I have this 34 x 11.5″ gauche painting by Harper but I can’t figure out what it was for. Harper worked as a set designer for Warner Brothers in the 40’s then worked on several Disney projects including Art Directing 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (which won an Oscar for the design), and later, after Disney, the famous Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and The Fantastic Voyage. If you have any clue what film had a scene like this set in North Africa or someplace with moorish ruins occupied by British? soldiers – let me know. I can’t find anything.

UPDATE: As the commenter below noted it MIGHT be from the 1936 Charge of the Light Brigade – watching the trailer suggests the same costumes and the same settings. But Harper would have been about 25 at the time, and would they have rendered color illustrations for a B/W film?

Here’s the whole book, originally published in 1965. Also see his “The Witch’s Catalog.” And send him a message on Facebook, he loves hearing from fans – the man was born in 1928 people. Although famous for his Clifford the Big Red Dog series, via email he mentioned “The Witch Next Door” was one of his favorites and that it was once used in a Sunday school class to teach tolerance of others. O how times change.

Blank black corridors get tiresome, so liven up your sex club’s walls with super-graphic super-graphics. Here I’ve chosen a nice bj image to set the mood. To add texture I’ve designed a subtle background diamond-plating inspired pattern using the logo of the club.

Paint the wall black – a flat finish is nice and velvety but a bitch to keep clean. I’ve chosen a Dunn Edwards interior black in eggshell finish – a nice amount of gloss. (Don’t get high gloss or u won’t be able to draw on it with chalk in a later step.)

Draw a grid on the wall in pencil based on the repeat size of your pattern. 18″ in this case.

Cut an 18″ square of Gatorboard, then Spray 77 a 1/4″ piece of foam to the board, overlay your logo (remember to reverse it), then cut it out of the foam. Using the grid on the wall, start stamping. It’s ok if some drip or don’t fully stamp – it’s a sex club, things should get a little messy. I’ve chosen DE6356 “Sheet Metal” although the lighter gray, DE6348 “Draw Your Sword,” seems more appropriate given the venue.

Now, in Photoshop make a scaled 18″ grid over your artwork, then divide each of those squares in half and print it out. This is our guide as we draw the line work on the wall in chalk. It’s easy because you’ve already drawn a grid on the wall for the pattern, now divide those squares again. It helps if you number the squares along the side so u don’t get confused as you begin drawing on the wall.

Time to run a paint test. Because i want the blue linework to fluoresce under UV light I’ll be painting it with Wildfire brand blue UV reactive paint. I find it’s best to paint a flat white undercoat, then the UV paint on top. UV paint is very transparent so it will take a couple coats. Because i want this to really pop, i’ve mixed 7 parts UV blue to 1 part UV white.

Now wipe off all remaining chalk marks with a damp rag, and light with UV fixtures. To avoid blasting the hall with UV light (which would cause anyone wearing a white shirt to light up the whole area when they walked by) I’m not using blacklight flourescent tubes, instead, 6 mini-UV-LED-spotlights and 3 blue UV mini-spots from MiniSpotlight.com. Now you’ve got a hot sexy wall that looks great under under bright lights for a photo or porno shoot (and promotes your venue by stamping your club name all over the image!), as well as regular, dark, club cruising conditions.

his site http://www.wildsiders.com

It opens this week. I made lots of “wall decor” for this project. I’d say more but this particular company doesn’t yet seem comfortable with their designers discussing the work they’ve done outside of their approved channels. I haven’t seen the resort in person so I can only rely on what photos I find on Flickr. I’ll post more after it opens (when hopefully people will have uploaded their pics.)

From Ibrahim Dilek at Threadless

below from Clark Goolsby at http://www.povevolving.com

Here’s more of that theme park art being sold on ebay and this site. Like I said, I’d done  design work for this company in the past. And then they ignored my invoice. I called for months and pursued getting a lawyer but I was owed like $3000 and a lawyer would have cost most of that. Their security quit after they stopped getting paid, so I just walked back in the building and sat in the accountant’s office and said I was there to get my check. I’d brought a book and made myself comfortable. He made a call, “I have a Justin Jorgensen here, in my office, without an appointment, and he’d like his check now.” He left and returned with my check before I finished the first chapter.

Anywho – this is all very kitschy and awesome in its generic fantasy spectacle 70’s pinball game art kind of way – also wildly inspiring.

A theme park design company I worked for years ago is now selling off all their art. I have a gajillion pictures to post from this. Lets start with costume designs from Pete Menefee for what I’m guessing was an all male revue/pirate stunt show. I shit you not, the last one is actually labeled “Tribal Bro.”

This top image was part of a concept for the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, done by designer Rolly Crump around 1965. It always reminded me of an Erte, and that’s who did the second image – not sure on the date but probably 1920’s or 30’s.

And this is by Aurel Schmidt in 2006. Her drawings are obsessively detailed and pretty amazing.

And I just found this 1990 Armani dress in the book Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy.

I’m looking to hire a variety of people for a variety of jobs – some creative – some not. Nothing is long-term but I need people I can call on for these things which come up frequently, like now. Here’s what’s on my to do list:
- Designing two theme park attractions for a foreign park
- Designing and creating all the art to hang in a new high-end entertainment resort hotel
- A follow-up book to my Obscene Interiors
- A gallery show of new work for early 2009
- A sprucing up of this website, a creation of a new site and identity for my commercial work, and a new site for my non-commercial work
- And I’ll likely be moving soon as neighbors have pointed out that the two floors above seem ready to collapse onto my bedroom. The city of Burbank is looking into it, but I’m not sure I want to wait for their engineer’s evaluation.

SO…realizing many of the following could be the same person, I’m needing:
- An original inspired graphic designer
- Someone good with vector art creation
- A visual reference researcher (“Find me pictures of old industrial pipes”)
- A general personal assistant – mailing, running errands, making calls, writing letters. this person should be in the Burbank area or nearish and familiar with the area.
- A cleaning person
- Modelers, both digital 3-D, and maybe some physical
- And anyone good with illustrating environments or concept design
Send me an email (do not post a comment) if you are interested in any of this or know anyone who would be – the address it at the top of the sidebar. Send your location, contact info, myspace links and images of your work if applicable – It saves so much time if I don’t have to email or dig through portfolio sites. BTW, mine is here: JustinJorgensen.com I get calls all the time now for projects that I have to turn down so it’s be nice if I could refer those jobs to people – because everyone I know  is working now.