Sometimes a project gets in and it's just like you're a kid again.
In french I'd say un moment de bonheur.
There was anything crazy, impressive or huge about this project, it was in fact a pretty simple book cover project, for a small novel, only it was written in 1967 by one of my favorite artist, Roland Topor.
I'm not as familiar with his writting as I am with his images, but the fact is he was a pretty good writter.
I don't know if his words are translated in english but you can still (re)watch The Tenant by Polansky, adapted from one of Topor's book.
Samples of the inside images
The cover of the first book in this collection.
So in this project, the main difficulties were that there was a dozen illustrations of Topor inside, all of them composed as rébus, (sort of a puzzle of elements that put one after the other form a sentence), and the fact that a first book has already been published in the same collection with one of Topor illustration on the cover, which spirit I was asked to keep for mine.
Briefly, the story is about a princess, may be a girl, may be not, on the road with and old drunk man, inside a truck looking like a pink elephant, a treasure inside that looks more like a yard sale, trying to escape vilains, true or not, etc... It's as crazy as Alice could be, but with Topor's sauce.
The back cover résumé ends with this words: « I've stopped smoking, but I don't feel better».
Some sketches
The final cover
I know I'll never match someone as great as Topor, and it had never been in question; my only concern was not to disappoint myself of course, but also Topor's fans who will buy this book.
It is for this kind of thrill and simple moments that I still enjoy being an illustrator.
This past summer I get a call from BBDO Montreal to work along with five other visual artists on particular project for Le Lait (Milk), among them were Isabelle Arsenault and Pascal Blanchet.
We were asked to sketch what was our take on comforting, having in mind we would have to paint it later on a huge 3D milk brick.
Since the project was to have a true 3D aspect, the pack were to be exhibited in the 6 different subway stations, I thought rather than to paint pannel after pannel with a linear lecture, it could be different to add another dimension, a fake one, but thatt would give a kind of simplistic trompe l'oeil that would give the viewer a stranger and funnier perspective.
Sketch#1
Sketch #2 with type
After the sketch was approved, we all get to work in august, for a litlle less than a week in a huge loft near Jacques Cartier Bridge and the Molson Brewry, downtown Montreal.
The packs were installed, with our names above, coffee maker, fridge, breakfast,... and heavy metal covers all day, since we were above rehearsal studios. One thing for sure, not everybody can sing like Rob Halford!!!
The 4 days of painting were really great and so was the ambiance.
I wasn't sure how I could handle the whole thing with the painting, but after the first afternoon, I had already outlined with acrylic all the elements, and applied the blue background on the 4 sides. Nothing was guaranteed, but at least I knew I could finish it on time.
We were filmed for the website , where you can see a 3 minutes movie of the making of, per artist, in french only, pictures of the process, etc...
It had been such a long time I hadn't painted on something bigger than my regular 12 inches illustrations.
It was so great to concentrate only on the painting and nothing else, no e-mails, no phone, nothing... I wish I could do that more often.
If only it had been Arcade Fire in the studios.
Couple of days ago I've received copies of the illustrated book I had just finished a week before, Vivre à Deux, the french translation of Jonathan Franzen's short story, Two's company, previously published in The New-Yorker.
With publisher Antoine Tanguay at Alto we agreed since the beginning that the design of the pages needed to be simple. The art direction was pretty simple, in resume it was something like, «have fun in two colors».
I admit I do not work in two colors pretty often in my «regular» assignments, although this is pretty much the way I work when doing my sketches. So for that reason, I decided to go the same way for this book, just a bit more precise and less rough than my sketches.
Some spreads
It was really fun to work this way for once, and off course, working on a book written by Franzen was the cherry on the sundae.
After Mark and Chris huge pieces, here is my small contribution to the Blab show at Roq La Rue gallery in Seattle, curated by Monte Beauchamp.
I'm honored to be a part of the exhibit, along with a great lineup of artists that includes Marc and Chris off course, as well as Nicoletta Ceccoli, Martin Wittfooth, Jason Holley, Erik Sandberg, Travis Louie, Jana Brike, Dan May, Shag, Ana Bagayan, Laurie Hogin, Derek Nobbs, Andrew S. Arconti, Ryan Heshka, Owen Smith, Brian Despain, Mark Garro, Juliana Swaney, Shag, Andy Kehoe, Alex Kuno, Fred Stonehouse and Yoko D'Holbachie
For the piece by itself, I've tried to stay close to the original spirit of the Krampus cards, but just twist it a bit.
Kids could be little devils too!
