Monday, February 21, 2011

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Cartoon about Uke Craze 1916 by Louis M. Glackens

Click to Enlarge!
The Backward Ukulele Player, a great ukulele blog, posted this cartoon from the New York Tribune, illustrated by Louis M. Glackens in 1916. This is perhaps the earliest depiction of the American uke craze that I have seen. It's the NYC craze! The drawing style is fantastic and super funny. This obscure illustrator is the same one that illustrated "Tell 'Em Again Tales" (1924), a children's book written by Marguerite Day, my grandmother's aunt. I did an earlier post about that book: LINK . Louis M. Glackens is the brother of the more famous artist, William Glackens. Not much can be found about Louis online, so I was super glad to run across this rare gem on The Backward Ukulele Player. Big thanks!

Friday, February 18, 2011

5th Anniversary of Little Hokum Rag: contest to win a piece of art by Amy Crehore

Piece of original illustration art by Amy Crehore (painted in oils on flat canvas, image is 7 3/4" x 5 3/4")
As you may know, I illustrated for many of America's top magazines starting in 1991 with Esquire and Playboy (my first big jobs). I'll never forget what a thrill it was to have my mug appear twice that year on the "Playbill" page. The magazines I have worked for over the years include: The Atlantic Monthly, Business Week, ESPN Magazine, Esquire, Forbes, GQ, Islands, The Los Angeles Times, MS., The New York Times, Outside, Playboy, Prevention, Redbook, Rolling Stone, Texas Monthly, Utne Reader and many more. I also did book covers for publishers such as Simon and Schuster and Houghton Mifflin. I even did a picture book once. I have drawers full of original illustration art. Most of my illustrations are oils on a piece of canvas taped to a board or on gessoed watercolor paper.
I plan to set up an online store soon to sell this illustration art (none of which appears on my website). Today, however, I am announcing a giveway contest for one of my originals. This one happens to be "Barbie as a Saint" (an illustration I did for Playboy).
CONTEST RULES:
Give this Barbie a saint's name and tell me what she did to deserve sainthood.
I will then pick the one I like the best and ship this painted little piece of "pop surrealism" to that person.
You have until Feb. 26th, noon PST to leave ONE comment on my blog. Anyone who leaves more than one comment and/or more than two sentences will be disqualified. I will decide who the winner is by Sunday night Feb. 27th, 2011, so watch my blog. I will ask that person to contact me via email.
Good luck and have fun! Love, Amy

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

"Thrush" Is a Great Little Film

I LOVE this little film that Xeni blogged on Boingboing

Thrush from Gabriel Bisset-Smith on Vimeo.

A Look Inside Dubway Recording Studio, NYC

Watch as my brother, Mike Crehore, and Al Houghton of Dubway Recording Studio in NYC present two artist-musicians, Vienna Teng and Ben Arthur, in a series of videos via Breakthrough Radio. Here is PART ONE and here is the LINK to the others which will air every day this week (also on YouTube). DUBWAY