http://www.artnews.com/2004/09/01/whats-so-funny-about-contemporary-art/ 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT6ul1Aj8Tkd9pn9T4Q_ZMg  

These are links to two 3D drawing artists @ found on Youtube.  I loved the idea so I said I'd give it a go and try make prints that look 3D.  I failed spectacularly.  Here are some really entertaining failed 3D attempts I did.  Enjoy laughing at me!

Originally I drew this the wrong size so I had to do it again, horrible.  It's based on Senator Martin Conway's quote "Water doesn't just fall out of the sky".  I made it as cartoonish and satirical as possible to make it obvious that it's a joke.  Some statistics about the water charges are within the umbrella and ironically he appears to be oblivious to the rain.

I've recently been introduced to the work of Richard Prince who is a painter and a photographer.  I'm a big fan of his joke paintings.  The jokes tend to be related to Prince's relationship with women, the relationship between husband and wife, religion etc.  He tends to avoid the image and concentrate on the punchline but he does incorporate imagery sometimes.  More often than not, the imagery will have nothing to do with the joke itself.  These paintings are quite witty and I want to try and incorporate this idea of one liner prints into my project.

I'm a big fan of David Shrigley's cartoons.  His sense of humour is very much like my own and he influences me a lot.  Shrigley's also a sculptor, photographer, painter and animator.  He mocks everyday social interactions and situations through his simple cartoon drawings (he's best known for these).  He uses text to compound the jokes, many of which are just random statements with a humorous twist.  He was nominated for the 2013 Turner Prize.  I love his work as it has a happy and childish vibe to it.  The drawings are like something a child would do.  He's a prime example of someone who doesn't have to be good at drawing to be successful in the art world.  Davids work is fun to look at and enjoyed by everyone along with getting his points across.

Other than satire, I'm exploring other types of humour aswell like puns, irony, jokes, parody and just plain nonsense.  I came across a cartoonist called Theresa McCracken, who's also a historian, writer and naturalist.  She currently lives with some stray animals in Oregon, USA.  Hundreds of her cartoon prints have been published in numerous magazines like the "New Yorker".  Theresa lives off selling her work online.  I like her simple cartoon style along with her sense of humour.

Satirical art about government issues has been around for years from from early centuries to the present, but the masters of satire in my opinion are Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of the cartoon "South Park".  These lads attack and slag everyone and everything, from issues like abortion, legalising weed and homelessness to just attacking random people like Barbara Streisand, Britney Spears, Jesus, Buddah, Mel Gibson, the long list goes on.  They incorporate complete and utter absurdity while mocking various people and topics, one of which is Barbara Streisand as a killer robot destroying the town or comparing homelessness with zombie films by making homeless people look and act like zombies spreading the disease of homelessness.  Every episode is made a week before its released.  As a result, it becomes completely and utterly ridiculous and crazy, which is why its so popular.

The main storyline is made up of 4 boys, Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick (Kenny seems to die in nearly every episode) who go on bizarre adventures around their home town, South Park in Colorado.

(Barbara Streisand)

(Creators of South Park Trey Parker and Matt Stone)

My next assignment is based on humour.  I was always a fan of satirical art so I started with taking events or recent issues like the water charges and making fun of their existence through art.  Senator Martin Conway for Fine Gael recently claimed that "water doesn't just fall out of the sky".  Since this is such a poor choice of words on his part, I started with this.

Here are some online articles about the quote and some video footage.  Enjoy!

http://www.thejournal.ie/martin-conway-irish-water-1737145-Oct2014/ 

 http://www.her.ie/entertainment/watch-water-just-doesnt-fall-from-the-sky-fine-gael-senator-tells-vincent-brown/

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/fine-gael-senator-faces-ridicule-4477860

Another event that stood out for me is the uproar over the 2014 budget cuts.  The government thought it would be a good idea to cut down spending by taking away the "automatic entitlement to medical cards for the over 70s".  When it was announced, people weren't happy and understandably thousands of protestors mainly consisting of elderly people, marched to Dail Eireann to express their miscontent with the governments poor decision to target the working classes and elderly.

Here are 2 online articles about the situation, one of which has a short video of the protest.  Enjoy!

http://www.thejournal.ie/pensioners-protest-1141795-Oct2013/

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/pensioners-protest-over-budget-cuts-29686623.html 

Satires about poor government decisions are very popular around the world so I'll start with making humorous work based on these stories.