Everybody's a critic: Why the Cubs made me think about Flebus

Ain't it the truth?

I did this during tonight's Cubs game. It was a rough one, and I needed to relieve some stress. I apologize. You will forgive me, I hope. I guess I was trying to remember what the protagonist from Flebus (1957) looked like. Have you seen Flebus? It's a short cartoon by Ernest Pintoff and Gene Deitch. The title character was drawn in an abstract, minimalist style that was considered pretty hip by 1957 standards. After I finished this, I did a quick Google search and learned that Flebus looked nothing like I remembered. But, anyway, I thought it would be funny if there were a creature who had the same basic body shape as an abstract cartoon, but more realistic flesh and teeth and eyes. I really don't know what the point of all this was, to be honest.

Sometimes, you just have to draw Orson Welles in Microsoft Paint

Sorry to do this to you, Orson.

Sometimes, when I am very, very bored or short on inspiration, what I'll do is open up YouTube and Microsoft Paint at the same time and draw my interpretation of what's on screen. My time limit is however long the video runs. When it's over, I'm done. Ready or not. It's a simple, stupid game that helps pass the time and calm my nerves. What I like about it is that there's (generally) not much time to concentrate on little details. You get the essence of something and move on. So today, I was doing that with a 1962 interview with director Orson Welles on a British TV show called Monitor. He was already getting heavy by '62, and he looked sweaty, tired, and uncomfortable while talking to the host about Citizen Kane for the bazillionth time. But he got through the interview anyway. Something about that struck me as interesting, so I made the picture you see above. Hope you enjoy it. Either way, have a nice day.

Can You Guess the Lyric Based on Terrible Microsoft Paint Art?

Song lyric #1

Song lyric #2

Okay, so here's how this works. I took two lyrics -- not titles, mind you but lyrics -- from famous songs and then illustrated them as crudely as possible in Microsoft Paint. Your job is to try to ID either of the songs based on the drawings. Your only hint is that both of these songs are used in the movie The Big Lebowski, though they may not necessarily be on the soundtrack album. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Anyway, post your guesses (if you have them) in the comment section below this article. "And report back to us as soon as it's done."

Aaaaaaaaand..... GO!

Bad MS Paint Art: Celebrities from memory

One of my abstract works made possible by MS Paint

 
Of all the advances of the so-called Computer Age, certainly one of the greatest is Microsoft Paint, that most auspicious of digital time-wasters. While the programmers who created Power Point, Word, and Excel will certainly spend several lifetimes in Hell atoning for their technological sins, the creator of Microsoft Paint has an express ticket to Heaven. At least that's how I see it. I have spent countless, contented hours scribbling away on MS Paint. It's remarkably therapeutic and relaxing. Unfortunately, this delightful application did get me into a bit of trouble once. A little over a decade ago, you see, I was a customer service representative for a major American automobile manufacturer. Let's say the name rhymes with Schmeneral Schmotors. Anyway, before we were allowed to take calls from irate customers, we had to attend a month-long training course which was held in a small classroom on the property. We each had computers at our desks, and our instructor stood up front and lectured. I confess that I frequently got bored during the lessons and started using my computer to draw crude likenesses of Fred Flintstone and Bart Simpson. Well, apparently one of my fellow students ratted me out to the teacher, and I was briefly and gently chastised by her. Oh, remind me to tell you about this woman sometime. She was something else! My guess was that she was some sort of cyborg or replicant, but I have no proof of this. Her name was Nina, but she pronounced it "Nine-a." Can you beat that?

But let's get back on track. All these years later, I still love MS Paint. I've used it to create every last Zomby cartoon, for instance, and I still while away the hours doing little abstract designs whenever I am bored, which is frequently. Lately, I've had the idea of trying to draw various celebrities from memory. I thought I could turn it into some kind of parlor game -- kind of a variation on Pictionary or Win, Lose, or Draw. Anyway, here are a few examples:

Michael Jackson

Prince

Hulk Hogan

Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean

Benjamin Franklin

As you have probably guessed, I normally pick celebrities who already have a cartooonish, outsized image and who can be reduced to a few outstanding physical characteristics. So then I added a little twist to the game: I would draw less obvious celebrities from memory, then redraw those same celebrities after doing some photo referencing and compare the results. Here's how those turned out:

Anne Hathaway

Alfred Hitchcock

Michael Douglas

You might be wondering what the point of this article is. Frankly, there isn't one. But it's been a while since I posted anything to this blog, and I had all these pictures saved to my hard drive and decided to get some mileage out of them. Hope you enjoyed.

Crude MS Paint Portraits of Celebrities!

My attention span has gotten so bad lately. I can't even watch a TV show anymore and give it my full attention. Recently, my TV-watching hobby has been creating very crude, childlike portraits of celebrities in the venerable MS Paint program.

Here are a few examples. See how many you can identify.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Answers (sort of) in the comments section!