Alan WitschonkeAlan Witschonke at Drawger
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2008-10-19T15:58:39+00:00logo
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http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/Square 1.jpgtext/html2008-10-19T19:43:59+00:00http://www.drawger.com/witschonkeNYC:Imagined
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<img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Edel lo-res.jpg" hspace="5"><p> OK, this piece was conceived as an image for the “NYC, Real & Imagined” book for ICON5. I wasn’t able to finish the color version in time for the conference so I submitted a b/w version to Julia Breckenreid. Now that I’ve finished the watercolor/dye version, I want to do it again, 5.5 ft. x 6.5 ft., in oils. I’ll probably never get around to that. But it would be fun. Anyway, what could be more symbolic of New York, and appropriate for an illustration conference, than Edel R. sketching in Central Park? All the characters are celebrities that Edel has done portraits of. The caribou is from his theatre poster for “As You Like It”. <br />
In the background is Christo’s dream-like installation “the Gates”, which enthralled me when I walked through it.<br />
I wanted to do this painting in a style similar to the Taj Mahal book. I don’t know if I succeeded or not.<br />
</p><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Edel-detail 1.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Edel-detail 2.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Edel-detail 3.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Edel-detail 4.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Edel-detail 5.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Edel-detail 6.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Edel-b&w.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Edel poster.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Gates.JPG" hspace="5"><br><br>text/html2008-07-18T21:04:47+00:00http://www.drawger.com/witschonkeFace-lift
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<img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Home_page.jpg" hspace="5">Like J.D. King, I performed a face-lift on <a href="http://www.alanwitschonke.com">my website</a> recently. Unlike J.D., it took considerably longer than a weekend. I could not have done it without my webmaster, our very own Rob Dunlavey who assisted with the design and did all the technical stuff. I spent a long time going through the flat files, pulling out artwork and rescanning, re-sizing and optimizing it all. But that time was probably a drop in the bucket compared to the hours that Rob slaved over the project. Rob was always outwardly agreeable while secretly harboring the desire to chop my hands off, I’m guessing. It’s still not quite finished so I hope Rob doesn’t flee to become a Buddhist monk. Any feedback would be appreciated. Here’s the URL in case the hyperlink doesn’t work: <br /><br />http://www.alanwitschonke.com/<br><br>text/html2008-05-15T17:01:19+00:00http://www.drawger.com/witschonkeFarewell, Mr. Rauschenberg
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<img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/RR_1.jpg" hspace="5">I searched the recent Drawger archives and could not find any articles about the passing, on Monday, of Robert Rauschenberg so I thought I’d post a small tribute to a great artist. The iconic and prolific photographer, printmaker, sculptor and collage artist was one of the seminal figures in Modern Art. In Mark Feeney’s excellent obituary in Wednesday’s Boston Globe, he says, “where Abstract Expressionism brought American art to new heights, Mr. Rauschenberg presented it with new possibilities.” He describes how, despite Rauschenberg’s considerable accomplishments and fame, he was devoid of pretense and enjoyed poking fun at other artists who took themselves too seriously. The most memorable example of this was his piece entitled, “Erased de Kooning Drawing” (1953), which was just what the title suggests. Rauschenberg studied at Black Mountain College in the 1940’s with Josef Albers. Rauschenberg called him “the most important” teacher he ever had, in part because he learned to do “exactly the reverse” of what Albers taught.<br /><br />Rauschenberg was a huge early influence of mine. I remember when I was in high school, (a long time ago), taking the train into NYC from CT and cruising the Madison Avenue galleries in search of my faves, including Mr. Rauschenberg. I even experimented with his technique of transferring photos to paper by applying silkscreen adhering liquid, (potent stuff), to the paper, placing a magazine photo face down and then rubbing the back of the photo to transfer it. <br /><br />So let’s raise a glass to Mr. Rauschenberg. “I’m curious”, Rauschenberg said in a 1997 interview. “I’m still discovering things every day.” Amen.<br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/RR_2.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/RR_3.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/RR_4.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/RR_5.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/RR_6.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/RR_7.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/RR_8.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br>text/html2008-05-13T16:07:51+00:00http://www.drawger.com/witschonkeLedisi Rocks
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<img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/ledisiyoung.jpg" hspace="5">I did this portrait of Jazz/R&B singer Ledisi Young (www.ledisi.com) for the Recording Academy and it was published in the program book for the 50th Grammy Awards which took place on 2/10/08. I meant to post it then, but didn’t get to it. I was reminded of it recently when I got the schedule for the Burlington (VT) Discover Jazz Festival from 5/30 – 6/8. http://www.discoverjazz.com/tickets-events/artists/ledisi.php Ledisi will open the festival on May 30th. It looks like a great line-up, including Josh Redman and the legendary Ornette Coleman. <br /><br />For those who don’t know her, Ledisi is creating quite the buzz. Her 3rd album, Lost & Found (Verve), was nominated for two awards: Best New Artist and Best R&B Album. Her sound has been compared with that of Ella Fitzgerald and Erykah Badu. She seems equally at home scatting for the Count Basie Orchestra or fronting her own 12-piece R&B band. She’s also been described as having a “hip hop-spiced” sound. She took an independent approach to starting her career by self-producing her 1st albums. Without the backing of a major label, all sales were from the internet and word-of-mouth. Now she’s branching into film. Her music is the soundtrack for a speakeasy scene in George Clooney’s new movie “Leatherheads.” She also has a small acting role in the movie.<br><br>text/html2007-11-14T20:13:50+00:00http://www.drawger.com/witschonkeSo as to relieve eye strain...
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<img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Panipat-detail 3.jpg" hspace="5">I'm posting some details of the Taj Mahal art here and the rest in my Children's Book gallery. I forgot to mention that the originals are done in watercolor dyes -- very fugitive. If you put them near a window, they'd fade to nothing in about 2 weeks. But I love the saturation and vibrancy in the colors -- perfect for this job.<br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Panipat-Detail 1.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Panipat-detail 2.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Head-detail 1.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Head-detail 2.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Head-detail 3.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br>text/html2007-11-14T15:34:21+00:00http://www.drawger.com/witschonkeThe Taj Mahal wasn't built in a day
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<img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Panipat-Drawger.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Severed Head-Drawger.jpg" hspace="5">So this is where I’ve been the past 10 months. I’ve been working on a non-fiction children’s book titled The Taj Mahal. This is my fifth book in this series, (the man-made Wonders of the World), and it has been the most difficult. As is my custom, I made it much harder than it needed to be. After looking at tons of reference on the Taj, I was captivated by the gorgeous design sense and detailed art from the period in which the Taj was built. The Mughal Empire existed in India from 1504-1857, but flourished from the time of Akbar the Great in 1556 until the death of Aurangzeb in 1707. The empire was built by blood-thirsty, power hungry warlords, and yet they had an incongruous love for art, architecture and elaborate floral gardens. Court artists and artisans were admired and revered. Perhaps the only monarchy that could rival The Mughal Empire for artistic growth and support was the Medici Empire in Italy, around the same time. <br /> So, naturally, I decided that I wanted my art to have the same aesthetic and feel as Mughal art. Easier said than done. If you’ve ever seen Persian miniatures, you know the level of detail I wanted. I had to compromise somewhat just to finish the book on deadline, and because the client wanted the architecture and structure of the Taj itself to be “accurate.” So I went for a hybrid of Western and Eastern perspective and Mughal stylistic elements, and I tried to suppress my own representational tendencies.<br /> I also wanted to throw in some demons but the client nixed that idea.<br><br>I'll add a few more of these images to the Children's Books Gallery.<br><br>text/html2007-04-30T16:03:43+00:00http://www.drawger.com/witschonkeIcons + Altars
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<img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Recuerda Me-full.jpg" hspace="5">Approximately every other year since 1998, (depending on my workload), I have been donating an artwork to an invitational exhibition entitled, “Icons + Altars”. Now in it’s 14th year, the annual show is a major fund-raiser for The New Art Center in Newton, MA. Each year, around 100 artists are selected to participate, creating works based on their own “personal, cultural or social” interpretation of an icon or altar. Works may be two- or three-dimensional but must conform to a height, width and depth of between 12” and 18” each. The artwork is sold in a unique format. Anyone interested in purchasing a piece buys a fixed-price ticket (around $225 this year) any day during the show. On the final day of the exhibition, tickets are drawn from a bowl to determine the order in which the pieces are selected. The first name drawn gets first choice of any piece in the show and so on. Participating artists may keep up to 50% of the ticket price. <br /><br />I enjoy doing pieces for this show because it allows me to stretch a little and try new techniques without having to worry about client approval. The show runs mid-November to mid-December. I haven’t created a piece yet for this year’s show but if I do, I’ll add it to the “Icons + Altars” gallery I started here on Drawger.<br /><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Victorious Secret Angel-full.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br>text/html2007-03-02T23:18:44+00:00http://www.drawger.com/witschonkeArt historians get fooled again
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<img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Tower-sized.jpg" hspace="5">I read an interesting article in the Boston Globe the other day (2/26 to be precise). I’ve been illustrating a non-fiction children’s book about the Taj Mahal so I’ve been looking at a lot of art from Persia and India, particularly art from the Mughal empire (1526-1746). When the Mughals invaded India and made Agra their capital city, a period of great artistic and intellectual growth occurred. Although the Mughals were Muslim and India was mostly Hindu, they co-existed peacefully. Hindu artisans were brought to the Mughal court and produced some of their finest work. Their work was astonishingly detailed with incredibly fine lines that look like they were done with a quill pen but were actually done with brush. The medium of choice was opaque watercolor. <br /><br />Anyway, I digress. Getting back to the article, a PhD candidate in Harvard’s Physics Department, Peter Lu, was struck by the beauty of the decorations on an ancient building in Bukhara, Uzbekistan in 2005. He thought the geometric patterns might be related to ones he had written about in his undergraduate thesis at Princeton – that he thought hadn’t been discovered until the 1970s when British physicist Roger Penrose studied them! After poring over pictures of Islamic art and architecture he concluded: “The art, in countries from Iran to Turkey to Uzbekistan, ‘reveals a much greater degree of mathematical sophistication than we had thought.”<br /><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Polygons.jpg" hspace="5">There are five essential polygons in the mosaic patterns: The pentagon (1), rhombus (2), hexagon (3), bowtie (4), and decagon (5). Historians believed that the intricate patterns were painstakingly drafted using a compass and straight edge. But it was discovered that by arranging a combination of the five polygons, the same pattern could be easily replicated by keeping only the decorative lines on the tiles.<br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Polygons2.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/Design Guide.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br>Given all the suspicions, misunderstandings and mistrust of that region of the world and conjecture about whether or not Iran wants to build nuclear warheads, it’s soothing for the soul to read something positive about their contributions to art and culture. So that’s my art, civics, science and mathematics lesson for this week.<br><br>text/html2007-02-20T06:38:27+00:00http://www.drawger.com/witschonkeThe Big Bang
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I wanted to start with a bang. I'm honored to be included in this group that consists of some of my immortal demi-god heroes and some of my more recent, merely mortal heroes. Being on Drawger will be good therapy for me. Now I'll have to bring my sketchbook with me everywhere, including trips to the drugstore or walking the dog because you guys do. Working in a sketchbook is like flossing -- you know you should do it every day, but it's so easy to put off until tomorrow. <br /><br />That's it for now because it's 2:00 a.m. and I've consumed all the cocoa in the house in a futile attempt to increase the blood flow to my brain. You see, cocoa has an anti-oxidant in it called flavonol or something that, well, that's a story for another day...<br><br><img src="http://www.drawger.com/witschonke/images/First Strike-Full.jpg" hspace="5"><br><br>