Thursday, March 26, 2009

[The White Sea / Holy City] update

Howdy!

Justin "Chuck" Edwards has been a good friend of mine, as well as one obscenely talented music maker, and i have been lucky enough to work on a very special project with him.

Whether it's ambient tones, minimalist landscapes, complex organically evolving beats, or lush dark orchestral soundscapes, Chuck is always doing something fascinating, impressive, and exciting. This particular project is an uplifting yet haunting more orchestral imaginary soundtrack of sorts, and that description does it no justice.

The packaging will be 100% hand made do-it-yourself, limited to a very small press, and hand screened gorgeously by our friend Aaron, at the only place in the entire country that can do the very special type of block printing we are using!!!! we are looking at types of parchment and styles of inks, but here are some rough ideas for you. as soon as we get physical copies we will let you know how you can hear this beautiful music! we are hoping the entire package of sights and sounds will help immerse people in the experience only an ALBUM can give from start to finish, as opposed to the "couple of mp3s here and there, way in the background" deviation.

feel free to e-mail Chuck at new_directions@hotmail.com to find out how you can get a copy this year! i'm excited and proud to be a part of this; thank you Chuck (and Aaron)!

(click below for a larger view!)





Sunday, February 22, 2009

Case of the Mondays OUT NOW!



it's here! it's finally here! and it sounds AMAZING!

These guys put a million% into this album and it shows. I got to go to their CD release party at Clark's Tavern and hear it blasting through the PA. i felt like i was at my first ska-punk show in high school, it was that exciting and good. Thanks to everyone i met last night, and all the old friends i got to see again. i'm so proud to have gotten to do the artwork here, thank you Case of the Mondays, friends, & family!

check out the band
HERE
&
HERE



Monday, February 16, 2009

Love - Valentine's 2009 - part 1

the following is the first of what i hope will be an evolving larger collection of paintings on the topic of love, these having been done especially for an art show on Valentine's Day in New York.

[if the art seems small you should be able to click on them for larger views]

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there are a myriad of definitions and applications for the concept of "love". loving a person, a friend, family, a dog, a plate of hot wings, the people in my life, life itself, even you. love can be selfless or selfish, it can be naught more than good timing, a firing of synapses and chemicals in the brain, or a miracle confirming that notion that we are the soul that has a body, not the other way around. it is of course a person and case specific thing, defined by past experience and future yearnings or avoidances, with the outcome of "justification vs. fulfillment's" concordance and compromise. it is an amorphous, ever changing, ever breathing entity, and it is as unique as the person who is motivated one direction or the other by its engine.

above all, i recognize that anything i would have to say on the topic of love are equal parts right and wrong, negating each other; that i could never say everything on the subject to every person. not merely a "many splendored thing", perhaps it is an unsolved mystery with intangible plot holes but attainable outcomes, or a threatening ransom note with no author but with victims and rewards. it's impossible and somehow everywhere. i'd like this to be a love letter to love itself, but i see now that these paintings are only footnotes and postscripts to a far larger more accurate textbook. i also see now, that this small fraction is more of a study than it is the celebration i hope it to be someday. regardless, i'll wait for correspondence; you can circle yes or no. these pieces are a futile equivalent of trying to bottle a cloud, but if i'm lucky, maybe a string could resonate within your own ribcage.

thank you, and happy valentine's day
love,
peter wonsowski
2/14/2009

“Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.”
--Hafiz of Persia

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Anchorless vs. Rudderless



The one who loves the least, controls the relationship.
--Robert Newton Anthony

------------------

Do You See Me When I'm Not Around?



True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.
François de La Rochefoucauld

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Transfusion -
(the greatest cures are derived by scaling backwards from the greatest poisons)



She's gone. I am abused, and my relief must be to loathe her.
William Shakespeare

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The Rational Mind is Having a Terribly Hard Time Telling the Heart That It's Wrong



How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?
-Albert Einstein

Love is a serious mental disease.
-Plato

------------------------

Love Part 2

Hold On Tightly, Let Go Lightly



The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end.
--Benjamin Disraeli

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
--Samuel Johnson

--------

It's Unfair To You



----------

Complacency



---------

She Is The Altar





I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.
-Henry Ward Beecher

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Zuzu's (part 3)

I will try to post more/better photos from Chris Whetzel's nice camera later, but this was just a quick look at the day of hanging. honestly, this was my favorite part of the weekend....except for our private tour of the retro-arcade-museum! i'll try to say more on that later as well...

--------



everybody wanted this one!!! not for sale just yet though...be sure to see more at Doug's website (click on his name!). Doug had incredible artwork, including hand made screenprints that were of such high quality we all thought they were digital print outs



Danielle is a great person and a great artist who has been doing cool things at a lot of galleries all over these united states. her oil paintings show not only a dedication to the craft, but also very fun plays of imagery that is surreal in a most likable way. her pieces for this show included 2 oil-on-magnet paintings, with magnet paintings that she encouraged you to remove and move about and see what was behind it. pretty cool



good ol' Chris Whetzel, what a guy! here he is starting to hang his pieces, which you should check out (and so much more) HERE. Chris had such thoughtful graphite drawings with occasional subtle coloring. incredibly strong stuff, and every one tugs at the heart strings (except for the chicken, which made me laugh quite hard). Chris is one of the hardest working people i know, and his gutsy leap into the world of freelance illustration (as well as these gallery shows he takes part in, or in this case, sets up completely) has been one of the largest sources of encouragement and inspiration to me in the last year. both he and Aliyah were so incredibly hospitable letting me stay with them this weekend, not to mention the ridiculous amount of fun i always have seeing them and talking to them. speaking of which, you will al absolutely love seeing Aliyah's jewelry HERE. honestly, the word "jewelry" won't give a good enough impression to the incredible skill, detail and artistry that every single one of her creations have. frankly they are all museum pieces to me!




my little corner of the world.

thanks to Chris, Aliyah, and Zuzu's cafe for making this happen and getting all of us together, to Doug and Danielle for sharing a wall and some good times, and everyone else i met and saw again (happy birthday Michelle!) this incredible weekend

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

"Inna Final Analysis" (who watches the watchmen?)

Hi!
recently the Philadelphia Cartoonist Society via the generous Joseph Game & The Autumn Society, allowed me to submit a piece or two for the upcoming, expanded "Children of the Watchmen" show. The pieces will hang at a Regal Cinemas Imax theatre and we will all get to see an early screening of the film!!! very exciting.

the first piece is one of my favorite moments from the book, a shining example of humanity at it's greatest potential. the second is of a lesser character from the 'golden age'; the Silhouette. i wanted every aspect of the portrait/drawing to reference something about the unbelievable story that is barely hinted at and mentioned to readers willing to read every line, as well as deep between the lines.




I have seen the original show that was at Brave New World Comics and there was a lot of good stuff. i have also been fortunate enough to see some of the newer pieces by folks like Justin Gray and Kyle Hussa-Lietz, and they are the types of pieces that you will stop for a long long time to stare at

Sunday, January 4, 2009

ice cream people (living just to FIND e-mo-tion...)

this is for Mr Brian Butler of Ice Cream People (check the link!)





Winton Green :
"no need to beware!"

Saturday, January 3, 2009

homemade game

Happy New Years!

so my niece Ella knows that her uncle works like the elves making toys all year, but this year i told her that because she was a good little girl, Santa was making something special just for her. i owe a huge debt of thanks to Bill, SARAH, Andy, Matt and Pat for helping me make this a reality, and making a little girl in Texas happy this holiday.
-peter













and of course, i had to get approval from the big guy:

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

wow owls!

Monday, November 24, 2008

vegan treats: first of many t-shirts (i hope)!



preliminary design for possible t-shirt at Vegan Treats, and amazing place with amazing people. it's still early on in the game, i was just excited
-peter

Saturday, November 15, 2008

"the majesty of rock/ the legacy of roll"

does anyone have color preferences? i'm never a good judge of this myself




thanks!
-peter

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

the white sea




a preliminary sketch for a friend.

i know there seems like there's been a gap in posting but there's so many loose ends i've tied up and new (marginally ambitious) projects i'm in the middle of (this could be one of them). can't wait to share all of it with everyone

enjoy the autumn!
-pw!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

BALTIMORE!



Baltimore comic con was an amazing experience! thanks to the Autumn Society for inviting me. exhausting as it was i wish conventions were my job



i was lucky enough to be sandwiched twixt Justin Gray and Craig Parillo (AMAZING artists), and the amount of hilarious commentary was in stereo for 2 great days



one of the most humbling things were the folks who asked me to do paintings right then and there (here i am working on a zombie!). special thanks to those people who asked me for a painting for really making me speechless, and thanks to everyone who bought a print or just stopped by to say hi and talk to us or look at our art; it really meant the world. also thanks to long distance folks like Alicia & Ryann, and especially Jay & Timmons for coming out and surprising me, showing me that the best part of the weekend wasn't getting to meet folks like Mike Mignola, but sharing these incredible experiences with some of the best friends anyone could ever hope for



Joe "chogrin" Game not only orchestrated the whole event making it easy on of all us, but he did incalculable amounts of work, like these sweet Autumn Society merch bundles. when i was younger, it was the height of writing your favorite bands (these are punk DIY indie bands mind you) and they would send you so much cool stuff in return. i think Joe captured that same excitement with these bundles of art zines, magnets, stickers, buttons, cards, and even a CD comp of musicians from the Autumn Society (on sale for $3-5 here!)

------------------------

in addition to this being the first time i've ever experienced the "other side" of the convention table, i still had plenty of starry-eyed hero-awe all weekend. Darwyn Cooke was gracious enough as i awkwardly gushed all over him with praise (as well as giving him a painting of the green lantern, officially the nerdiest thing i've ever done that wasn't for a girl), BPRD's Guy Davis ended up being one of the most amazing talents and people EVER, Walt Simonson as it turns out is a really funny guy (told me he was John Byrne in disguise when i bumped into him at Adam Hughes' table), having Harvey award winner Joe Keatinge ask me to go get my artwork based on the merits of my homemade t-shirt, and for me, one of the biggest things, was meeting the folks at Adhouse books--one of the most incredible, high quality output small publishing places on earth. i had so many books from them before i even realized they were coming from the same publisher a few years back, and i've been paying attention ever since. pretty much everything they do is gorgeous, and meeting Chris and finding out what an awesome guy runs the place sealed the deal. i really look up to them because they follow the simple rule of believing in everything they release, even if it's not as many release as they'd like, the quality is undeniable.

at any rate, if that wasn't enough, i find out that they wrote something about ME on THEIR blog, linked here!

i've seriously been on cloud 9 ever since.

thanks again to everyone on every side of every table who made this weekend a memorable first of many!
-pw!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

coffee project









www.myspace.com/coffeeproject

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

CthankyoU




sometimes you just wanna draw monsters (happy birthday HP Lovecraft)

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

i am become joy





myspace.com/adamarcuragi
hightwo.com

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

it's never a monday when you get to have this much fun

unfinished, but upcoming! now if i could only convince them to make an LP so i could print this 24"x12".....
-pw!