Research & sketchbook development

Further from my decision to look at Transcriptions, re-makes and re-imagining of art & design i had a look at a load of re-made or 'parody' designs of classic art and iconic logos and imagery. Seeing how many reworks of the same images had been done to death (American Gothic comes to mind) it made me think about why people would go out of their way to almost totally replicate an existing painting, only to change a couple of elements in it to change the meaning of the image, or modernise it, or add SpongeBob to it? Also, it's one thing to show craft in re-producing someone else's painting process, but a lot of the examples didn't really bring anything extra to the original - most of them were trying to bring some comedy to it, but didn't always hit the target. The inclusion of 'Minions' is an example of this. Minions are bloody everywhere, and there not even slightly amusing. Other examples that caught my eye are featured below.

A lot of the re-imagined logos and paintings that I've included appealed to me either because they made me laugh, or because it had a clever concept and the way the work has been altered to give it a new spin - but as far as coming up with a concept for my publication i'm not sure where i'd go with it. Making Colonel Saunders fat, bastardising the 'Son of Man' by Magritte (below), making iPood logos  - it's all been done over and over, and I'm not really sure how much creative credibility you can take from that line of illustration, if any.

One image i stumbled across was of the Mona Lisa (see above), painted in the cubist style of Picasso, created by another different artist (haven't been able to track down a name). It got me thinking about the possibilities of maybe creating a series of images of everyday,recognisable objects but mimicking the production process of famous practitioners of the past. My knowledge of artist history is 'somewhat' rusty so i will need to have a search for some prime examples. I also realise that painting is not what i do, so trying to recreate the painting style of some of the past masters maybe not be practical, especially considering the time I've left myself to sort this out in.