my 3rd children's book "Dinner for Eight" about an Octopus's dinner party which I wrote and Illustrated. My 2nd book is due in from China in July. "Please don't eat me" which is about a fish that doesn't want to be eaten. It is dedicated to the city of Passaic.
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| Roger De Muth |
| Website: www.demuthdesign.com |
| Email: demuth -at- syr.edu |
| Location: Cazenovia, NY |
Can you hear it? It's the silence of the LAMY! |
