Monday, May 4, 2009

Cheap Thrills with Muppets Rawk

So after weeks of preparation, research, sketching, inking and coloring... I'm finally done with my piece for the upcoming Muppet Rawk II group show at Ouch My Eye Gallery.


View LARGER HERE and with notes that link to the Youtube clips I used as reference.

For this show artists had to take an existing rock album cover and re-image it with Jim Henson's Muppets. You could use any Muppet and it the art had to be 12" x 12".


When I got to join in on this I searched a little bit for some cool covers. The previous show had some gems in them see here. I knew that I had to do something really cool. So when I ran across Cheap Thrills over and over in lists of the "best rock covers ever". Someone had to do this cover with Muppets! I wasn't sure if I could really do it, but I thought I'd bite off more than I could chew and do it myself.




Last month was the busiest I've ever been. I chose to paint 5 vinyl records by the end of the month and do 4 weekly comics, plus I threw on a cover for a demo CD for the Seymours. On top of all that recreate Robert Crumb's Cheap Thrills cover with Muppets. What the hell was I thinking? Whatever it was it worked. I made it and I feel fucking great about it.
Currently one of my own favorite pieces and one of the most ambitious pieces I've ever done.

I want to THANK:
Tom Dougherty (for leading me to this event and all the encouragement that he gave me along with the great pat on the back when I was done), Ouch My Eye Gallery (for even having this great idea for a show), YouTube (whom without all those references would not have been made possible. I like the Muppets a lot, but I didn't know enough to fill all those titles and word balloons), Angela Stork (for loaning me her original Cheap Thrills album cover for me to make transfers from. Have fun out east.), Annie's Art & Frame (for framing it for me quickly and cheaply), and obviously Jim Henson and R. Crumb who have always been influences.

9 comments:

stormcellar said...

Dude, you have managed to combine multiple awesomenesses into a single, greater awesomeness.

I am uber impressed.

Seriously.
MJEB

Mark H. Besotted said...

Really pretty. Any chance of getting a bigger image?

And, as I pointed out on the Boing Boing post which brought me here, the Sesame folks did something similar in 1994.
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Cheep_Thrills

(Which is not to say your art isn't gorgeous!)

mellowknees said...

omg...PLEASE tell me that you're going to have prints of this for sale!

Bob Flynn said...

Man, you knocked this one out of the park. Great tribute to both the Muppets, and Crumb. Attention to detail: astounding. And what a fun idea to begin with.

Swellzombie said...

Thanks everyone.
And per request: Prints are available via Imagekind.

Mark H. Besotted said...

Bought!

(And, thanks to RetailMeNot, free shipping all around.)

This is the first piece of art I've ever bought myself that wasn't a $5 poster.

Unknown said...

Incredibly well-done, sir. Mad props.

Anonymous said...

...please where can I buy a unicorn?

Anonymous said...

...please where can I buy a unicorn?

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