David L's online art college

The OC Soundrack Album Cover

In music industry, album covers are not only the envelopes of the sound, they represent the uniqueness of the product to be sold and, for collectors and fans, are a pure piece of art equal to the music they are going to buy. This is the reason why both fans and music producers pay a lot of attention to the outlook of the albums since that represents what is the actual quality of the production.

One of the most impressive album covers that have actually made me buy an album of a genre that I am not particularly attracted to – The OC Soundtrack Album made such an impression on me that as soon as I saw it in the music store, I knew this would be a perfect piece to download to my Smartphones music library and add to my collection (which was mainly trance music, but I had no such cover).

The cover is made by a number of pieces of paper with drawing on them. Each cartoon represents a hero character that resembles the main characters of the OC TV production – it is like the artist is displaying comic book characters rather than TV starts. The whole cover looks like a just-drawn cartoon book, and the small pack of drawing papers and pencils lying around the cartoons made the cover look like the working area of a gifted artists.

You have no guess what would be the music like when you first see that piece of art – it lacks the hard images of metal albums, the mixture of rainbow colours for house, the discoball for trance or the image of the artists that is typical for pop music. It is just like the sketches of a comic book – this make you even more curious to get the product and add it to your unique collection.

Art Commision Pitfalls

Art commissions are one way of getting a guaranteed income for your art creations. However it is important to not get too exited when you land a commission, it may very well turn out to be the worst commission ever.

The best way to avoid a commission disaster is to follow some basic guidelines. One of the main things to look out for is to know who will approve the finished product. Will it be the person that just agreed your commission or will it be some kind of committee? This is not a time to just see the pound signs and power through with all your might expending energy and cash on materials, overheads and time.

If there is more than one person who will approve the finished art project this can be a sign you may want to turn down the commission. After all you want to be creating an artwork for pay, not to be out of pocket. If there are more than one or two people that will approve the release of the payment after they are satisfied the commission meets their requirements, it may be problematic as art is an intrinsically personal thing.

As they say you can’t please everyone all of the time. Here also, what one person might see as being representative of the commission guidelines another may not. Therefore it is essential that all parties have a clear picture of what the art commission should entail. It is advisable to get this in writing as well as at least thirty percent of the commission up front as a non-refundable deposit on materials.

A solicitor or independent party (such as financial advisors) should be called in to look over the contract. Ensure you are able to pay for one that can review the contract sufficiently to make sure as reasonably as possible that you won’t be left out of pocket.

The Creature From The Black Lagoon: a good example of how it should still be.

Sometimes, the most interesting thing can happen when you least expect it, like, say, when you venture in to someone’s bathroom and discover that your friend has a secret fascination that you were never aware of…

The bathroom in question belonged to a good friend of mine and had recently been re-done. I was expecting the usual nice new things, maybe photos of the family skiing in italy, that sort of thing. What I was not expecting was a full on homage to the legendary film The Creature From The Black Lagoon. I had no idea my friend was such a fan of this excellent (if ageing) cult movie.

Mark’s bathroom was indeed a masterpiece. Four posters adorned the walls – original posters in mint condition, framed to protect them from moisture and heat. Each poster is a work of art and features the creature in all his/its (?) terrifying glory as he fights the divers to keep a hold of his victim. Looking closely at the posters, its clear that more time was spent painting the creature than actually making the creature itself. But this doesn’t matter. There is a magic quality about these posters, and about the rubber suit that scared so many, as with many films from this forgotten era, that can not be matched by any modern photoshop work.

It’s saddening that there are, in 2010, only three or four proper full-time movie poster artists left in the world at the most; sadder still is the fact that virtually all posters today are put together in a marketing department in just a few days, from idea conception to completion.

But who knows? Perhaps this dying art will make a comeback? I’m sure there are many people out there who remember the creature who would like to think so to.