Cubicleism

The Sky Is Falling

cubicleism — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:47:25 +0000

Man, it’s really easy to lose my place in this piece. I’m trying to keep those triangles as faithful as possible but I have to admit to winging it in a couple of places. That’s ok, though, I’m liking the way it’s going so far and happy to be out of the sky section. Even with those large portions at the bottom to fill in, I kind of feel like I’m almost done. That’s optimism for ya.

I have already decided that for the next one I might try to do a time-lapse video of it. One of my coworkers has a camera I can mount and use for it so, if the experiment works, I’ll try to get you guys a video of it. This would have been a really good one for that with all of the incremental progress but I’m NOT starting it over. I think a couple more weeks should do the trick on this one.

Walking in someone else’s shoes

cubicleism — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:41:03 +0000

I told Scott (the guy who did the original painting) the other day that I feel like I have experienced a taste of what he went through when he originally painted this. You can see the finished product in your mind’s eye but you realize you have thousands of triangles between you and that moment. I already have a couple of pieces that I’m trying to decide between for the next one. Until then, I’ve almost finished the sky, which will be a nice landmark to hit. I really do think it will speed up from there. Here’s where things stand currently:

Cry-Angles

cubicleism — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:38:58 +0000

This week has brought about another little Internet flurry for my whiteboard blog. Alyssa Milano tweeted about the blog and, for a child of the 80s, that’s right up there. I also got an email so stunning that I’m still reeling from it a bit. I will keep it mum for now but if it comes to fruition it would be super amazing. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to come by and check out the site! Below is the slow and steady progress on Jess’s House by Scott Myers. I keep telling myself it will go faster when the sky is done but I know deep down I am just telling myself what I want to hear.

The British Are Coming!

cubicleism — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:55:07 +0000

There was some more really good press for Cubicleism in The Telegraph (UK). Check it out at this link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/9035509/Art-masterpieces-drawn-on-an-office-whiteboard-by-Bill-Taylor.html

Very cool! I haven’t made a ton of progress on this latest one… I’ve been out sick a few days on top of the fact that with all these triangles, it’s just, well, slow. There’s a sick part of me that wants to count them just to know how many there are. :) I like to jump around sometimes when doing these but not on this one. I’ll be starting on the left and going slowly from left to right, so I can have somewhere to plant my hand. I’m just focusing on covering all the space right now, I’ll go back and adjust the shading when I see it as a whole. Here’s the pic:

He’s not 200 years dead but he’s still pretty awesome.

cubicleism — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 03:59:57 +0000

It’s so annoying that many artists die out long before they are appreciated. Perhaps there is something about the fact that no more will get produced. Maybe there’s a bias to modern art, leading people to look backwards for greatness. Regardless, there are some ace artists out there working today. I am very fortunate to have a group of friends who are creative dynamos and I’m always blown away by what they come up with. I’m in a band called The Kingsbury Manx (www.kingsburymanx.com) and one of the founding members is a good buddy of mine, M. Scott Myers. He ended up leaving the band to pursue more of a visual art route. He is crazy talented; one look through his site will show you that he made the right call. www.fatheartgalleries.com

Scott has done the cover paintings for all the Manx records and I thought I might take a stab at recreating the cover of our first record. The whole painting is done in small triangles, sort of a cubism-dry-erase-nightmare but I like a challenge. Hopefully I’ll do it justice since this painting and its creator mean a lot to me. Here’s the beginning. The painting is on his site and it’s called Jess’s House. Once you see it, you’ll see what lies ahead for me with this. Insanity, likely.

Merry Christmas!

cubicleism — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:22:27 +0000

Cubicleism wishes everyone out there a very Merry Christmas! I was able to finish this one as I was walking out the door for my vacation. The next piece for the board has been picked and it will be the most ambitious yet, worse than Escher, even. Hopefully it turns out well because it’s a painting from a close friend of mine. Anyway, here’s Charlie Brown…

It’s Christmas Time, Charlie Brown

cubicleism — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:00:58 +0000

I was hoping to finish the Friant and leave enough time to do something befitting of the holiday spirit. The last one took a while longer than I had anticipated, leaving me roughly a week for a holiday-related piece. One of the things I love about holidays are the movies and shows associated with them. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without multiple viewings of ‘Christmas Vacation’ and ‘A Christmas Story.’ I never get tired of watching Ralphie beat the snot out of yellow-eyed Scott Farkus. I also hold a special place for the Charlie Brown holiday specials. It’s perfect, really… It doesn’t get much simpler artistically than Charlie Brown. That’s part of the brilliance of it. So, instead of doing some stuffy thing by a 19th century pissy French guy, I’ll do an homage to Charles Schultz. Hopefully I can finish it before Christmas. I’m a lot closer to finishing than these pics show… I’ll have the rest of the work-in-progress pics in the next post with the finished one.

Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of us, Amazing Larry?!

cubicleism — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:09:54 +0000

Here’s the finish for the latest whiteboard work, Emil Friant’s La Discussion Politique. I made the same error that I did on the Escher of making it a little too thin. I must have measured wrong at the beginning. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed working on this one; I always like an opportunity to practice drawing people. The human form is an incredibly complicated thing to render well and I’m only just beginning to scratch the surface of anatomy and proportions. I need to hunker down with some anatomy books and just do a boatload of studies. It’s so annoying to talk to really great artists and ask them for advice about how to get better. All the good ones say the same thing, “Just keep drawing. All the time.” What makes it REALLY annoying is that they’re right. One of the great things about doing this Cubicleism blog and my webcomics is that it makes me draw every day.

On a totally weird side note, Pee Wee Herman tweeted a link to this blog! Pee Wee’s Big Adventure is an all-time classic and one of my favorite movies. So, thanks, Mr. Herman!

Here’s the progress photos, now it’s on to a quick Christmas-themed Charlie Brown. Remembere, there’s no basement in the Alamo.

Politics, Schmolitics.

cubicleism — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:46:40 +0000

Maybe I’m just turning into a cranky old man but politics is really starting to get on my nerves. These guys are more like game show hosts than leaders of the free world. It’s like a whole panel of the people you hated in high school, clamoring for the keys to far too much power. There is some great comedy value, though. It really is a skill to be able to talk for 15 minutes straight and not actually say anything of consequence. Non-answers are very entertaining and Rick Perry is setting new standards for debate futility.

Anyway, this painting is called Discussion Politique, so politics has been on the brain. People have argued about their leaders since we’ve had leaders. The roles haven’t changed much either. Just look at these guys below. There’s the Convincing Guy, The I’m Not Having It Guy, the I Could Care Less Guy, and the I’m Just Keeping It To Myself Guy (just with snazzier hats). I’m actually almost done with this one but I have some work-in-progress pics so I figured I would throw one out there. Still hammering away at the figures in this pic.

Welcome, all.

cubicleism — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:43:08 +0000

Well, this last week certainly has been interesting… The blog went somewhat viral from someone posting it on Reddit, I think. It just shows the unpredictability of the internet, as I actually posted this blog to Reddit myself a few months ago. Why it suddenly took off now is anyone’s guess but I certainly appreciate everyone who’s taken the time to look through the scribbles and share it with others. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, aside from the totally unsurprising “He must never do any work” comments. It would probably be my reaction as well, seeing all the works laid out in a row like that. The reality is that it’s taken 2 years to do 17 of them. Some days I don’t even touch it. It’s rare that I get a section done that is any larger than a fist on any given day. It’s VERY slow going, but there’s something I enjoy about that. I’ll repost this from the About page just to answer a few questions:

In case you were wondering…

1. I only do this for 2-5 minutes a day, usually first thing while the computer is firing up. I don’t spend all day doing this as I’d like to keep my job. Some days I don’t do any work on it.

2. They average taking about 6 weeks to finish. Slow going but it’s a good exercise in patience.

3. I buy my own markers so I’m not depleting our company’s dry erase marker supply.

4. I’m not using any special markers, just your run of the mill Quartet, Marks-a-lot, etc.

5. It’s less painful erasing them than you think… I’m usually excited to get to the next one.

6. Always looking for requests and ideas.

Thanks again for stopping by! Now, on to the latest work in progress, Emil Friant’s Discussion Politique. I’m actually a lot further along than this on it but I just haven’t loaded up those photos yet. Here’s an early stage pic where you can see the (very) rough layout and the beginning of the detail on the figures.