The Kolblog

This Friday. I mean like THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is the opening...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:38:22 -0400

This Friday. I mean like THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is the opening of the SPACE! The Gallery Show and here is the third of my contributions! (all the others I’ve uploaded are right here).

Cancer is my sign! July 8th whatuuuuuuuuuuuup. So remember when Heracles/Hercules fought the hydra as one of his labours? WELL there was a crab that kept grabbing him during the battle. Herc was having none of that so after a solid foot-stomp the crab was no more. Hera then took the poor crustacean and made it a constellation!

As far as the rad sciency stuff goes, Cancer has a lot of cool celestial bodies despite its rather small size. Al Tarf is the brightest star and in fact it’s actually TWO stars! The primary is an orange giant and the companion is a red dwarf.

M44 (also called the Beehive Cluster or Praesepe) is another interesting spot with roughly 50 stars and at least 2 planets residing in it!

You can best see Cancer during the month of March around 9pm. It is east of Gemini and west of Leo!

Oh and if you have the same birthday as me then do let me know! I shared July 8th with my best friend in grade school but she moved away to Saskatchewan. Dark times.

June 21st is the opening of the SPACE! The Gallery Show and here...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:10:19 -0400

June 21st is the opening of the SPACE! The Gallery Show and here is the second of my contributions! (All are right here).

Gemini is Latin for “twins” and represent the Greek brothers Castor (mortal and king of Sparta) and Pollux (immortal and son of Zeus). When Castor was killed Pollux asked to share his immortality so the two became the constellation we know and love today!

But on the more scientific level, Gemini has a lot of really cool celestial bodies! Castor may be given the Alpha Bayer Designation (typically the brightest star in any constellation), but Pollux is actually brighter. Mekbuda is also pretty cool as it’s 220,000 times the size of our sun!

You can best see Gemini during the month of February around 9pm. It is east of Taurus and west of Cancer!

Friday indeed! As we ramp up for Mike Mitchell’s epic...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 10:22:52 -0400

Friday indeed!

As we ramp up for Mike Mitchell’s epic SPACE! The Gallery Show I figured I’d share the first of my constellation series!

Taurus, one of the constellations on the ecliptic path (and therefor part of the astrological zodiac) features many interesting celestial bodies. Aldebaran is the brightest and alpha star and M45 (Pleiades/Seven Sisters) is an open cluster easily viewed by the naked eye.

You can best see Taurus during the month of January around 9pm. It is east of Aries and west of Gemini!

Boom.

Phew. This was an adventure. So I was channeling the I SPY books...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:13:32 -0400

Phew. This was an adventure.

So I was channeling the I SPY books of my youth on this one.

For the June issue of chickaDEE magazine (all things food-related) I was asked to do the silly grocery store puzzle spread!

And if it’s one thing I like, it’s being silly.

Oh hey June is a solid 10 days in! If you’re interested in...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:03:00 -0400

Oh hey June is a solid 10 days in! If you’re interested in food or reading meant for the 6–9 segment of the population, be sure to pick up this month’s copy of chickaDEE!

Inside you’ll find a big grocery store image lovingly crafted by yours truly. I’ll post the full image but that will be later from now.

Day 2 of what could be the very best portmanteau ever:...

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:22:36 -0400

Day 2 of what could be the very best portmanteau ever: PIXARPPOSITES!

So today, with the help of Remy, we’re going to learn a very small amount of Dutch! If you’re wondering, I picked it because I think the letter ‘Z’ is underutilized. Any chance I get, I bring it out.

It’s for this very reason that I’m opposed to the “That S*** Kray” movement. I understand the origins and so on but its use is generally removing a perfectly good chance to speak a word with Z in it! I mean it’s basically the only letter omitted! Yes you save a few syllable from your speech, but every time you say ‘cray/kray’ instead of ‘crazy’ a baby Z dies. DIES!

So today here’s an application for this bit of translation knowledge being shared…

Kanye West:

Hey Andrew. What do you think of that song I did with Jay-Z? How does it make you feel?

Andrew:
Zuur.
(drops mic and exits…there’s also a cloud of smoke and glitter with dove’s flying for dramatic effect too.)

You may have seen my Learning Opposites piece floating around...

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:31:38 -0400

You may have seen my Learning Opposites piece floating around the web but before I upload the full image I wanted to focus on the parts that make up the whole!

For Seb Mesnard’s The Movie Show I compiled a series of what I’m tentatively calling ‘Pixarpposites’! Maybe I’ll work on the name.

Anyways, once it was all done I had awesome help compiling translations and now it’s sorta like a learning tool!

For example, this is the French translation of curly and straight. Two words that will come in handy like you wouldn’t believe…

French Fries Vendor:

Hello, traveler. I see you’d like our traditional potato dish! How do you want them prepared?

You:
Frisé!

…

Right? That’s how language and conversation works? Cool.

You know Mike Mitchell, right? Yeah you do; He’s Mike...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:10:17 -0400

You know Mike Mitchell, right? Yeah you do; He’s Mike Mitchell.

Well he’s curated a team of artists to aesthetically explore the universe and what’s more is that I’m a part of it all! SUPER WOW!

So make sure you book off June 21st so you can go to the opening reception. That list of artists blows my mind.

Blink. Blink.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted it here but...

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 10:42:50 -0400

It’s been a while since I’ve posted it here but I’ve been updating the Spacey Space Life blog weekly!

Wanna see some random alien-like creatures? Okay good.

http://spaceyspacelifeisneat.tumblr.com/

First, watch the latest Lonely Island video. Second, wonder why...

Fri, 31 May 2013 11:58:12 -0400

First, watch the latest Lonely Island video.

Second, wonder why I’m not actually working.

Third, I really love making animated GIFs.

MY BOOK FOR STATION ZERO

Thu, 30 May 2013 10:14:50 -0400

So you may be seeing this from some of the super great artists involved, but Light Grey Art Lab is running a show called Station Zero! The premise is that each artist is given a vintage Science Fiction novel and we’re to reinterpret the cover!

So this is myyyyyyyyyyyyyy book. It’s called Anarchaos and it’s anarcrazy! Actually I had a moment of serendipity as this book is authored by Curt Clark!

Now a bit of history on Clark: this is actually one of many pseudonyms used by Donald E. Westlake. The reason this is important is that Westlake (under then name ‘Richard Stark’) wrote a series of gritty crime/revenge/machismo novels featuring the remorseless and professional thief, Parker.

The reason any of THAT matters is because I’m a crazy huge fan of Darwyn Cooke’s work and he’s adapted 3 Parker stories into beautiful graphic novels. They’re the best.

So the long and short of it is that I’m very intrigued to see what comes of this read.

And you should go buy those books.

Because I like to keep it tidy, here are all of the the Cornetto...

Tue, 28 May 2013 10:30:48 -0400

Because I like to keep it tidy, here are all of the the Cornetto pieces in one handy post!

The sets appear to be sold out but the individual prints are still available here at Bottleneck Gallery! But they’re super great so if you can still buy each one individually I’m sure an email to them would make a set available if you so desired.

And again, I’m sooooooooooo super excited for The World’s End!

New Prints in the Shop!

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:10:21 -0400

I’ve updated the shop with a few new prints!

Also I’ve put a few prints ON SALE to make room for new stuff! So get those while they’re still around.

Okay. Happy Thursday (or whatever day you’re reading this…likely in the future)!

IT'S SCIENCE

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:11:40 -0400

So I’m not sure what happened, but my bacteriophage piece for Light Grey Art Lab seems to have acquired a wonderfully large amount of likes and reblogs and so on. Thanks!

However this super rad attention has garnered a few messages discussing its wild inaccuracies. As an artist who is aware of the basic (and I mean BASIC) science behind the piece I feel I have a responsibility to address these concerns.

I shall now do so as best I can because I love this sort of discussion AND because it’s giving me an excuse to brush up on the research in general!

First, I am to understand it is terribly unlikely that a bacteriophage would even be found in a human body let alone be an aggressor. Phage treatment would negate the concern over its presence in the body but I recognise this doesn’t resolve the issue of the attack.

Second, the scale is thoroughly off and I am fully aware of this. I opted to take creative liberty with the scale to create a more dramatic scene. This one is all on me and my use of composition as justification.

Those two points came up the most and to the other smaller queries I figure I’ll offer the basic concept behind the piece. Hopefully this will help clear it all up:

Dangerous strain of E. Coli enters human body
(scientific accuracy: 9/10)
Bacteriophage enters body to counteract E. Coli
(scientific accuracy: 3/10)
Bacteriophage attacks E. Coli bacteria
(scientific accuracy: 8/10)
Bacteriophage explodes E. Coli cell
(scientific accuracy: 6/10)
Exploded bits become tiny E. Coli death monsters
(scientific accuracy: 1/10)
White blood cells come onto the scene to clean up the mess
(scientific accuracy:5/10)
E. Coli death monsters attack White Blood Cells (WBC)
(scientific accuracy:2/10)
Bacteriophage becomes mad with power and also attacks WBC
(scientific accuracy:0/10)
WBC now have to deal with a hot mess of trouble
(scientific accuracy:4/10)

So while I admit I knew that it wasn’t the most accurate depiction of microscopic warfare, I am sorry to be misrepresentative.

Oh another fun fact: I swapped the head and the butt of the bacteriophage.

And lastly if I continued to muck something up, feel free to send me some ~~hate mail~~ kind words clearing the air!

I’ve been so distracted with Cornettos and language...

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:21:14 -0400

I’ve been so distracted with Cornettos and language requests that I forgot to upload the second half of my work for Canadian Family’s May issue!

These 4/7 (the first three can be viewed here) deal with everything from nagging to that age old question of where DO babies come from?

These were heaps of fun to do plus drawing the toonie was weirdly enjoyable.

And now a huge THANK YOU!

Mon, 20 May 2013 15:30:00 -0400

Regarding the request I made before the weekend, I can’t properly express my appreciation! I’ve already been in touch with so many awesome people from so many wonderful locales that I’m honoured to have made these connections. For real: super honoured. The most honoured!

I hope my little project lives up to the time and energy all you awesome cats have already put in and again, thank you for the help!

If you’d still like to assist me, I’m looking for a bit of aid translating very simple text. I already have a heap of super cool languages so if you have a working knowledge of something not listed here, please feel free to email me [andrew (at) kolbisneat (dot) com]!

Here are some of the awesome languages I’ve already amassed:
• Acadian
• Arabic
• Bahasa Malaysian
• Catalan
• Czech
• Dutch
• Filipino
• French
• Galician
• German
• Greek
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Mandarin
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese (Brazilian)
• Romanian
• Russian
• Spanish (Chilean)
• Spanish (European)
• Swedish
• Turkish

I mean look at that list! How cool is that!

I NEED YOUR HELP

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:53:00 -0400

Well that title looks like spam but I proooooooomise it’s not!

Do you speak a language aside from English? You do? AWESOME!

I’m working on a personal project with a bit of VERY SIMPLE text and would like to be able to offer it in other languages. While the internet can provide basic translations, they’re likely not the most colloquial. This is where you come in.

I have English and French on lockdown (Oh, Canada), but if you would like to help then please email me: andrew (at) kolbisneat (dot) com!!! There’s a digital copy of the finished project in it for you if you’d like!

Okay thanks!

I was a huge fan of Iron Man 3 (no spoilers, but I respect the...

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:10:22 -0400

I was a huge fan of Iron Man 3 (no spoilers, but I respect the risks they took), and am enthused to see the Star Trek sequel, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t say this is the film I’m most excited for this summer!

The third and final entry in the Blood + Ice Cream Trilogy! Maaaaaaaaaaaan I can’t wait! Plus we North Americans have to wait an eternity after its initial release!

And I have a confession, I looked at waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many stills for this as I was crazy nervous I’d miss a crucial detail. May the cast and crew forgive me should I have gotten something entirely wrong.

Anyways, there are still a few individuals and sets left at Bottleneck Gallery. Find them here!

And if you’re as excited for the…conclusion(?)…as I am, tweet at me, bro.

Nothing like the original Cornetto to start off your...

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:41:26 -0400

Nothing like the original Cornetto to start off your Monday.

This is the second in the series of my Bromance trilogy for Bottleneck Gallery’s I Love You Man show!

Now it’s time for a lot of links…
Purchased (individually or as a set): here!
Strawberry Flavour: double here!
A very kind blog post about the set: triple here!

I woke up to this lovely one-two twitter punch this morning.

Sun, 12 May 2013 10:22:55 -0400

I woke up to this lovely one-two twitter punch this morning.