When I was hunting online for an appropriate picture for this blog’s header, I came across some creative interpretations of ‘Field Guide to…’

To deviate briefly…

I’ve always admired clever creative types. I remember when I was about 12 or 13, my family went to the SA coast for a trip. My Dad took me to the local RSL hall, to see an art exhibition. I lost interest pretty quickly (lots of the same ‘bowl of fruit’ style interpretations, looked like lots of the members had done their first life drawing class and wanted to have an ‘art show’) and I remember Dad lamenting, “But you love art!” and me thinking, “Yeah…when it’s good!”

One of my absolute favs is Fab Ciraolo – I came across his Marilyn Monroe on Twitter (via @fabciraolo).

‘Marilyn Monroe’
1 Feb 2012 © Fab Ciraolo

His Monroe started my love affair with his work (particularly Judy Garland, Dali, Princess Di, and 90s throwbacks: re-imagined characters from Thundercats, Jem and the Holograms and Captain Planet.) Can’t wait til I can afford prints!!

Some of my other long-time favs:

• Old-school artists like Degas and Van Gogh, and M.C. Escher (esp. 1948 ‘Drawing Hands’ lithograph).
• Pop artists Warhol and Lichtenstein. I visited a Warhol exhibition in 2010 in Fort Worth, Texas. All his work is interesting, but it was the first time I learned of (and saw) the Oxidization paintings, sometimes called his ‘Piss Paintings’. As well as his iconic work, I also loved his documentary-style black-and-white photos of young celebs (all old or deceased now, of course).
• Street artists Banksy and Shepard Fairey.
• Comic book artists: Frank Miller, and the Brian Bolland/Alan Moore collaboration that resulted in this iconic pic of The Joker.
• Illustrators Shane Prigmore (seen the movie Coraline? That’s him), Camille Rose Garcia
• ‘Golden Age’ Disney artists (30s-50s) like Marc Davis and Eric Larson (animators on the 1950 film Cinderella – always enjoyed the three fairy godmothers), who used live-action models to guide accuracy in animation. Christopher Finch in The Art of Disney explains, “Disney insisted that all scenes involving human characters should be shot first in live-action to determine that they would work before the expensive business of animation was permitted to start. The animators did not like this way of working, feeling it detracted from their ability to create character. However they understood the necessity for this approach in retrospect and acknowledged that Disney had handled things with considerable subtlety.” …I was in Orlando, Florida just after my 20th birthday, and my sister and I visited Disney-MGM Studios. In one of the buildings, they had Disney artists/animators sitting at little tables, and you could buy sketches of Disney characters and have the animators personalise them. I bought a couple of Mulan and Beauty and the Beast ones, and the artist added on ‘Happy 20th Birthday – October 30th, 2004’. Awesome memory.
• Tattoo artists eg. Kat von D and Chris Garver.
• Photographers (including up-and-comers like my portrait photographer friend Lewis Loder)

The increasing popularity of, and corporate trend towards, digital media means more work for computer-savvy graphic designers — and more great stuff for me to look at! Web Urbanist said it better: “Watching an artist turn a piece of paper and some graphite into a realistic, imaginative work of art is amazing enough – but somehow, seeing such illustrations come to life from pixels on a computer screen can seem even more magical.”

But back to the Field Guides…

Who knows whether the authors were paid to create them (and who knows – the variety of job titles and responsibilities today, along with consumer demand), or created it when they clocked off? Either way, I love their idea of taking something traditional (‘Field Guide to Edible Plants’ etc.) and applying it to something else. As a fan of Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe, I would totally buy the ‘Field Guide to Heavy Metal Satan Fingers’ and have it framed as cool wall art.

And here’s some of Shane Prigmore‘s work for Coraline (via Web Urbanist):

[For all the pics on this post, I’ve linked back to the sources – no copyright infringement intended!]