H. R. Giger

Which famous person would you really like to meet? I have been asked this question very often so far and I always had the same answer: Picasso! He´s my favorite artist, though I do like many others too and the choice is hard.

But a few days ago I read an article about another great artist: H. R. Giger. And I realized that he would be the person I would like to meet in real (and maybe I´m lucky as the artist is still alive). Hans Ruedi Giger is an Academy Award-winning Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer best known for his design work on the film Alien (which earned him an Oscar in 1980). His paintings often display fetishistic sexual imagery and are considered disturbing by many. His main influences were painters Ernst Fuchs and Salvador Dalí.



"Some people say my work is often depressing and pessimistic, with the emphasis on death, blood, overcrowding, strange beings and so on, but I don't really think it is." (H. R. Giger)

I was surprised when I read the interview with him. His artwork is very dark and he doesn´t seem to be like that at all in person. And though he is famous, he is still a humble person and that impresses me.
Every year I try to get a few days off from my family and this year I would love to spend the time in Switzerland. As soon as I have the chance, I´m going to visit the Giger Museum in Gruyère.

EDM #116 - Something Green (IF: Remember) Iguana

About 9 years of my childhood I spent in India, the last 5 of them in a city called Alwar. The climate there is quite dry as it lies on the border of the Thar Desert (which is the world's seventh largest desert and is without doubt the most inhospitable ecoregion in the Indo-Pacific region). The summer season in Alwar is very hot, the average temperature in the summers ranges up to 41° C (106° F).

So you can imagine what kind of animals and insects we had in our garden: chameleons, lizards, cobras, praying mantis, scorpions, lots of strange looking insects and thankfully also a family of mungos had settled in our sewer.
I remember that I was always fascinated by all of these (mainly brownish and greenish) animals but that they were always very strange and frightning to me too. I used to spend hours watching them in the summer heat but mostly at a "safe" distance.



This image shows a green iguana, which we didn´t have in our garden, but it reminded me of the chameleons.

BTW: This is my first drawing for Illustration Friday. I have been a member of that group for quite some time now, but never managed to submit an image before.

My daughter´s words 5

A (4 years old) sighing: "What a life!"
Me: "Why?"
A: "I like it."



Love her remarks. She keeps making me smile. :)

Bram Stoker´s Dracula

"The fair girl went on her knees and bent over me, fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal... I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there."

Bram Stoker, Chapter 3, Dracula

Cross-hatching like crazy!

Budapest by Billy Collins

Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate and one of America's best-selling poets, reads his poem "Budapest" with animation by Julian Grey of Headgear.



Budapest
by Billy Collins

My pen moves along the page like the snout of a strange animal, shaped like a human arm and dressed in the sleeve of a loose green sweater. I watch it sniffing the paper ceaselessly, intent as any forager that has nothing on its mind but the grubs and insects that will allow it to live another day. It wants only to be here tomorrow, dressed perhaps in a sleeve of a plaid shirt, nose pressed against the page, writing a few more dutiful lines while I gaze out the window and imagine Budapest, or some other city where I have never been.

I hadn´t planned on posting this. Somehow I must have published the draft accidently. This is going to be the last poem by Billy Collins. I guess I have to take care that this blog does´t drift off too far into the literature field.

Zurich Impressions - 2 (ATC)

While I´m still courageous I´ll quickly post another two BDSM-images which are older pics. Very quick... before I change my mind (Don´t want to know what some of you are thinking by now ;) )





These two atcs were made for a friend of mine in the UK. He asked me for them as he collects pictures of bondage women. Crazy British! Or should I say crazy Swiss? ;) (But I had fun drawing them.)

Zurich Impressions

A friend of mine told me to practice cross-hatching to improve the shadows and highlights of my drawings. I´ve never done that before so don´t expect too much. I did some cross-hatch-doodling of the things which came to my mind when I thought of Zurich. As you can see, I soon lost my patience and filled the space with text.



If you are wondering whether I met a vampire or a wolf: No, I didn´t!
Was I tied up with ropes? I´ll have to disappoint you again.
But I did spend 3 very interesting days and nights in this city and even if I won´t reveal any details (except if you guess the right thing) I can only recommend you to visit this beautiful city in Switzerland.

Rain by Charles Bukowski

I just received a comment from Angelina. She said that she was glad to have stumbled on my blog and to have had the chance to read something of Bukowski which she could actually enjoy and which wasn´t too depressing. So this poem is specially for her.
I don´t find his work depressing at all. Actually I tend to laugh a lot while reading his books. That may sound strange, but I guess it is the way he describes everything. Often while reading his work, I nod to myself and think he just knows how crazy this world is. Another thing I really like about him is that he doesn´t judge his characters and you can feel his sympathy for them (even if his language may not be very sensitive ;) ).


Rain
Charles Bukowski

a symphony orchestra.
there is a thunderstorm,
they are playing a Wagner overture
and the people leave their seats under the trees
and run inside to the pavilion
the women giggling, the men pretending calm,
wet cigarettes being thrown away,
Wagner plays on, and then they are all under the
pavilion. the birds even come in from the trees
and enter the pavilion and then it is the Hungarian
Rhapsody #2 by Lizst, and it still rains, but look,
one man sits alone in the rain
listening. the audience notices him. they turn
and look. the orchestra goes about its
business. the man sits in the night in the rain,
listening. there is something wrong with him,
isn't there?
he came to hear the music.

If I would have been there, I would have joined the man and would haven enjoyed the rain/music.

Kabuki, A Comic Book Series by David Mack (ATC)

"Perhaps creating keeps you young. There is no time when you are in the creating space. The more of this world’s time that you spend there, the less you age." (Kabuki: The Alchemy #4)



"Don’t sacrifice your dreams for the illusion of security. There is no security. Realize there is no security and become comfortable with that. It will free you up to do what you really need to do." (Kabuki: The Alchemy #4)

I´m really into comic books. Specially those with beautiful (often dark) artwork or those with great content.
KABUKI is a comic book series by artist and writer David Mack, first published in 1994 by Caliber Press and later by Image Comics. The series concerns an assassin belonging to a special, government-backed circle of masked and costumed female enforcers called the Noh in near-future Japan and her struggle for her identity.
So far I have only had a short glance into the series, but the artwork is great and the content too. So I´m planning on getting the whole series.

For My Friend S.!

Here´s a pic I drew for S. a few days after her funeral.



Hope she´s okay now.