She's baaaaaaack.

A few months ago I wrote a post on how I feel like I could have been the little girl in the Georges Seurat painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. You see, I have an infinity to this particular painting. Wait---Maybe I didn't reveal the insane notion that I could have been the little girl in that painting...cause that would be, well, that would be craaaaazzzzyyy. I don't really believe that, of course, but you have to admit that the little girl in this Seurat is very unsettling and looks like another bratty toddler Jana.

Can you see her?

For heaven's sake, WHERE ARE HER PARENTS!?!?! And she's facing the painter directly. Creep-y.  So eerie.

She's just standing in the middle of this like the little girl in Men In Black. You know the one who is holding the book on astrophysics as she walks through a dark alleyway writhe with aliens. Then Will Smith shoots her cardboard cut out and Tommy Lee Jones has to stop the testing process. Please, someone get that reference. She's a little too much like that. She's gotta be an alien.

It gets even creepier up close.  Go ahead, go Cameron on this one too.

If there's anyone who still reads this blog, I'm sorry I've been absent for so long. Life got really busy. It's good to be back though.

I hope my readers are doing swell.

I can almost see the finish line...

This poster hasn't been given the green light quite yet, but it's getting there.

I trashed my background sketch and reused the realistic pine trees instead.

Why? My reasons were two-fold.

1. It was too busy.

2. I'm never content with the outcome of Live Trace in Illustrator. It always obliterates my lines and makes everything jagged.  (And, yes, I've tried messing with all the options.) I wonder what Al Hirschfeld would have thought of Live Trace?


But back to the poster...It will appear much larger, so if you find it difficult to read, rest assured that the fine print won't appear so fine in the end.

What do you think of the slanted double red line divider? I needed a divider and thought of that at the last minute. In my symbolic world, it doubles as the road.  Is that too corny?


Hey, and look what I found when I was searching for a swanky picture of Hirschfeld! I should have known that one of my favourite illustrators of all time would have a depiction of "Sunday in the Park with George". To see more of Hirschfeld's work, click on the picture. It should direct you to his foundation.

Well, there are worse things than staring at the water on a Sunday

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat (2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891)

This painting is perhaps the most iconic piece ever done by Seurat. Even though it's wildly over exposed, it holds a special place in my heart. I'm not really sure why, but I've always been drawn to this. I always thought it was because I like parasols.

It must sound absurd, but I think I have a connection to this. After all I was born on Seurat's birthday and he painted this pointillism masterpiece in 1884, exactly 100 years before I was born. But I guess that doesn't mean anything because we share a birthday with Britney Spears as well.

I had always associated it with the scene in Ferris Bueller when Cameron Frye is in a trance staring at this speckled canvas. I'll refresh your memory.

I don't know if John Hughes was responsible for the cinematography for Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but it leaves me wonderstruck.

That reminds me, I need to take a Bueller tour of Chicago someday. Dear Jana, Add that to your ginormous list of goals. Thank you. 

At one point you could Adopt-a-Dot  from the pointillistic painting at the Chicago Institute of Art. I believe that window of opportunity is now closed. But I know you could pick the colour of your adopted dot and they would send you a sample and let you know the location of your dot on painting. I should have splurged and adopted one then and there. Ah, that would have been grande.

Several years later, I learned that there was a Broadway musical starring Mandy Patinkin & Bernadette Peters called Sunday in the Park with George which was inspired by the life of Seurat and the characters that model for this painting. His love interest was a woman named Dot.  It was also released the year I was born and written by Steven Sondheim and James Lapine. The former also happens to be the name of my brother. I love those sort of things.

Why I haven't seen this Broadway production yet, I don't know, but I ardently adore the music that I've heard so far.

Then my favourite television show released this promotional photo. I can't get enough. Superb! Although it's missing Michael.

And a mug of mine that I have somehow acquired over the years. Where did I get this?  I guess that's a mystery.

So do you have a painting that you feel an affinity to? Also, have you seen this painting anywhere else in pop culture?

Well, I hope you had a pleasant Sunday...and maybe it was spent in a park...with someone named Georges.