Posts Tagged ‘birthday’

Happy Birthday, Captain Visual!

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

Last night we had the pleasure of celebrating author, artist, publisher and balloon sculptor extraordinaire Gerry Giovinco’s birthday! This was the big one5-Ooooh!

It was also a reunion of sorts in that I got to see people I haven’t seen in the flesh for a couple of decades. Oh, I’ve written, emailed and phoned folks, but there has never been an opportunity to gather PCA alumni, Duckwork contributors, CO2 Comics contributors, old friends and allies all in one place. It was a great time!

50th Birthday Crown

Tina took the opportunity to create a crown for Gerry’s half century which he proudly wore during the festivities.

After presents and cake, Gerry dazzled us with a display of dexterity as he created wonders out of thin latex and thinner air. His nimble fingers formed fantastic hats, creatures and characters in a flash. I knew that Gerry did this as Captain Visual, but this was the first time I’ve witnessed his mad balloon sculpting skills, and I was floored! I particularly like the mermaid he crafted out of three balloons and some deft gestures. Incredible! I guess there is a reason that the guy has written books on the subject!

Gerry crafted this incredible hat for our son Lloyd. Sadly, it did not survive the trip home, but that’s the nature of balloon beasts.

Having looked through Gerry’s books, hats and mermaids are only the tip of the iceberg! There’s a lot more where that came from!

This also marks another anniversary.

CO2 Comics, brain child of the Birthday Boy and Bill Cucinotta, is a year old. Traffic to the site continues to grow and grow. With new additions almost every day and a library of colossal content, CO2 Comics is the hottest place for comics on the internet!


Birthday Crown No. 10

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

The latest and greatest from Tina for Lloyd on the tenth anniversary of his birth. The theme this year was the violin since that is what Lloyd has been learning this school year. See a recent recital here. Sharp-eyed music aficionados may notice that the music around the band is “Happy Birthday.”

Birthday Crown No. 10 by Tina Garceau

Birthday Crown No. 10 detail

Birthday Crown No. 8

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Here is Birthday Crown No. 8 by Tina Garceau. Lloyd was and still is heavily into Trick My Truck which is a reality/makeover series where these guys essentially trick out some trucks. So his eighth birthday had an 18-wheeler theme.

The shot below shows the side bands of the crown which carry the theme all around the wearer’s head.

Birthday Crown No. 2

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Birthday Crown No. 2 detail

Lloyd’s second birthday crown created by Tina.

Birthday Crown No. 4

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Birthday Boy

It’s our son’s birthday this week so we figured we would show some of his birthday crowns which Tina makes every year. The trick is figuring out the crown’s theme. Usually it’s based on Lloyd’s current obsession. Music was the theme for his 4th.

The crown’s are digital collages created with a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator. They are printed on card stock and cut out by hand.

Crown No. 4 detail

The 2009 Edition

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Joe-09

Tina’s latest!!!

If That Ain’t Love…

Monday, November 30th, 2009

The Cheese from Ipanema

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

Another birthday card from Tina and another obsession of Joe’s. When Tina and I were first dating, there used to be a terrific bar and restaurant called the 16th Street Bar & Grill. It was a nice little place, but the best part about it was the jukebox there with its eclectic mix of music. It had the original Getz/Gilberto classic The Girl From Ipanema. Yes, everybody has covered it and beat it to death, but this was the original! I fell in love with the song and created my own lyrics while we waited for grub. God help her, but Tina indulged my childish prattle by laughing. This card was the ultimate result.

cheese-p1

cheese-p2

cheese-p3

Tina created the card as she usually would, but this time she had color copies made. They were laminated and these three panels were connected with GBC binding.

My Dance Card is Full!

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

Travel back with us to those thrilling days of yesteryear! Back to a time when only ad agencies could afford a Macintosh! Back when a number 11 X-acto blade was your best friend! Back to the early to middle ’90s!

Dance-card-1

This is a birthday card Tina made for me back before we worried about pixels and megahertz. She would sketch a rough idea and then exhaustively measure, plan, size, pick retro clip-art and colors, keeping copious notes and wearing out a few proportional scales in the process. She would then head to shops with decent, self-service photocopy machines and make her copies. Back at her apartment, the razor blades and glue sticks went to work. She assembled her illustration, and then it was back out to one of the shops that still did photo-stats. She got film positives shot, and, once again, it was back to her apartment to paint the reverse side with gouache. When the paint was dry, she assembled the card as a bookmaker would a book. Color paper was wrapped around and adhered to chipboard. The stats were wrapped around these pieces with the color paper providing a background for the painted work (kind of like an animation cell.) Not only was it a lot of hand and leg work, it was expensive, too!

Dance-card-2

This is the inside of the card. At the time I was obsessed with a television commercial that sold VHS instructional tapes for learning the dance craze that had already swept the nation – The Macarena! At the end of the commercial, a wide-eyed blond proclaimed that it was fun and easy to learn the Macarena! Of course, I brayed like a jackass laughing at that. Tina learned early on that if she needed an idea for a card, pay attention to my current obsession!

The original was scanned for the blog. That’s why some of the black photographic image is casting a shadow. The original was on a thick chipboard and bound with a shoelace.

You Knocked My Block Off!

Friday, November 27th, 2009

boxing-1

boxing-2

This was a card Tina created back in 2006. We had bought Lloyd this particular robotic boxing toy as a gift although the modern version is a smaller imitation of the glorious original. Tina shot some digital photos of the toy, put in a background and applied the mysterious Joe Head icon on the face of the red robot. You wouldn’t hit a guy with glasses?