Saturday, October 31, 2009

Enchanted Forest




Many blogs ago I mentioned breaking into the abandoned "Enchanted Forest" in my hometown Ellicott City, Maryland with my cousin Ryon while on tour with Amps For Christ. At one of our shows I said that Maryland had many enchanted forests and this resonated with Animal Collective's Josh Dibbs who graciously had us open for them at El Rey Theater. Being from Maryland's woodlands as I am, he understands this to be true. There are some areas of this park far to scary to explore- Ali Baba and the 40 thieves cave with boat ride and the underground train to Alice in Wonderland with a scene of her falling from above down the rabbit hole that was very similar to the lightening flash and the illuminated hanging body in Disney's Haunted Mansion entrance room. I ordered a DVD online with footage of the park as it was when I went there- Toot the tugboat, the mountain with slide, Safari ride, Mother Goose and duckling cars, etc, etc. Here's a few shots with more to come. If this kind of warped, fairytale park appeals to you, there happens to be an unrelated Enchanted Forest in Salem, Oregon which is pretty nifty, too.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Well, it looks real nice on the looky box


I worked on this for hours before I realized it wasn't big enough to go inside our record, a CD or a wallet for that matter. It was too busy on the eye anyway. Altered it to make a nice flyer at least-
I have been deliberating on the cover art for Auto Da Fe's 2nd full length 'Emit Time'. My original drawing versus my unfinished painting versus my original idea of finishing the painting to show RayRay's eyes 'emitting time' with the trails of light coming from his eyes. There is also this unfinished owl painting for the back cover and those eyes were going to 'emit time' as well. This record has been finished since January but I have been stalled on the art for 2 reasons. First, I get teary every time I draw or paint RayRay and second, I don't want to 'finish it' and screw it up. Maybe it's easier to be satisfied with mediocrity when the alternative is overworking something into pure rubbish. Regardless, the album is great and timely considering we cover the Raincoats who are back in action. Shape up, T!!!