Gallery 2

Monday, March 28, 2011

Anna Coddington's Album Cover!

Alohahaha! I told Anna 'ken years ago that if she didn't let me do an album cover for her I was gonna give her a hiding. I guess she took me seriously cos she's mean as at karate now, also she let me do this one.
To start with we went through a bunch of images I put together and agreed that an Alphonse Mucha ripoff inspired piece might be a good starting point.
I wanted to make this painting as Nu Zillund as possible without putting Buzzy Bees/jandals/tomato sauce in it. The view is looking across from Manu Bay near her place in Raglan, a tui is hollerin' at her shoulder and that guy in the bottom left is my idiot cat Lando. The stars are loosely based on our view of the night sky and that bench she's chillin' on is supposed to be like that one you were chillin' on in the weekend eating that pie. You should ease up on those pies by the way.
All the patternwork is based on native plants - kowhai, pohutukawa and putaputaweta. I had a bunch more of that stuff going on for a while but it looked pretty manic.
AC wanted to have some scifi/space elements in there so those weird clouds and ringed planet are ripping off paying a respectful homage to the amazing end image from NZ's own Quiet Earth.
That female humanoid in the middle is meant to resemble Anna Coddington. I traced a photo of her face, so what? I aint trying to do no goddamn likenesses ever again! That was actually pretty challenging for me, painting a recognizable face even though I traced a pic. Fortunately Anna isn't very horrible to look at which made it a bit more bearable.
So that's that! The album's choice, Anna is choice, everything is choice. Wait - earthquakes are not choice.

Album on itunes

Anna's website

13 comments:

  1. Wow, that's a great piece of work Pearce! Nice balance of graphic and literal in the image. Really love it.

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  2. I Love that...MUCHA is fantastic inspiration...

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  3. o woow
    love the mucha style!
    (the post about the crab was also very interesting)
    hope you're doing well!

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  4. Man, am I behind the 8-ball. I seen that album cover in magazines and shit and didn't even realise it was a Pearce orig. I guess the absence of dinosuars and robots gave me no reason to think t'otherwise. Got knowledge now though. Big ups bo!

    Beege

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  5. Alphonse Reborn!..Stellar Christian

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  6. stunning work on your blog, like to see more.

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  7. Thanks heaps you guys! I really appreciate it!

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  8. I love Alphonse Mucha, and you have done a wonderful job on this -it's not a rip-off any more than all those Grateful Dead posters from the '60's... Homages pay respect to the original artists.
    I miss seein' ya stuff on a regular basis at Weta now I'm no longer there!...

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  9. Damn that's just so good man. I've looked back at this one a few times. Really love it.

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