Category: Avant-Garde

Great attention has been paid to the contours of this car body. From the steep climb of the car’s snub nose to the semicircular arc of its rear, this car is one clean contour. In fact, if you start at the front you can see two lines that don’t quite come together. Those are actually…

Wheeee, I’m a cat in a rocket! I’m zooming around at high speeds, a feline making a beeline (if you will). No stopping this cat, no sir. I’m just zooming around and around and… hey, why am I zooming around? I’m just going in circles! I’m — I’m– I’m on a rocket ride at an…

O Butterfly, you fling yourself into the air with reckless abandon, smiling as you climb into the sky. But what’s this? A single egg drops from the mother butterfly as she flies? In reality, butterflies tend to lay between a hundred and two hundred eggs. We know this not from observation but from reliable authorities.…

Freddy Age Six draws a drawing of a cat sitting upright at a table, drawing a drawing of something I know not what (je ne sais claws). The table not only supports the cat’s work tools (box of crayons to his left, box of juice to his right, page in front of him), but it…

Gesture is everything in this whimsical depiction of a pony. What moment has the artist captured? The pony throws back her head and shakes her mane with such spirit that it is hard to believe her front hooves are solidly planted on the ground. It would be pressing the four-year-old artist’s gestural bravura too literally…

This cat (by an artist age 6.5) is all circles, curves, and friendliness. See how he extends his paws outward generously from his body. The only sharp corners on him are the points of his fuzzy ears. No claws on those teddy-bear paws, and no fangs in that sweet muzzle. But conspicuously absent from the…

Consider airplanes. They are simple structures, with a certain minimalist elegance. They are necessarily aerodynamic, with the happy result that their sleek horizontal lines appeal to the eye of any aesthete. The binding logic of motion and force dictate most of their structure, including the delicately nuanced perpendicular of the wings sprouting from the body.…

I guess if it weren’t for a road trip, I might have missed this altogether: Doug TenNapel’s Catscratch is the theme of the current Happy Meals at McDonald’s! Splee! TenNapel is the mad genius whose singular Turlock brain virus has infected video games, animated cartoons, and graphic novels in recent years. For anyone who’s followed…

NOOOOOOO!!! The giant robot lurches into the city and our best defenses cannot stop him. FLEE, TINY HUMANS!!! If this be doomsday, when stalks the robotic juggernaut! He was designed by a demolition contractor who thoughtlessly programmed him with the command, “Destroy the next building.” Obedient to the letter of the law, he sets out…

Cleverly concealed within the hard structure of the turtle’s shell, dual miniature turbofan jet engines roar to life, sure to give him a competitive advantage when that cocky rabbit comes boasting of his superior landspeed. Pictured here with a satisfied smile at the moment of blast-off, the turtle flattens himelf out aerodynamically by tucking his…

Phoebe age 4 steps up to representational drawing just in time for the Christmas season. You can pick out the human figures to the left and the right, especially if you’re prepared for the bold abstraction of showing all the hairs on their heads by portraying one representative hair. Which one is Mary and which…