gregmably.com

Eau De Vie

posted: September 14, 2009

This is an illustration for MIX magazine in Portland to accompany an article about Eau de Vie in their Mixmaster column.

For those unfamiliar with the beverage, Eau de Vie is a clear fruit brandy traditionally consumed as a digestif. It's seen a surge in popularity recently as some forward thinking mixologists have taken to using it in cocktails. Common flavors include pear, apple and peach with some distilleries exploring alternative flavors. The story focused on two: Pear and Douglas Fir (!)

I had no doubt I would enjoy making a picture combining pears and evergreen trees.

Art Director: Linda Shankweiler

Cheers!

images

share • subscribe

18 comments |

permalink

A Fish

posted: August 22, 2009

Earlier this summer I took in an exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario here in Toronto entitled 'Surreal Things'. It looked at the connection between surrealist art and what followed in other disciplines such as industrial design, fashion & film.
For example, the influence of Dali's amorphous forms on the design of Ray & Charles Eames. Obvious once you think about it, but I'd never made that connection.
Included in the exhibit was a looping clip of this sequence from Hitchcock's 'Spellbound':

Anyways, the show renewed my interest in surrealist art. As a teenager I was very into Dali as well as surrealism's heirs in the world of album cover design, but the ambiguous dreamlike appeal of the likes of Dali and de Chirico was soon replaced by the bold simplicity of Warhol and Lichtenstein.
For the little spots above on education & the environment I tried to evoke the spirit of Magritte and Man Ray (with a dash of Lester Beall) and in the process test the waters of photo illustration.