Irina's post about the mummified mermaid reminded me of a friend of mine, who mummified her pet rat a few years ago. Here's a few pictures she took of the process-







You can read the whole thing here, although its pretty long. I skipped a lot of the steps, also because they involve taking guts out and stuff. It's sort of gross, so view with caution. But it's also pretty cool. I might be weirded out if she did this with ALL her pets, but she doesn't. I think it was mostly done to see if she could follow the same process the Egyptians used, not because she wanted to preserve the rat forever or something.

I'm still thinking about a response post, I'll have one finished by tonight.
Until then, here's another clip from a movie that uses an elaborate constructed set- Francis Ford Coppola's One From The Heart. It's kind of an infamous flop, and for good reason- the following clip is the first five minutes of the movie, and it's basically the best part of the whole thing.



The movie is set in Las Vegas, but it was shot entirely in the studio, with miniature versions of famous parts of the city. An airport and life-sized jet were even built for one of the scenes. It cost so much to put together that it completely bankrupted Coppola.

The script and the characters are pretty terrible. I watched this because I'm a big Tom Waits fan, and he wrote and performed the soundtrack for this movie (which is pretty great, and one of my favorite albums). When I saw those first five minutes, with those songs over the stylized Vegas lights and casinos, I was totally mesmerized. I thought the dialogue would have to be really, really awful to completely offset how great the music and sets were. Turns out, it was! But I still think its worth watching, because the look of the movie is so unique.

Thoughts on Coney Island

I'm thinking about what I want to do for the next set I build. I have one idea but it might take too long to get the materials I need. Another idea I have is to do sort of a rebuild of Coney Island's Luna Park (which would also take a lot of materials-gathering, but I have better ideas of how to do it). I could go to the museum and find a painting I like, and sort of incorporate the setting into it, maybe.

My thoughts on how to do that would be to use a sort of backlit background image, and then something like christmas lights around the buildings. Maybe they could illuminate some lone figures. I don't want it to be full of people, I'd like it to be more like the ghost of Coney Island. I grew up very near to it and it sort of figures very strongly in my mind.

Here are some of my favorite images of old Coney Island, mostly from postcards:





I would also like to use elephants in some way, because I always think of the elephant, Topsy, that they executed there in 1903. The elephant had killed three people- one was her somewhat abusive handler, but the other two were just people visiting the circus. To me, that event sort of captures the strange sadness that I feel when I think about Coney Island. There's a very famous thirty second clip of the actual event, filmed by Thomas Edison. They electrocute it, so its not actually gory or anything, but it's still an elephant dying, so don't watch it if you don't feel like seeing that.



Sorry to post such a downer of a video, but in a weird way its one of my favorite short films. I'm not happy that this animal died, obviously. I don't think it's "cool" or anything. I just think that from purely an aesthetic point of view, its kind of poetic and beautiful, especially because it's totally silent. It's also bizarre to me that this event would not only be filmed, but withstand the test of time and become moderately infamous. The issue of animal rights doesn't seem that pressing to me as long as human rights are being violated, but I can still recognize that this is animal cruelty, and that it's a kind of tragedy. I have no doubt that this event is probably part of what inspired the mother character in the movie Dumbo.

Anyway, I'm still working on my preparation sketches, but that's what's going through my head right now.

Here's a great short film by comedian Louis C.K. I like a lot of things about this- the simple shots, the use of black and white, and just the absurd, almost silent way the story is told.



Another one I love is the video of Eartha Kitt singing "I Want To Be Evil". I like how simply its shot- there's basically only that straight-on view of her face, and her expressions are lively and animated enough to carry the whole thing.

The Ladies' Man

In class on Wednesday, we watched the movie Delicatessen, which was done by the same director who did Amelie. I kind of hated Amelie, because I can only take so much whimsy in a movie. I liked this one better, because at least it was dark enough to offset the whimsy. There were still some things that bugged me, but I'm glad I saw it.

Talking about movies with invented sets made me think of one of my favorite movies, for which the director and star Jerry Lewis constructed the largest indoor film set of all time.



Jerry Lewis is kind of considered a joke now, if he's even remembered at all. But at one time he was an excellent comedian, and an incredible dancer. His old variety show with Dean Martin, which he did when he was my age, is really amazing to watch. When he became a director, though, he was surprisingly innovative. He invented a lot of tools used in filmmaking today, such as the picture-in-picture video assist.
When he made his film The Ladies' Man, he constructed an elaborate sixty-room set and an elevated director's chair so he could go from room to room in one shot. And each of the rooms themselves were visually striking and color-coordinated in their own way.

Here's one of my favorite scenes, which introduces a character named "Mrs. Cartilage", who lives in "the forbidden room."

Movie Posters
I want to write and draw comics, but I think movies are what I'm most passionate about as a fan. I also really like a lot of movie posters, and here are some of my favorites.



Midnight Cowboy

This is one of my top favorite movies ever, but that's not why I like the poster. I think I like it because New York tends to be depicted as a very grey, dark place in paintings. I grew up in New York and I never thought that was a good way to show it. I like this poster because it makes New York look bright and colorful and full of energy. The two main characters look a little overwhelmed, like they're stranded in all this light and movement- which is a pretty good summary of what the movie is. I also like how, despite the bright colors, the expressions on their faces are still grim and sort of hopeless. I think it's kind of a cheat to use faded, dark colors to convey those moods.



Casablanca

I really like these old style posters, which show the faces of the cast kind of floating in space. Its strange how little things like the way the title is written, and the slightly red tint of the whole thing, can make the image so unique, even if many posters might have a similar format. I also like Bogart's facial expression. He looks like he's running, or maybe deciding whether he needs to fire his gun or not. He looks kind of scared, even. Today in movie posters, if a guy is holding a gun, he looks determined and steadfast and badass. I think Bogart's face in this poster shows a lot more urgency and excitement. I think that modern posters of a guy with a gun walking grimly towards the viewer just look boring and static, which is why I like this one so much.



Wings of Desire

This is from a german film about a guardian angel who falls in love with a human. The way the angels are shown in the movie is really subtle and nice. They're just middle-aged men in dark coats, and you only see their wings briefly. I like how this poster makes the movie seem kind of epic, with the trapeze woman swinging through the clouds, and the statue rising up like it could fly. But then you notice the little man sitting calmly on the shoulder, like he's worried about something, and you focus on that, and it sort of brings you back down. That's sort of what the movie is like- it's about these big, epic things like angels and mortality and good and evil, but the actual story is very small and subtle.

I thought I had posted a progress image of my third collage, but I guess I didn't. So here it is (I've chosen to do paintings of this one and the salamander one.)



I really like the idea of putting classic move stars and other celebrities with ancient holy imagery of the past. In freshman year drawing class, I did a whole series on this idea, except it was tarot cards.

I'm still working on the paintings and having kind of a hard time. I haven't oil painted in almost a year. Last semester I got very accustomed to using wax pastels on masonite. I sort of wish I could use that for this class too. I think I'd be a lot more comfortable. But this is a painting studio, so. Maybe I'll get better as I go on. I was never awesome at oil paint, but I think I was at the level just above "competent". Like, not good, but not at the "learned how to do this yesterday" stage. Oh well.

Second Collage

I resized this one more so it would fit on the blog:



I actually like the black and white version better. If I do a painting of this one, I might do it in grayscale or sepia or something.

Work in Progress, Paintings I like

Here is the work in progress on one of the collages I'm doing for the first assignment. I decided to do them digitally since we'll be painting them and I feel I have more control this way. Here is the b/w version (I changed the photos I used to b/w, adjusted the contrast, then put them together) and the one with color added.

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In the painted version I will try to make up the contrast to give it more of a sense of depth. I tried to do that with the color but it didn't work as well as I hoped. I'll also try to make it clear that the salamanders are on top of each other, not just on separate planes. I want this to look more physical than it looks now.

Paintings I Like

Sunday, Edward Hopper



This is one of my favorite Hopper paintings. I like how the man seems so isolated, but he doesn't seem particularly lonely or sad, he just looks like he's sort of enjoying a moment by himself. I also love the colors on the building behind him- the dark grey blue, and the sort of ashey red windows- and the way he's able to paint dark shadows but still imply kind of a bright morning.

Coffee Sketch, Rene Engstrom



This was a watercolor sketch that was finished in coffee when the artist ran out of water. I like how otherworldly this image is, but how the character's expressions are still sort of normal. I also like how Engstrom can do features so simply but still convey so much. I love the strangeness of it, but also how simple the piece is, and how unfazed both the characters look. I also like the big dark space in between them. It might be a river, but I like to think of it as just a huge shadow that doesn't really make physical sense.

I Danced My Legs Down To The Knees, Chris Onstad



I love the colors, and how blocky and iconic this is. I like how the character appears to be dancing by himself, in a corner, just sort of bouncing up and down to the music. His expression is sort of content, but not particularly excited. It's like his mind is wandering and he's almost forgotten that he's dancing.

Hi! My name is Magnolia Porter and I'm a junior in illustration at Rhode Island School of Design. I'll be using this blog to talk about my work in the class I'm taking this semester, Painting the Constructed World. Currently I'm working on making collages to paint. I searched for images of people holding animals because I wanted to do kind of a Good Shepherd thing, and I came across this photograph from Life magazine. I think it's pretty striking, so I'm definitely going to use it.