Category: Animals

#101 One Hundred & One

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment

One Hundred & One

 #101 One Hundred & One
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Do you see spots?

The idea for Amper­Art #101, One Hun­dred & One, was eas­i­er than giv­ing a dog a bone. After strug­gling with a con­cept for #100, this one was fun & easy.

One of my fond­est child­hood mem­o­ries is sit­ting in the Alex The­ater (Glen­dale, Cal­i­for­nia) with my fam­i­ly, enjoy­ing this humor­ous, enter­tain­ing, upbeat movie by Dis­ney, One Hun­dred and One Dal­ma­tions. We sure laughed at the antics of ever-​hungry Rol­ly, the chub­by dal­ma­tion pup­py. Even as a young­ster, I could tell there was some­thing unique & con­tem­po­rary about the styling of the ani­ma­tion. It was sketchy in a con­tem­po­rary fash­ion due to the first-​ever use of scan­ning the pen­cil sketch­es direct­ly onto ani­ma­tion cels with the Xerox process. The col­or was still brushed in by hand between the lines, but the tedious trac­ing of the ani­ma­tors’ pen­cil lines with pen & ink was removed from the process. 

This process could eas­i­ly have been used as an exam­ple for the pre­vi­ous Amper­Art #100, Mile­stones & Goals. But the movie itself is the mile­stone, so I saved the art­work for #101 One Hun­dred & One.

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 Incongruent styles.

One Hundred and One Dalmations Movie PosterI was intrigued by the inno­v­a­tive Xerox process & the sketchy style it ren­dered for this movie. Not only did the rev­o­lu­tion­ary process cre­ate effi­cien­cy, it ren­dered a whole new style of art­work. Research­ing the let­ter­ing for the movie title, I was not so impressed with the col­ors for the poster. While the movie’s styling of char­ac­ters & back­grounds was snap­py & con­tem­po­rary, the poster was not. It was all pri­ma­ry col­ors & a less-​than-​cohesive assem­blage of visu­al ele­ments. But I did go ahead & trace the let­ter­ing (orig­i­nal­ly hand-​drawn) & designed an amper­sand to match, for the Amper­Art #101 One Hun­dred & One edi­tion. The edges of the spots & shad­ows are just slight­ly blurred, to retain the most­ly hard-​edge style (due to tech­ni­cal lim­i­ta­tions) of the period.

If you wish to study the styling of the dal­ma­tions & oth­er char­ac­ters, this thumb­nail will enlarge to a size­able image.

Image shown for ref­er­ence & edu­ca­tion­al pur­pos­es only. ©Dis­ney 

Sacrilegious?

Many crit­ics boo-​hooed the rough-​hewn look of Dis­ney’s One Hun­dred and One Dal­ma­tions. They said the lush­ness of hand-​inked line had van­ished. Well, yes, it did. But it was replaced by a snap­py new look, akin to jazz vs clas­si­cal. They each have their place, & they each have their fans & fol­low­ers. I real­ly like the look of this film, & the new Xerox process made ani­mat­ing all those spots pos­si­ble. It was the per­fect sto­ry con­cept to make use of the inno­v­a­tive imag­ing tool.

Who is to say ani­ma­tion must be hand-​inked & hand-​painted? Some of the finest ani­ma­tion today has nev­er been near a brush, pen or even acetate cel & it blows away the crude ani­ma­tion of even the finest ear­ly Dis­ney clas­sics. I will admit, though, that I will always pre­fer to watch the orig­i­nal 1938 Snow White & the Sev­en Dwarfs to the most incred­i­ble CGI remake.

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chaz sez ...

Check out the new “chaz sez” blog at Des​i​moneDesign​.com, my com­mer­cial graph­ic design web­site. It’s most­ly about design, typog­ra­phy, print­ing, pub­lish­ing & mar­ket­ing, but on occa­sion I’ll divert to a side­ways top­ic that just can’t escape my rant­i­ng & raving.

Production notes for #101 One Hundred & One:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Programs: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop
Lettering: Traced from original movie poster
Ampersand: Designed to match style of original movie poster lettering
Credits:
Movie poster: ©Disney (shown for reference & educational purposes)
You may repost the AmperArt image. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster, click on the image.

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone? Damn good!

Family & Friends & Ampersands…our greatest holiday gifts

Chaz DeSimone 4 Comments

Family & Friends includes my cats!

#75 Family & Friends
Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

First, to my own family & friends:

I love you, I appre­ci­ate you, I respect you,
I enjoy you, I thank you.
But most of all, I love you.

About this edition

I got the idea for Amper­Art #75, Fam­i­ly & Friends, fea­tur­ing our friend the fun & fab­u­lous amper­sand, about a month ago, after a friend & a fam­i­ly mem­ber came to my res­cue. More on that lat­er. (Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Roz.) 

Fam­i­ly & Friends is a very spe­cial Amper­Art title to me & hope­ful­ly to you. I went through sev­er­al iter­a­tions to bring you a mean­ing­ful, ele­gant piece that you might want to send to oth­ers with your own sen­ti­ments, or frame for your fam­i­ly room (or Fam­i­ly & Friends Room) wall. It was issued for Thanks­giv­ing 2014, but let’s face it, Fam­i­ly & Friends are timeless.

First, you’ll meet my own fam­i­ly & friends (includ­ing my pets, of course). I am blessed with a lov­ing fam­i­ly &  friends that are the very best. That includes you, too, my awe­some read­ers & sub­scribers — you’re my Amper­Art family!

Then, you’ll see how the Fam­i­ly & Friends edi­tion was cre­at­ed. In response to sev­er­al requests from sub­scribers who want to see how I cre­ate Amper­Art, or how I even choose a top­ic, I’ve explained the process in the next sec­tion. (This par­tic­u­lar Fam­i­ly & Friends piece posed sev­er­al chal­lenges even though the design is quite sim­ple. It’s a per­fect exam­ple of why each Amper­Art piece can take 20 hours or more.)

My own family & friends

I am blessed with a won­der­ful family:

Mom & Dad (both gone but always in my heart) — both of my par­ents are the def­i­n­i­tion of integrity.

My sis­ter Roslyn & my broth­ers Andy & Rob—you are the epit­o­me of love, friend­ship, hon­esty and gen­eros­i­ty. You’ve always been there when your eccen­tric black sheep of a broth­er need­ed a help­ing hand or a hand-​out. Thank you.

Mary Ann, you helped me get my very first van so I could start my busi­ness. You took care of us kids when Mom near­ly died. And today you com­ment on every one of my Amper­Art pieces. You’re very spe­cial to me…cuz you’re my favorite cuz.

My friends are so plen­ti­ful there prob­a­bly aren’t enough giga­bytes on the serv­er to list them all, so I’ll men­tion the old­est and dear­est, in the order they came into my life: Gary R, Gary S, Joe R (we’re talk­ing ele­men­tary and junior high on those three), Lande W, Gregg & Jill, Mardy D, Deb­o­rah T, Lisa S (& lat­er Sean), Jim B (if it weren’t for him I’d still be design­ing with a T‑square), Mark H (& lat­er Crys­tal), Pat B, Tara K, Mar­ty K, Sandy J, Denis W, Jeanette F. Those who have depart­ed, whom I miss dear­ly: Gilbert (the one & only!), Joe F, Pre­ston H.

My fur­ry fam­i­ly: Tiger, Bull­dog, Don­ald (yes, a duck), Woofer (my very best friend for six­teen years), Bri­quette, Amos & Andy…and my cur­rent awe­some crea­tures, Jeep­ers & Bebe.

I feel like I’m at the podi­um for the Oscars! Well, you see, that’s what my fam­i­ly & friends do for me.

Now back to what inspired this piece: Last month I had a seri­ous cir­cum­stance, and between my best friend Joe Rin­au­do and my best sis­ter Roslyn (she’d be my best sis­ter, I’m sure, if I had a dozen but she too is the one & only) they did some­thing for me as a com­plete sur­prise, sav­ing me from being home­less for the sec­ond time in my life. Imme­di­ate­ly I thought of com­bin­ing “Fam­i­ly & Friends” into one piece of art — to me they are often one and the same. My broth­ers & many friends & even a few clients have also helped me in need — tremen­dous­ly. If I did­n’t have to get this sent out right now I’d tell you about those Fam­i­ly & Friends expe­ri­ences, too. Instead, I’ll come up with some new ideas to illus­trate those episodes in future editions.

How this project began…and wouldn’t end

This Fam­i­ly & Friends piece encoun­tered so many obsta­cles and mor­phed through so many changes I fig­ured it’s the per­fect exam­ple to explain how I cre­ate my Amper­Art pieces. Read More

#60 Precious & Adorable

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment

C'mon, look at the camera!

Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

I had been want­i­ng to fea­ture ani­mals, specif­i­cal­ly pets, in an Amper­Art piece for a long time.
A spe­cial event inspired me to cre­ate what you see here.

A birthday party to help homeless animals

In Augsm_arvee_robinson_1ust I was invit­ed to a “mile­stone” birth­day par­ty for my friend and pro­fes­sion­al speak­ing coach Arvee Robin­son (that’s her, the pret­ty lady in the picture).

Arvee always does things with pizazz, flair and the most upbeat atti­tude. But what she did for her birth­day took me by sur­prise, and real­ly warmed my heart. Besides a grand par­ty with fab­u­lous food, danc­ing, and a mag­ic show, Arvee themed it with dogs and cats to dou­ble as a fundrais­er for H.O.P.E., a res­cue and rehab for home­less ani­mals. (More about H.O.P.E in a moment.) Arvee even had “dog­gie bags” which were full of swag for our pets. And she helped me select the breeds for this Amper­Art piece – she once had a siamese and a pug.

Arvee Robin­son is also the founder of the Chris­t­ian Women Speak­ers Move­ment, where her goal is to help oth­er speak­ers over­come the fear of “bring­ing God to more stages.” She asks,

“Are you afraid you might be unpop­u­lar if you bring God to the sec­u­lar stage?” 

She once was, she says. Read about this spe­cial group at chris​tian​wom​en​speak​ersmove​ment​.com.

 Helping Our Pets Everyday

HOPEcalendarAt Arvee’s birth­day par­ty I had the hon­or of meet­ing Mar­garet Coff­man, the founder of H.O.P.E. – Help­ing Our Pets Every­day. Isn’t that a won­der­ful phrase? I told her I would def­i­nite­ly spread the word about her very spe­cial foun­da­tion, where Mar­garet and vol­un­teers have com­pas­sion­ate­ly saved hun­dreds of pre­cious ani­mals from aban­don­ment, star­va­tion and death. She has cared for ani­mals her entire life.

Please vis­it www​.help​in​gout​pet​sev​ery​day​.com to adopt, vol­un­teer, donate, or just be charmed! Their 2015 cal­en­dar is avail­able, shown in the picture.

Big pets, too

Just look at these amaz­ing pho­tos. Who says we can’t all get along? These pic­tures are on Ron Levy’s Inner Align­ment Method web­site, where Ron shows how you can dis­cov­er your life’s mag­nif­i­cence. I urge you to read about Ron’s enlight­en­ing explo­ration of life for over 50 years, in his blog.

 

Production notes:
Original size: 10x15 inches
Program: Photoshop
Fonts: Minion, Futura
Ampersand: Futura (modified)
Images:
Siamese: Bonzami Emmanuelle /​ 123rf​.com
Pug: Copyright: Kitch Bain /​ 123rf​.com