The Great Outdoors

This piece was developed specifically for Gallery1988’s, upcoming ‘Memes’ show, which ran from January 10^th 2020, through January 25^th 2020.

Due to time constraints, and a rather short deadline, this particular image’s development was rather quick.

I initially did some research on the internet, and found a site called ‘Know Your Meme’, in order to get some ideas, on how I was going to create something original, given both the content, and the recognition factor of how Memes work in general.  I’m not going to lie, I got pretty lost on the site (which is a fantastic place to get lost by the way, if you have the free time), and wasn’t really sold on any one particular ‘type’ of meme in which to base my work off of.

I finally came across a Meme genre called ‘fuckscapes’.

I’d seen these before, and while they weren’t prevalent on the net as they used to be, I found them clever, and rather hilarious.

I then began to try to come up with some ideas that would work with this meme genre.

I also wanted to make sure that the image was relevant to the gallery’s over clientele, as a lot of the work on display there is generally geared towards pop culture.

I also wanted to make sure that the ‘language’ I was using in my piece wasn’t too strong, as most of this genre’s meme are down right foul.

Somehow, over a few days of contemplating what I was going to do, the idea came to me.

Most of this genre’s memes are picturesque, with a rather offensive statement or word being placed somewhere in the scenery, typically on the horizon.

I thought it would be a creative solution to marrying my two requirements (original yet also pop culture themed), to use something from a cult movie.

This is when I decided to base the meme piece off of the classic 1988 family movie ‘The Great Outdoors’, starring the late, great John Candy, and Dan Aykroyd.

In the film there are two sequences in which, the family’s trash outside their cabin, is raided by some rather opinionated Raccoons. During one of the exchanges between the trio of bandits, they come across some discarded hot dogs.  While one of the creatures is excited, and begins to consume the remains, another exclaims to his ravenous compatriot, that hot dogs are made from ‘lips and assholes’.

With that I set forth utilizing what iconic imagery from the film I could find, so as to make a connection with the piece and the film.

I decided to use the cabin the families stayed in during the film, and the adjacent lake as the ‘setting’ of the image, and then also added the raccoons in the foreground in order to have the image tie in with the words, theme, and subject.

I also took some time to include some ‘easter eggs’, highlighting some of the more impressionable moments from the film.

For the text, I attempted to recreate the font from the film, from screen captures, since I could not identify nor allocate the font used in the original feature.

I also had some difficulty in placing the font, as I wanted it to slightly blend in the placement in the background.

I managed to finish the image, with very little time to spare, and got it down to the gallery for the show.

The illustration is entirely digital, and was developed in Painter, and Illustrator, with some adjustments done in Photoshop.

The piece was originally on display at Gallery 1988 during their ‘Meme’ show, which ran from January 10^th 2020- to January 25^th, 2020.

The image is only currently available from Gallery 1988 (framed), and has not been replicated at this time.

IG: stiles1978

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Twitter: paragonofpuns