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Subject:MICHAEL MANNING'S THE NIBELUNGEN
Time:08:08 pm
The new site is up and running with icon and illustration galleries:

http://the-nibelungen.com/

Sum Legio will have prints and limited edition Nibelungen portfolios for sale later this month.

The current projected release date for the book is August/September 2009.






Currently listening to: BLACK SABBATH "Master Of Reality" (Warner Bros.)
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Subject:Futa Shinobi 01
Time:08:02 pm


Playthings of the Fox Domme



Currently listening to: AMON TOBIN "Supermodified" (Ninja Tune)
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Subject:Fox Domme
Time:11:38 am




Currently listening to: V/A "Macro Dub Infection Volume One" (Caroline)
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Subject:Happy Solstice
Time:08:42 pm
The distinctions we draw between past, present, and future are discriminations among illusions.
- Albert Einstein






Currently listening to: BROOKLYN JUNGLE SOUNDSYSTEM WITH DR. ISRAEL "Next Step" (Baraka Foundation)
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Subject:Ro's Cross of Busai Cover 02
Time:07:07 pm


Final drawing on illustration board with some color roughed in.



Currently listening to: +N "plane" (Fax)
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Subject:Cupcakes of Darkness
Time:06:19 pm


Our neighbor Kim made cupcakes for her daughter's birthday and we got some extras. I love the detail on the leaves and the funereal color scheme... and damn, did they taste good. Like the heart of chocolate-y darkness itself.



Currently listening to: ANGEL FACE "Last Sounds From... A Wild Odyssey" (Pacific Productions)
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Subject:Ro's Cross of Busai Cover 01
Time:12:06 am


Pencil sketch for book six of K. McVey's Erskan Chronicles.



Currently listening to: STEREOLAB "Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night" (Elektra)
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Subject:New MM Artwork For Sale
Time:12:23 am


I've just added six new pieces to the Art For Sale section of my site.

http://www.thespidergarden.net/artforsale.php

"Milked" (above) is another circular piece. I don't know what it is about me and circles lately.

The other five are part of a new series of color paintings I've been working on entitled Masque. They're small portrait-style pieces on illustration board, the first four of which are diamond shaped:

Masque 01
http://www.thespidergarden.net/artforsale.php?img=42&s=62&cs=5&o=2

Masque 02
http://www.thespidergarden.net/artforsale.php?img=43&s=62&cs=5&o=2

Masque 03
http://www.thespidergarden.net/artforsale.php?img=44&s=62&cs=5&o=2

Masque 04
http://www.thespidergarden.net/artforsale.php?img=45&s=62&cs=5&o=3

Masque 05
http://www.thespidergarden.net/artforsale.php?img=46&s=62&cs=5&o=3


Enjoy



Currently listening to: ULRICH SCHNAUSS "Stars EP" (Domino)
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Subject:Long Beach Avenue sunset
Time:07:43 pm




Currently listening to: Limbik Frequencies http://www.limbikfreq.com/
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Subject:Nibelungen: The Hand-Off
Time:12:15 pm
I'm meeting with Erwin (Sum Legio publisher) tonight to hand off the digital files and original artwork for The Nibelungen. Erwin is coming over from Austria for Chet & James Zar's show at L'Imagerie Gallery in North Hollywood this weekend:

http://www.limageriegallery.com/

I tend to feel mentally, physically and spiritually wiped out after completing a book project and Nibelungen is no exception.

I really need to get my brain in gear. I have so much to do today.



Currently listening to: THE ORB "Okie Dokie It's The Orb on Kompakt" (Kompakt)
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Subject:Dream Sequence Site Update
Time:01:37 am
The Dream Sequence web site has been updated. For those of you that haven't checked it out yet, this is Lyn's and my collaborative site with samples of our commercial work in film, animation, photography, print & web graphics. There's some work you may have seen on my Spider Garden site, some you may have seen on Lyn's Gaza Photo site and a lot more you probably haven't.



http://www.dreamsequence.org/

Profiles for Lyn and myself have been added as well as a video montage of our individual and collaborative film/animation/graphics work (click on "Reel" in the lower menu).

http://www.dreamsequence.org/about.html

There's also an updated version of my commercial reel. Click on "Michael Manning" in the top menu of the DS home page (or use the link below) then "reel" on my home page:

http://www.dreamsequence.org/MM_art.html

Feedback is welcome and please feel free to pass this on to anyone who might have interest in the services we offer.

Please note: for those viewers who get freaked out by their browser window changing size, the Dream Sequence site will open in full screen. You've been warned...



Currently listening to: KING KOOBA "Enter The Throne Room" (Second Skin)
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Subject:Another Green World
Time:11:56 am


As noted several weeks back, Lyn and I have been getting weekly boxes of organic veggies from a local CSA - South Central Farmers Co-op:

http://scfcoop.southcentralfarmers.com/

We had bought produce from SCFC at the Downtown and Atwater Village farmer's markets and were really happy with the quality, quantity and prices. Our friend Peri started a subscription in February and has been acting as the receiver for 6 to 10 other subscribers.

Consequentially, we've been cooking almost every night (not that unusual for us - eating out is usually more of a special occasion thing) and eating lots of leafy greens - several different types of kale, green & rainbow chard, collards, mustard greens, red & green leaf lettuce, huge bunches of cilantro & parsley as well as beets, kolrabi & turnips with their attendant greens. There was so much stuff to cook in the space of a week that after the first month, we started splitting a box with Peri which has proved to be a little more manageable labor-wise and, at $15 a box, dirt cheap.



Here are some of the recipes we've been making (if greens aren't specifically mentioned, you can just assume they're in there):

Kashmiri-style kidney beans with turnips
saag (we've added turnip & mustard greens to the spinach with excellent results)
spinach & pine nut quiche
oven-baked catfish with Southern-style collard greens
chicken donburi with sesame kale
cilantro pesto (vegan-style w/ almonds, chipolte & Italian-style w/ parmesan)
beet salad with goat cheese
Japanese kale salad with shitake mushrooms
spinach & feta "alligator" (Greek-style turnover with a raised dough)
gingered mustard greens
bhindi (braised okra)
pizza with home-made dough & sauteed chard
Senegalese peanut stew with greens & tofu
shrimp with Moroccan tomato relish



Currently listening to: BRIAN ENO "Another Green World" (Virgin EG Records)
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Subject:Storms of Busai 03
Time:12:51 am
Despite overwhelming feline interference, the finished painting for Storms of Busai:




I shot these under natural light so the color is a little off. I'll post the final cover after I
get a professional scan of the artwork.



Currently listening to: MAZZY STAR "She Hangs Brightly" (Capitol)
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Subject:Stop Painting
Time:12:33 am








Currently listening to: APHEX TWIN "ventolin e.p. (the remixes)" (Warp)
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Subject:DRAW SHOW @ SHOOTING GALLERY APRIL 11th – MAY 7th 2009
Time:01:57 pm
Can you find the Michael Manning artwork in this picture?



Thanks to Meg Castellanos for the photo.

SHOOTING GALLERY
839 Larkin St
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 931-8035
www.shootinggallerysf.com



Currently listening to: ATARI TEENAGE RIOT "Delete Yourself!" (DHR)
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Subject:Storms of Busai cover 02
Time:01:29 am


Next stage of the Storms of Busai cover.



Background detail.

At this point, I'm actually a bit farther along with it but I had to take photos early this afternoon while there was still some decent light.



Currently listening to: FAUST "So Far" (Polydor)
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Subject:From the archives
Time:01:26 am




"Goddess" - a commissioned portrait I drew in 2005 shortly after moving to Los Angeles and the origin of "Her Pet" the color piece from my previous entry



Currently listening to: DR. OCTAGON "Instrumentalyst: [Octagon Beats]" (Mo Wax)
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Subject:MM Art @ Seattle Erotic Art Festival 2009
Time:12:56 am


I'll have a couple of pieces (including the one above) in the Seattle Erotic Art Festival at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall May 1-3, 2009.

For more info:

http://www.seattleerotic.org/



Currently listening to: VISIT VENUS "Music For Space Tourism Vol.1" (Yo Mama Records)
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Subject:R.I.P. J.G. Ballard, 1930-2009
Time:12:46 am
James Graham Ballard, author of Crash, High Rise, The Crystal World, The Atrocity Exhibition and more than a dozen other novels, passed away on April 19, 2009 at the age of 78.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._G._Ballard

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8007331.stm

http://jgballard.com/

In a time when mediocre talents are routinely praised as being "visionary", J.G, Ballard was the real deal. His very name became a descriptive term for the dystopian worlds he explored in his novels and short stories. His prose could be clinical and precise, peeling away with a surgeon's skill the layers of banality and hypocrisy that make up everyday existence to reveal the perverse horrors of our collective soul. His writing could also be gorgeously poetic, bringing to life psychedelic visions of inner and outer worlds, post-apocalyptic dreamscapes in which the fears and desires of his characters were transformed into a richly chaotic new reality.



Personally, I'll never forget when, drawn in by a cover with Max Ernst's unutterably strange and beautiful painting "Eye of Silence", I took Ballard's "The Crystal World" down from a library shelf and entered a world even stranger and more beautiful. In many ways, I've never left the Crystal World or the Drowned World or the Burning World or the dozens of other worlds that are Ballard's living gift to me and the rest of this wonderful, miserable, self-loathing, bloodthirsty ball of confusion known as the human race.

As I've written elsewhere, there will never be another like him and we are all the poorer for his absence.



Currently listening to: JOY DIVISION "Closer" (Factory)
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Subject:My Studio - Part Five: The Nibelungen
Time:03:25 pm


My light table with Nibelungen illustrations in progress, a few months ago.




Finished line art on my studio wall, last week of March.




I took it all down shortly after taking this picture. Movin' on...



Currently listening to: JON HASSELL "City: Works Of Fiction" (Opal/Warner)
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[icon] In A Metal Web: The Art of Michael Manning
View:Recent Entries.
View:Archive.
View:Friends.
View:User Info.
View:Website (The Spider Garden).
You're looking at the latest 20 entries.
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