I WANT TO EAT A NUT OF LAERMA!

THE GREAT CRAYON EXPERIMENT (UPDATE)...

In December and January, I was working on a couple of drawings for The Great Crayon Experiment art show that was held at the Blankspace Gallery in Seattle on February 7^th.

Here were my two submissions:

"A crayon drawing of an RCMP Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor on Rideau Street in downtown Ottawa."



and

"A crayon drawing of a Ferrari Enzo at the Woodward Dream Cruise." (or "Ferrari Enzo Ferrari F60", if you want to be super-picky about the full name of the car).



The Ferrari one took me ages to finish, so I didn't get to send the two drawings off until February 1^st, and I spent $52 Canadian shipping it via Purolator Courier just to ensure that it would reach Seattle in time for the show.

February 7^th came and went, and I hadn't received any word as to whether they had received my submissions. I knew I wasn't going to get them back, as all drawings were to be sold off to benefit something called 826 Seattle, some kind of non-profit writing centre that helps kids develop their creative writing skills, but, still, I was damn well hoping that they had received my drawings and put them on display, otherwise the hours upon hours I had spent drawing both of them and the $52 I had spent sending them there (not to mention the at least $30 I spent on various Crayola products) would have been all for naught.

I was slightly disappointed that the art show had received no mainstream media coverage that I could find using Google News, and the only blog reaction I could find was this one from a Blogger nicknamed "Poppy" that didn't include any pictures or mention any specific pieces on display.

Finally, on Saturday, "King Leroy" posted some pictures of the Great Crayon Experiment art show in the Blankspace Flickr photostream, and I could finally see my work on display somewhere other than my basement (or... erm... YTV's The Zone, for those of you that remember my "sending 'PJ Fresh Phil' Guerrero and 'Snit' Sailor Moon fanart using my real name despite already being 21-years old at the time" stint back at the end of 1995 and early 1996).

Anyway, I probably shouldn't post Blankspace's pictures of the show here without permission, but I'll link to a few of them.

I don't think they had gotten quite the full coverage of the walls and ceiling that they had hoped for, but they still got a strong outpouring of submissions. More than I had expected, to be honest.

The one piece on the ceiling was a Crayola'd take on Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Here 's an interesting assemblage of a few half-melted Crayola crayons "floating" in the middle of the gallery.

Note the donation box shaped like a giant crayon.

They had these bench things that kids could draw on.

Oh, what's the guy with the backpack looking at? (I presume the guy with the crown is this "King Leroy" fellow.)

Yup, it's my RCMP police car drawing. What I find interesting about its placement is that it's directly over a couple of penguin drawings; one of the Linux mascot penguin, and the other one looks like one of the missile penguins from Tim Burton's Batman Returns (which is still my favourite Batman film, and, yes, I have seen Batman Begins, which is a pretty good film but I prefer the spectacle of the Burton films over the relative realism of Christopher Nolan's take on the character, even if I'm fully aware that the Nolan films are probably closer to the serious comics the hardcore Batfans generally prefer).

This one's not at the gallery, but here's my fat cat, Ember, also showing her appreciation of the drawing.



But what about the Ferrari drawing?

Yup, it was there too. You can also see the payment scale: "Good Art: $1-5, Super Art: $5-12, Awesome Art: $13-[Infinity sign]". I don't want to sound too narcissistic, but, if anyone paid less than $13 for either of mine, I'm reporting them to the FBI Art Theft program.

And, finally, two Hawties posing in front of my Ferrari pic. Would they be so happy to be pictured with it if they knew the horrible truth about the artist?



Want a weird twist? Apparently, "Poppy", the Blogger I mentioned earlier, bought the Ferrari picture to hang in her kids' bedroom. She (yes, "Poppy" is a she, I presume it's "Poppy" as in the flower) left a reply in my previous post telling me as much. It's not quite where I imagined it ending up, but, as long as it's on the wall of someone who appreciates it, it was worth the effort.

posted by Steve Brandon @ 5:43 AM