Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Fashion Baby

Work seems to be crawling along at the moment, which is quite frustrating, but I still hope to have another Baudelaire illustration done by the end of the week.  In the meantime we will commemorate London Fashion Week with this sketchbook page.  (From a photo in Love Magazine AW2010)

Viva La Mode!

Friday, September 17, 2010

"Une Charogne" (or "A Carcass") by Baudelaire

I have started a series of illustrations to accompany poems from Baudelaire's "The Flowers of Evil".  This is the first, an image for "A Carcass": A beautiful and romantic poem about strolling along with your lover, on a Summer's day and finding a lady's rotting corpse.  It's not a poem for the faint of heart, and not if you've just eaten either.  I've driven myself half mad with reference images this week but I am quite proud of the results.

Choice extracts below, or you can read various translations of the whole thing here.  My translation is by James McGowan from the Oxford World's Classics edition.

"Remember, my love, the object we saw
That beautiful morning in June:
By a bend in the path a carcass reclined
On a bed sown with pebbles and stones;

Her legs were spread out like a lecherous whore,
Sweating poisonous fumes,
Who onpened in slick invitational style
Her stinking and festering womb..."

He continues to get more graphic for 7 stanzas, then...

"-And you, in your turn, will be rotten as this:
Horrible, filthy, undone,
O sun of my nature and star of my eyes,
My passion, my angel in one!

Yes, such will you be, o regent of grace,
After the rites have been read,
Under the weeds under blossoming grass
As you moulder with bones of the dead.

Ah then, o my beauty, explain to the worms
Who cherish your body so fine,
That I am the keeper for corpses of love
Of the form, and the essence divine!"

Quite romantic really.  "'Ere luv, that rotting corpse reminds me of you!  Gizza kiss."

More less gruesome poems and illustrations to come in the following month!

Monday, September 13, 2010

A Few of Kilgore's Favourite Things


So this is what I've been up to today.  It's like a visual quote, if you will, from Apocalypse Now.  I tried to capture a bit of the chaos that pervades the film.

Monday, September 6, 2010

The Sweet Scent of Free-lance-dom...

This week my life of Freelance Illustration begins. Broken out of the shackles of "gainful" employment; I'm ready to strike out on my own with a brush in my hand and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts blasting out my speakers. Lots of exciting things are going to be happening, so for now I'll be blog posting every Monday.

The pic below is the section of wall in front of my desk. I'll probably be looking at it a lot, hence covering it with interesting bits and bobs that I've found or made and want to develop.

Now I can. *victory air punch*



Also a very big thanks to my smokin' friend Lexi for putting my pic up on her mucho entertaining blog Durban Central: It's all about the gorgeous fashion, yummy recipes and the occasional yummy guy. Mmm... :)