Horse Bum

A detailed study of the bums of St. George and his horse. This statue can be found outside the state library on the other side of the park to my favourite French lady Jeanne d'Arc.

I spent a day at Woodford Folk Festival on the holidays. A day isn't really enough, I think I'll camp there this year - Anyone up for it? My sister Anie played a gig, I listened to a few cool ethnic ensembles and heard a lecture given by Bob Hawke, who called for the abolition of the states in favour of a monarchy, with Benjamin Drake installed as king. Nah seriously, he wants the states abolished.

Here's some sketches of la famille, also from the holidays. On the left, from the top you have mum, Flossy, Dad and then three sketches of my Uncle Jon recounting the story of the luminous disc of light he saw hovering in the scrub in the dead of night in a remote part of the Northern Territory. Then on the right it's a drawing I did in the dark of Uncle Jon and my cousin Tobias.

Bolt and Beards

Here's two peices I did on the holidays. The first is the playwright Robert Bolt, who wrote mum's favourite play, A Man for All Seasons, the story of the English Rennaiscance genius Thomas More. The second is a bearded guy I drew while watching Ronja Rövardotter, which is a Swedish fantasy film featuring many fine beards, among other things.

Xin Li

To bring this blog into the new decade I present a portrait sketch of one of my most dear friends, the richly talented animator and artist Xin Li. We were catching up in the Queensland Art Gallery over the holidays and drew eachother. I first became friends with Xin when he told me he could sing a Mongolian song, and did.

God Jule

This drawing, by Russian artist Igor Oleynikov, is one of the most Christmassy illustrations I know of.

Merry Christmas and God Bless you's all.

Love,
Ben.

Born in the Bayou

Uncle Jon, Grandpa and then a bunch of folks in Avalon.

Tadaima! Back in the tropical Motherland. The muggy warmth is making me feel so lethargic and the three weeks holiday which looked so vast a few days ago are shrinking in front of my eyes! I hate calendars and plans, they're the tools of the Devil and the driven! Better for people to live like the Inuit and for artists to work like Yuri Norstein. What, like, some pre-industrial utopia of hunter-gatherers with no sense of linear time, funded by the Soviet Union? Can we be riding horses in this analogy? Not if we're living in igloos we're not. We'd be tugged by Huskies everywhere or skidding on Russian snow-mobiles... Russian snow-mobiles! I rest my case. Somebody please forward this blog to Rudd in Copenhagen and my Uncle Hu in Beijing. Hey, you know what? Miyazaki is a sterling environmentalist, maybe we should hear what he has to say, hmm? You know if I had my act together I could of thought ahead and found a Miyazaki Meditation that relates to the current debate on Climate Change but I already bagged calendars really hard as you can see...

A warning! It's a grim Miyazaki Medititation today, but the eventual conclusion is optimistic, further on in the book. It'd be a crime against honesty to only post chirpy things, n'est pas? Also, these are Miyazaki's opinions of the Japanese animation industry in 1979, not the personal opinions of the blogger.

Animators are the people who create animation on film, or more accurately, they used to be these people. There was a time when the animator did everything. He drew the pictures, created the story, moved the models, colored in the frames, manipulated the camera, and even recorded the voices and sounds to create a world. Now we are in an era where quantity and specialization dominate the making of animated films. The animator has become merely a cog in the wheel of the unprecedented mass production of anime and the flood of animated television programs.

Animation has become simply an occupation, and the job of animator has the same importance as almost any other work station in the assembly line process. The general image of animator has unfortunately become one of a worker who is presented with a lousy storyboard - made who knows where - who must quickly draw figures that will move as little as possible, and who must promptly send his work on to the next stage in the production process.

Ironically, this flood is touted as a boom, as there is fan base even for the most slapdash animated program. This in turn allows for the sale of character-based products and, above all, ensures that someone somewhere earns a profit. Meanwhile, the animator himself feels a certain level of self-satisfaction, and in accepting this situation, has submitted to the trivialization of his creative spirit.

You may have become an animator because you wanted to build your own fictional world. But such romantic dreams are quickly destroyed. Who could reproach you for mechanically running your pencil across the paper as you sit at the conveyor belt, confronting the incredibly large pile of work to be done, the totally inadequate production budget and time schedule, the stupidity of the broadcaster or sponsor or promoter, and the formidable barrier of the preexisting specialization system? There is no shortage of rationalizations . It is easy to be a cog once you get used to it.

Isn't it possible for an animator to be engaged in the entire process of a work?

Isn't it possible to get a bit closer to the original essence of the animator?

It's not as if all paths toward creative animation are closed off. The work, at its core, is forged by a group - a group that is not usually dominated by a single strong personality. Should you possess a vision of a world you want to share with the public, a will to go to any length, and the skill to back it up, you can move bit by bit away from being a cog and closer toward being an animator in the original spirit of the word.

Miyazaki, H. Starting Point: 1979 - 1996 (Studio Ghibli Inc., Japan, 1996)

Everyone get a firm grip...

In the interests of blogotextual continuity, I'm letting the dear Reader know that within the next 24 hours the Benjamin Drake Art Blog is temporarily shifting it's political power base back to the homeworld of Queensland, who knows what effect that'll have on this humble blog. I'm currently writing from my iTouch - the poor man's iPhone - on my belly on my bunk in my modest Brunswick apartment, waiting for clothes to dry. Hopefully being back home will mean more time for creativity. These holidays will either be a Rennaisance or a Paleolithic. Will I take what I've learned from the year and apply it, or will I fritter the time away on, I dunno... Diablo II... Whichever it is you'll find out here! Looking forward to Christmas and New Years with you!

A bientôt!

Ell-oh, vee-ee, it's a, mys-try.

I love archeology, I'm especially fascinated by the forensic science of recreating the facial features of the deceased from a skull. As a personal project I applied this science to an Ancient Greek helmet and recreated the appearance of it's original owner.

You don't have the appropriate degree for this kind of science, Ben. No, no I do not, but I do have an animation bachelor with Honours which might let me talk about film with more authority than, say, a tortoise.

In an interview with Newsweek, Sendak felt that parents who deemed the film's content to be too disturbing for children should "go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate" and he further noted "I saw the most horrendous movies that were unfit for child's eyes. So what? I managed to survive."

Setoodeh, Ramin; Romano, Andrew
(2009-10-19). "Where the Wild Things Are". Newsweek.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/216997/page/3. Retrieved 2009-11-03

Maurice Sendak intolerant of parental discretion? Good grief! I watched Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are last night, the film based on Sendak's illustrated children's book. I was left feeling wistful and in the mood for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. On the plus, it was visually spectacular, it has a moreish soundtrack and Max Records is such a cute little dude. Americute. I was only vaguely aware that the landscape in the film was Australian and was pleasantly surprised when I realised I live where the Wild Things are. Jonze's restrained use of hand-held camera (I stole that line from a review on Abram's Star Trek), the overall photography and the composition were completely airtight. The introductory sequences are absorbing and strike chords with childhood memories, but have to say though, when the action moved into the fantasy it got a tad ambiguous. The characterisation of the Wild Things, the dialogue, conflict and resolution were all very understated, perhaps in artistic juxtoposition to the epic landscape? I dunno, the understatement might be to some people's taste but I had difficulty connecting. Perhaps in the right frame of mind I would of wept at the end, but I didn't. It has the same sense of ennui that Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003) had and it was only today I discovered Jonze and Coppola were married at one stage. He also dated or is dating Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who wrote the soundtrack. Given these New York artistic connections I think Where the Wild Things Are must be a true specimen of the indy scene, which is probably going to be seen as one of the defining features of the Noughties, when we look back.

In conclusion, to say Where the Wild Things Are was nothing like the book would be redundant. My three word summary for it would be LOVELY VAGUE INDY. Three and a Half Stars. Also, Alexander was my favourite Wild Thing - and that's what I think, anyway. Here's some drawings with Miyazaki hot on their heels.

Once involved in the business of creating animation, the truth of the matter is that you wind up working on project after project and rarely have time to read, study, or to come up with great ideas. And then the question invariably arises: "Why am I creating animation? What am I doing this for? Is it just to make a living?" I know I'm repeating myself here, but to avoid this trap, my advice to you all is to study.

From Idea to Film: 1

Gekkan ehon bessatsu: Animeshon, May 1979.

"What's important? The Theatricus? No. It's the folk who came to watch us. They see themselves brave, strong, beautiful! And why? Because somewhere in their hearts that's what they are! Make-believe and moonshine? No! We show them only the truth - as it might be."

-Lloyd Alexander, The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian

To my way of thinking, creating animation means creating a fictional world. That world soothes the spirit of those who are disheartened and exhausted from dealing with the sharp edges of reality, or suffering from a nearsighted distortion of their emotions. When the audience is watching animation, the are apt to feel either light and cheerful of purified and refreshed.

Those who join in the work of animation are people who dream more than others and who wish to convey these dreams to others. After a while they realize how incredible difficult it is to entertain others. Anyone who has tried to describe the wonderful or bittersweet qualities of his dreams should be able to understand how hard this is. And, because it requires group effort to create a film, animation is further complicated.

When I saw the Soviet film Snedronningen (The Snow Queen), I felt really happy that I had become an animator. I thought that there could be no more wonderful occupation than creating such a marvelous world - no, of having the possibility of perhaps creating an even more marvelous world.

Miyazaki, H. Starting Point: 1979-1996 (Studio Ghibli Inc., 1996, Japan)