A Quiet Moment Amongst Friends

Mysteries of the Human Body

Hey, everyone, I'm currently training to become a doctor, but instead of going to medical school, I've decided to figure everything out on my own. I created a series of animated diagrams illustrating the most critical bodily functions. These are the areas of the body I'll be working on every day in my clinic.

 

Blood

Blood is the fuel that powers the body and keeps all of the internal parts moist. The heart moves the blood around the body so that it doesn't slow down and stagnate. If blood sits in one spot for too long it turns blue.

If you lose blood, either through injury or blood donation, your body will eventually make more of it. I'm not exactly sure how that works.

Breath

After blood, breath is the most important bodily concern. The lungs create air, or "breath", and shoot it out into the atmosphere to collect oxygen molecules. You can think of breath like a swarm of bees that collect honey and bring it back to the hive. Your breath is always out there working hard, looking for oxygen. 

Guts

The guts of a human body are incredibly complicated. Guts encompass all of the internal functions not related to breathing, blood, or your brain. Put your hand on your belly and push in. Everything you feel under there is your guts. 

The most famous thing that guts do is turn food into waste. Your guts also alert you to throw up when you eat something rotten. 

Nerves

Nerves are the invisible pathways that send and receive signals from the brain. Very little is known about how this works. For example, you can think about moving your foot, and it moves, but sometimes if you sit cross-legged for too long, your foot won't move even if you want it to. Stranger yet, if you poke a sleeping person in the foot with a stick, they will kick. That wasn't even their thought. They were asleep!

Hair

Hair is the most aesthetically pleasing bodily system, but it also plays a critical role in our survival. The body uses hair to regulate temperature. If you live in a cold climate, you will grow a lot of hair in the winter and shed it in the summer. People living in hot climates are practically hairless.

I hope you learned some things about the body that will help you live a healthy life.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: While the information presented here is factually correct, I am not yet licensed to practice medicine and therefore cannot recommend the use of this information to diagnose or treat a medical condition. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, please call 911.

Things I Did in January

 

 

This past January I participated in the annual Fun-A-Day art show. The event takes place in cities across the country and the only requirement is that participants create one art piece per day for the entire month of January. For my project, I created a daily animation based on the most notable thing that happened each day. At the end of the month I had thirty-one very short films that I stitched together into a silent movie that was shown on a loop at the Rock Paper Scissors Gallery in Oakland.

For the web version of the video, I asked my friend Carl W to help with a soundtrack. I was basically asking for Carl's interpretation of my interpretation of my month. It could have been a huge mess, but Carl came through with a big song that gives the animation some emotional depth. Slam dunk.

UPDATE: Here are some pictures from the show on February 4. (Photos courtesy of Nick L, the show's curator):

 

A Walk In The Park

It's been a while since I've had a piece of kid art to work on. Yesterday I found this anonymous child's artwork on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. I can understand why someone would toss this in the street; it's awful. First, you can barely discern the person standing beside the anthropomorphic sun, then, there's the blatant attempt to cover up the sloppy illustration by haphazardly piling on stickers. It's a complete mess. Mercifully, I brought it home and shaped it into a beautiful artwork. As you can see, my version is so much better it's not even worth debating.

UPDATE: I'm trying to start up a business where I critique and improve children's art. Send me your kid's art and I promise to give it an honest assessment. For the time being, I'm providing this service for free. 

It's My Sister's Birthday

I made her a card.

One Hundred Ronald McDonalds

Collection, found photographs, One hundred 120x120 pixel squares

The one hundred Ronald McDonalds that make up this collection were selected from publicly available images on the internet. Each of these images shows a professional Ronald McDonald, past or present, working somewhere in the world. 

I was inspired to put this collection together after viewing a photograph of a friend with Ronald McDonald at a charity event. It struck me that multiple, authentic Ronald McDonalds must exist at the same time. This collection attempts to show the diversity that exists within this sub-category of the professional clown world. Some of these Ronalds are old, some are young, and some might actually be ladies. These photos, taken together, also highlight the disturbing qualities inherent in every clown. Think of this collection as fragments of memory in the mind of a child. Taking your kid to McDonald's may cause serious, long-term psychological damage. 

Click here to view a full size image of the entire collection.

UPDATE: Who are your five favorite Ronalds? Post your responses in the comments. 

Three Christmas Miracles

Animated GIFs, 500 x 500 pixels, 2010

A Quiet Moment Amongst Friends would like to wish you and your family the happiest of holidays. If, however, you don’t have a family, then we’d like to send all of our holiday wishes directly to you. Additionally, if your holidays are already going so poorly that they can't be turned around by well wishes, don’t worry. You can bookmark this page and come back next year.

UPDATE: What's this!?! A fourth Christmas miracle! Tiny Tim has come to visit and he is so much tinier than I expected.

 

He wants me to pass along his famous quote: "God bless us, every one!"  

Thanks, TIm!

Mirror Friends

Digital animation, 38 seconds, 2010

I made this short, abstract piece for an experimental animation course I'm taking. The music is excerpted from the track "Mirror Friends" by the group Lucky Dragons (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). The video doesn't work very well this small; it's intended to be shown on a continuous loop on a large screen (preferably in a room filled with beanbag chairs and people giving out free massages).

For the greatest effect, you should click through to YouTube and view it full-screen in 720p high definition. Namaste.

Hey, Everybody, I'm Back: 33 Phoenix Drawings

33 drawings, ink on paper, digital color, 2010

A friend, Cielo L, approached me recently and asked for help designing a phoenix logo for a website she's creating. I told her that most of my drawings look like low-budget children's cartoons, but I'd be happy to give it a shot. I started by making a few rough sketches, then I drew a few more, and then I got really into the concept of the phoenix, and ended up sketching phoenixes for days and days.

There are numerous versions of the phoenix myth throughout the world. The basic story involves a bird that catches fire, burns down into a pile of ash, and then is reborn as a new magical bird that lives for hundreds of years until it catches fire again and the cycle repeats. I was so busy drawing that I didn't have time to do any research on actual phoenixes. All of these sketches are based on my pre-existing knowledge. 

Here are my thirty-three best drawings. Even if you're the kind of person who hates phoenixes, I'm sure you'll find at least one of these that you like. 

 

 

 

UPDATE: So many phoenixes! I'm going to take all these drawings to Kinkos and make a zine called The Phoenix Tribune. It'll consist entirely of drawings, photos, essays, and poems about phoenixes. I'm going to leave stacks of it at coffee shops all over town. I'll keep you posted. 

UPDATE 2: Cielo isn't sure if these are going to work for her site. (What?) Apparently there are other artists in the running and she's going for a very specific type of phoenix. (But I thought I drew all the types!) Either way, I'm glad I did this. By drawing forty-plus phoenixes in two weeks, I've grown far more comfortable with the concept of burning things down to nothing and starting over again.

Pigeons in an Art Gallery

Cell phone video, 23 seconds, 2010

On a recent visit to the San Francisco Art Institute, I found a family of pigeons aimlessly wandering around an art gallery. I used my iPhone to collect some video footage and later added unnecessarily suspenseful music (by Andrew Christopher Smith / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).

Scientists say that after a catastrophic nuclear attack, pigeons will be the only animals left on earth. If, God forbid, something like that ever happens, this is what a leisurely Saturday will be like in a post-human world ruled by pigeons.

Dear Gif Diary, I Like You

Animated GIFs, blog, new media, 2010

David N, a friend of my friends in Portland, has created a special website that harnesses the full potential of animated GIFs and uses them to tell poignant stories about real life in America. I'm not lying at all when I say this is my new favorite website:

Dear Gif Diary

I've presented a few selections here to give you a sense of the artwork, but it doesn't do justice to the site. You should really go straight there and see the entire collection. You'll feel like you are viewing the world three-dimensionally from inside the eyeballs of another person. It's much more interesting than the office work you should be doing right now.

David is also the creator of the excellent and mysterious Dickbird.org website. I strongly encourage you to spend a lot of time there, too.