Austin Kleon

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The many faces of Coconut

Things are rough out there, so here are some photos of Mr. Coconut, the eastern screech owl who lives in our backyard. (If you need caught up: he showed up in our palm tree last year, we had a house built for him, his lady friend showed up and we were hoping for babies, but then they flew off in the spring, and I was very sad, but then he came back!)

I have a very low-end spotting scope that I use to get time-lapse shots of him out in the yard. He’s quite the character as you can see. Sometimes goofy (especially when he gets up), often murderous, sometimes downright majestic:

Here’s another time-lapse I caught before his nightly flight at dusk:

And here’s something I’ve never caught on camera before: actual footage of him flying. (Usually it’s too dark to see it on camera.)

His return has been a true bright spot in a dark year. If you need more Coconut in your life, follow me on Twitter or Instagram.

Anyone can be Batman

Nobody knows for sure what day Beethoven was born, but today is the day he’s usually celebrated. Here’s a collage I made of him with a Batman mask. Like Batman, he was complicated, “problematic,” and a bit larger-than-life.

In case you didn’t know, when I’m bored or hungover or brain-dead on Sundays, I like to draw Batman cowls on the people in NYTimes Book Review. (This is especially fun to do with kids.)

Here is a mini-lesson in how I think art works: If you’re depressed, draw a picture of Batman. You’re still depressed, but now you have a picture of Batman.

Tim Kreider’s We Learn Nothing

My January pick for our Read Like an Artist book club is Tim Kreider’s We Learn Nothing. To get the book in time to join our discussion next month, sign up now.

Here’s my intro:

“Fourteen years ago, I was stabbed in the throat.” So begins this collection of personal essays from the former political cartoonist, unfairly as gifted with words as he is with pictures. Krieder’s writing will not be for everyone, but I would like to assign everyone over the age of twenty “The Referendum,” a piece about how as we age, our peers give us a “glimpse of the parallel universes” that would have resulted had we made different life choices. I love this book because the essays only get deeper and richer with each year. Interspersed throughout are Kreider’s cartoons, which take their cues from biting satirists like Ralph Steadman and George Grosz. This is a contemporary classic.  

 

To join our discussion, sign up for the club!

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