I haven't posted any of Amanda's artwork in awhile but she was rather pleased with the last piece she did so I told her I'd toss it on my blog being that she is absolutely horrible at posting on her own blog - just like she's absolutely horrible at locating the dirty clothes hamper and chooses the floor instead! She seems to think she has no knack for writing and doesn't like to do it but I'd like to beg to differ on that one however - as her mother - what do I know? Exactly!
Anyhow, this latest drawing is one that she did from a picture of Curtis and Erik - the two guys who make up her current favorite band Creature Feature -
Curtis is the tall one inflicting pain on Erik, the one with the retractor stuck in his mouth! If you'd like to take a look at the original picture that she based the drawing on please feel free to click here.
I'm none too savvy when it comes to drawings and the like but I believe she said she did this one using a grid method where she divided the original picture into 16 blocks and then went from there. It's probably too much like math for me to understand but suffice it to say I think she did a pretty good job, I especially like the shading and the feeling that you're looking down.
My only contribution to this whole project was when I asked her the name of the picture and she said "I dunno" so I suggested "This will only hurt a bit" - somehow it seemed appropriate!
It's been quite some time since I've done a post about any of Amanda's artwork so I figured I should rectify that. Despite what I might think, she apparently does occasionally do something other than chat with her on-line friends and eat me out of house and home!
It's still her dream to someday become an illustrator and make her living as an artist but I don't think she's quite caught on to the fact that she's going to be a Senior next year and that she really needs to start getting a portfolio together as any art school she applies to is going to want one. It's that whole "I'm a kid, I've got plenty of time" thing going on with her.
At any rate, she's been playing around with watercolors lately and trying to perfect her style in that medium. The first picture is the line drawing for what would become the final product in the second picture.
You'd never know that she has become a major fan of the band "Creature Feature from looking at these pictures, would you? Ah well, I guess the kid's got to get her inspiration from somewhere and now you can see why she doesn't mind walks in the cemetery with me at all! I'd just rather not have the whole monster vine and hand coming out of the ground experience though! I wouldn't mind a moon like that one, though, maybe I could finally get a good picture if there was one that big and that close!
This last picture is the line drawing for her next watercolor attempt; which is based on Creature Feature's song "Greatest Show Unearthed" hence the creepy looking sideshow barker and the dancing skeletons in the amusement park. Amanda was pretty happy with the way the skeletons turned out as it does rather look like they're dancing in a macabre sort of way which was her intent.
Once she gets the watercolor done on the second picture I will post an update along with the latest two plushies that she recently finished who are based on the singers in Creature Feature - Curtis RX and Erik X. Now if I could just get her to finish cleaning her room and get her stuff put away! Maybe she needs a few dancing skeletons to help her out??
So ... while I was working my nether regions off this past weekend, Amanda was out doing one of the things she loves best - attending a couple of Mindless Self Indulgence concerts in the area. As part of their continued IF tour, they were playing in both Providence and New Haven this past weekend and with the band that close of course she had to go!!
Because I'm a pushover, I got her the tickets as part of her Christmas present but I told her that there was no way that I was going this time as I had to work, there was a snowball's chance in a warm climate that I would be able to get the time off, and -frankly - I figured she'd have a better time without her mother tagging along even though I have been deemed to be "epic", "awesome", and "amazing" (just to name a few adjectives) on the MSI forum that Amanda frequents. Apparently the child speaks well of me to her friends!
Anyhow, my greatness aside (!) ... there were two bands opening for MSI at these shows ... Leathermouth featuring Frank Iero of My Chemical Romance fame and Tub Ring who hail from Chicago. Amanda was more excited to see Tub Ring perform as she had heard that Curtis RX, a member of the band Creature Feature (whom I did a post on awhile back) was going to be playing guitar with the band as a guest. Excitement abounded!
Bright and early on the morning of the first concert in Providence, Amanda and Robert took up a place in line outside of Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel and even though they were there at 7:00 a.m. for a 7:00 p.m. show, there were already four people ahead of them in line. Amanda sent me a text that they were "MCR fan-girls" and were apparently there to see Frankie while not giving two hoots about MSI or the other band. Throughout the day Amanda kept in touch with me via text to let me know that she hadn't frozen yet, that she and Robert were taking turns popping into the nearby Dunkin Donuts shop to warm up, and that Steve Righ? of MSI fame had walked by and talked to her a little bit.
Finally it was time for the concert to start and Tub Ring took to the stage first followed by Leathermouth, whom Amanda didn't really care for, and then her favorite - Mindless Self Indulgence. Naturally Amanda and Robert stayed after the concert to chat with the band members (MSI is really good about that sort of thing) and Amanda had a chance to talk with Curtis RX; she told him that it was nice to see him on the East Coast and asked when the new album was coming out. Artist that she is, she also mentioned to him that she was trying to draw a comic based on one of Creature Feature's songs and he thought that was great and for her to send it off to him at MySpace when it was done.
The next concert was being held at Toad's Place in New Haven on the Yale campus and Amanda and Robert met up with some of the other members of the Nation of Crackers, the MSI forum to which she belongs and who think I am all that and a bag of chips (for reasons that I won't go into here). For this concert they didn't get into line until 11:00 and there were only about six or seven fans in front of them. As a note here, it's important to point out that one has to get to a concert ridiculously early if one hopes to be really close to the barrier and/or stage as what's the point of going if you can't be potentially crushed in the front of the crowd?!
When Tub Ring took to the stage to open the night this time, Amanda and Robert were right in front of Curtis' side of the stage and about 15 minutes in, Curtis spoke to Amanda from the stage and said, "Hi, I already broke a string!" At the end of their set Amanda yelled out "I have part of the comic finished" and he told her to meet him at the merch ('merchandise' for those not familiar with the lingo) stand in five minutes.
Of course she did and they had a chance to talk about comics and future concerts and Amanda getting a job so that she could pay for their next CD and concert tickets on her own (yay!). I guess they even talked about the weather when Curtis told her that he wasn't used to the cold being that he was from California so she told him that she was a Californian herself (born in Long Beach). Apparently they had a nice chat and she sent me a text all excited that she had made a new friend.
Being that she was so close to the front of the stage, Amanda had the chance to take some pretty good pictures so she asked if I would put them together in a slideshow for her and post it on my blog. After all, she reminded me, this blog is supposed to be about her, too, and this is exciting stuff for a 16-year old so how could I not write about it?!? Well, when she put it that way, I guess that I couldn't so without further ado may I present to you Tub Ring (whose music isn't too bad!) featuring Curtis RX of Creature Feature! -
Maybe the kid could have a future in concert photography if the whole art thing doesn't work out?!? Considering the video doesn't show Amanda's pictures off to their best, if you'd like to check out the pictures in a "better" setting then be sure to go check out Delirious Photography - Amanda's photo-page on MySpace!
Amanda has been dabbling more in a comic book style of art lately where she is drawing stories in panels. A lot of them make absolutely no sense to me whatsoever but then again, I'm old so that's to be expected! Some of her ideas she gets from whatever songs she happens to be listening to as is the case in the above video. The song that she is doing the drawing for and which is playing in the background is called "Aim For the Head" by Creature Feature, a band that is, in their own words, "an outlet for the imaginations of a couple of movie-mad fiends".
Handsome gentlemen in a creepy kinda way, aren't they? The band which was formed on Halloween - of course! - has been described as "a band that forces you to remember why you used to sleep with the lights on" and is comprised of the Los Angeles duo of Curtis RX on guitars & vocals and Erik X on keyboards. As a band that specializes in "the macabre, the hidden, the whimsical, the concealed, the nightmarish, the unseen, the morbid, the unexplainable, the ghoulish, and the unfathomable" they are right up Amanda's alley and have become the inspiration for a lot of her recent artwork. After all, who doesn't enjoy a good scary story?
Their debut CD, which contains ten tracks of songs which really appeal to fans of Edward Gorey, Edgar Allan Poe, Tim Burton and Danny Elfman as well as classic horror and sci-fi movies, is titled The Greatest Show Unearthed. The CD has been touted as "a gleefully ghoulish set of goth-rock tunes that mix pop hooks with horror-movie atmospherics" complete with "the ultimate combination of slinky, carnival-esque keyboards and raw, sexy guitar riffs." I'm actually starting to kind of like it!
Because Amanda tends to play the music over and over, especially while sketching out some new artwork and we live in a very small house where there's no escaping whatever music happens to be playing unless one or the other of us is wearing headphones, I've had the opportunity to listen to some of Creature Feature's music and there are several songs that definitely remind me of the soundtrack to Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - especially the songs "A Gorey Demise" and "Such Horrible Things". The title track sounds somewhat like a dark and eerie carnival that would fit nicely in a small town in Maine in one of Stephen King's stories - scary things lurk around every corner and you fully expect the carnival barker to be nothing more than a demon with mayhem on his mind. I would suggest you stay away from the cotton candy and the games of chance!
The Darkest Show Around,July 2007, by Art Munkey based on the songThe Greatest Show Unearthed
Ah well, and to think that my parents shook their heads in despair when I listened to the music of Elton John or Led Zeppelin ... ha!
Anyhow, for those interested in seeing the first page of the comic of Amanda's efforts in the video above where she is working on the second and third panels on the second page, click on the picture below for a bigger view of the completed version and don't forget to watch out for flesh-eating monsters!
Should you like to listen to a little bit of Creature Feature, allow me to feature a video of their song, "Buried Alive", the only video released from The Greatest Show Unearthed. If you listen closely to the lyrics you'll definitely pick up on shades of Edgar Allan Poe in this song. Catchy, isn't it?
Curtis is the tall one inflicting pain on Erik, the one with the retractor stuck in his mouth! If you'd like to take a look at the original picture that she based the drawing on please feel free to click here. 
