For this week’s Tuesday Rhapsody we’re doing the last of Alan Hovhanes‘ Armenian Rhapsodies. (okay, tell a lie. It’s the second, but it’s the last of the three that we’ve done here.)
Enjoy.
For this week’s Tuesday Rhapsody we’re doing the last of Alan Hovhanes‘ Armenian Rhapsodies. (okay, tell a lie. It’s the second, but it’s the last of the three that we’ve done here.)
Enjoy.
This was another hard one since Woody Allen‘s Annie Hall is mostly just people talking. Which while fun to watch is hell for the cartoonist looking for ideas. For me what I remember about it most (besides all of the great surreal bits) Was Annie’s first appearance (not counting her in the tennis courts) in her street clothes which consist of the white blouse, black slacks (possibly mens) black vest and the completely incongruous sunhat. Is this what she as a free spirit feels comfortable in? or is this something a hick from Wisconsin mistakenly thought would look hip in the big city? Who cares, it’s her!
I have to say I think that this is one of the sketches where the “don’t refresh your memory” rule is paying off. I like the way “Alvy”, while having all of the necessary “Woody” qualities, does not really look that much like Woody Allen.
I think one of the reasons that this sketch challenge has been a bit of a… well you know…challenge, is because I have been over thinking things and trying to come up with an image that covers the whole of the movie as opposed to just one good image from the movies even if this is not actually in my list of rules.
I almost let this get the better of me for todays sketch for 2001: A Space Odyssey,. For the principle image I was inspired by the fact we know a lot more about Australopithecus than Kubrick and Clarke did so I was trying to do the scene as the bipedal hominid we know of today as opposed to a man in an ape suit.
I tried to work out a transitional image to the scenes in space which led to a huge mess that I couldn’t clean up in the allotted thirty minutes and putting Jupiter on the top of the picture just made it look like the scene was taking place on one of it’s moons.
So I just went with the final scene of 2001’s first act with the ape, the femur and the monolith and just remember this is better appreciated listening to Also sprach Zarasthustra while viewing
I was busy today so this was a real rush job… I’m afraid that it shows.
Today’s sketch is from one of my favorite swashbuckler films Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn.
It was tempting to go for the “Welcome to Sherwood” scene where Robin of Locksley is publicly announce as Robin Hood but for me the key scene is him bursting into the palace with a deer poached from the king’s forrest over his shoulder. For me this was Robin’s official statement of rebellion.
Maid Marion: You speak treason!
Robin Hood: Fluently.
Well I decided to give that Mushroom Pastry recipe from Food Through The Pages. I wanted to try it again for several reasons.
Reason # 1 I had one sheet of puff pastry left over in the freezer.
Reason # 2 I thought it might be better in smaller portions… and finally
Reason # 3 I couldn’t help wondering what it would taste like adding sausage to the mix.
Any way this batch came out really good. I don’t think the sausage made that much of a difference… In fact I think most of the improvements were due to a longer cooking time for the filling… or possibly from mixing shitake mushrooms with the usual criminis.
I also made a Mushroom Rissoto which came out equally well. I usually have very bad luck with risottos. No matter how long I cook them and how much liquid I add they come out kind of chewy. Happily this was an exception. Wit any luck I’ll be able to figure out what I did right.
Today’s film draw from the hat was one of my favorite Akira Kurosawa films Seven Samurai.
Based on the you’re only allowed to use your memory rule I was almost tempted to try to merge my vision of this with my vision of Magnificent Seven but that would have defeated the purpose of the exercise.
Anyway, the thing with Seven Samurai is like Citizen Kane in it is so wonderfully complete it’s difficult to find any scene that really says Seven Samurai (without copying the original poster) until I finally thought the best scene would be when the samurai arrive in the village to discover while they are desperately needed they are so, so, so not wanted. And it takes the clownish Kikuchiyo to spell this out to them.
Anyway I’m mostly pleased with this though in hindsight I would have done this as a vertical composition so that I would have had room to show the village and the terrified villagers. Also because faces were done from memory I don’t think I drew Katsushir? bishi enough. Finally before anyone points this out, I know there are only six samurai in this picture… Just pretend Gor?bei is standing in the back of the group.