How the NPR voices look (in my head) /  by Gaelan

 

When I was in high school I had to spend about 30 minutes every morning driving into town to get to school. This time I spent religiously listening to Morning Edition's first segment. This was the 90's so the host was the great Bob Edwards and I can remember for some reason or another getting into my head that Bob was an old Japanese man. Yeah I know, 'Edwards' not the most Japanese name but I wasn't really thinking about it, I just had this picture of him in my head. Fast forward a few years and I see an interview on TV with Bob Edwards (he was retiring) and... What the hell? Bob Edwards looks like Adam West?!

Well I'm sure we all do this with the voices on the radio, we (for some reason or other) get a mental picture of that person and it sticks. The shock is when we actually end up seeing the face behind the voice and our mental image is shattered forever! Like an iconic actor playing a role in a movie or an actor playing an iconic role in a movie from a famous book. For better or worst, sometimes you just can't disassociate the two after the fact (thank you Ian McKellen).

Anyway, this is who I see in my head when I listen to NPR these days, not always intresting but always wrong. Well except for Terry Gross, she just looks like she sounds.

Final thought, Renee Montagne does Morning Edition now, those guys have to get up at like 3am!

Click here for Part 2 

Robots and Fruit /  by Gaelan

Straw-botty, To-bot-o and Botccoli
Robots and Fruit started as a side desk sketch project in watercolor and ink. These are the next phase of that idea, painted in acrylic on a (slightly) larger surface. These three paintings were made as a donation to the Lakewood Cooperative Preschooll's annual school auction (where they were bought and whisked out of my life). They are fun to paint and pretty quick to finish so I may have more in the pipeline. 

ABC Phonics: Sign, Sign and Read! illustrated by Gaelan Kelly /  by Gaelan

Although not "hot off the presses" this is the first time I've posted about my illustration work on this ABC and Phonics book using American Sign Language signs. The ink and watercolor illustrations are all mine as well as the book layout and cover design. I also had some input in regards to the content. It was a long time coming but it's finished and has a few satellite products such as a large poster and A to Z tiles for use in a classroom. The book and posters are available from the publisher, as well as on Amazon. 


Look inside here.

The Massacare of OZ /  by Gaelan

Click painting to enlarge.

As I have been cleaning and organizing my art stuff I came across this painting I did a few years back. It's a scene from 'The Wonderful Wizard of OZ' by L. Frank Baum where the wicked witch sends 40 wolves and 40 crows to basically kill and torture Dorthy and her friends. I remember I was reading the book to my son who was about four at the time and thinking how grizzly it seemed, even for a book written in 1900. For some reason I ended up doing my own W. W. Denslow inspired illustration to the passage. Prints can be made available for your own child's room. You sickos.

The Tapes in my Glove box /  by Gaelan

Click on painting to enlarge.

Here is another painting from the past, and really the one that started a whole series. This painting is of all the tapes that I had in the glove box of my first car (little red CRX). It's pretty much a self portrait. Most of the tapes are mixes that various friends had made me over the years, I tried to copy their handwriting as well as I could. A few of tapes on here are side A and side B, mostly because I needed to fill the whole canvass.

Our house at 415 Creekside Way /  by Gaelan

This is the house that I grew up in. It didn't always look like this though, it's been in a constant state of flux since before I was born. My parents bought the original cabin (pictured in the upper right corner) in the 70's and have been building and tweaking and adding and rebuilding ever since. Mostly this work is done by my father but as soon as me and my siblings were old enough to hold a hammer we were put to work on it as well. People have been born in this house and people have died in this house. I think it may be my father's greatest art project, in fact it holds so many memories that I just didn't have the space to include them all. What I have included are some of the greatest hits that my brothers and sister remember. For a detail of the legend click here. Also, a detail of the livingroom and kitchen. Some day I will do a Part 2 of this painting (the back of the house and back yard) but I will defiantly need a bigger piece of paper!