Completed Figure Study

 

aaaaaaaaaaand done! 

Carbothello/charcoal on toned paper. Approx. 6 hours total.

 

Part II

 

Part II

Figure study

 

Carbothello/charcoal on toned paper

Doing some more figure studies, trying a classical approach. I'm pretty happy with this one. I'll probably go back and work on it some more, so let's call this part I.

Test Subject

You want your sci-fi creepiness? Well I got your sci-fi creepiness right here!!

Summer break as a kid, home alone for hours on end, I took solace in whatever campy horror/science fiction movies I could find on TV (Ice Pirates, I'm lookin' at you), and many stacks of comic books. Paired with shelves full of my older brothers' hand-me-down fantasy and sci-fi novels with their incredibly illustrated covers, I had a fertile imagination for all things dark, dystopian, and awesome. 

This is sort of an homage to those days, as I sit at home on this scorcher of a summer break. 

New sketchbooks are one of those things that make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Got myself a new toned paper sketchbook. Did this on the first page from a photo reference with charcoal. (5.5 X 8.5 inches)

 

Digital Shmigital



 



Not going to lie: I used to HATE digital art. It looked so, well, DIGITAL, which is to say artificial and lifeless. When I make art, it's a very tactile thing - I respond to surfaces and tools and let them dictate some of the final product. You just don't have that with most digital tools.

 

But the thing is, I work a day job and I can't sit around with canvas and paint all day (yet). And as it happens, my work computer has Photoshop on it. muuuuWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!

 

So I decided I'd start honing skills like composition, color use, etc. Not to mention trying to figure out how to use Photoshop, which is perhaps the least intuitive computer program ever devised.

 

And now I'm addicted like it was so much sweet, sweet Blue Sky Meth.

 

Here's a couple of things I've done:

 

 

Miniatures. Teeth!

Amor Dentatus: The Gaze. Oil on canvas, 4"x4"

Amor Dentatus: The Coupling. Oil on panel, 3"x6"

Amor Dentatus: The Birth. Oil on Canvas, 5"x5"

Finished the mini-series (ha! Get it? 'Cause they're small... paintings... anyway). 

Submitted it to the gallery. Here's knocking on wood! 

 

Got frustrated again the other night, way too controlling of the process. So I did this to relax. Oil on panel, 5"X7"

Getting productive, are we?

EXCITED!

A bunch of stuff in the works. One, I'm doing a cover illustration for the good people at Isotropic Fiction . 

Second, I'm working on a series of miniature paintings for a show at Metallo Gallery (did a whole post about it below. You know you want to read it. Come on! You know you do!) 

Third, I've submitted a few paintings for an emerging artists' show at the Harwood Art Center. 


I created a poster for a friend's art show. I'm also doing a personal fiction/poetry project and working on a (shhhhhhhh!!!!!) graphic novel. 

Things are really starting to cook! YAAAAYYYY!!!!!!!

Here's a picture of a knife-wielding dwarf astride a giant squid joyfully flying through zero-gravity to illustrate how I feel right about now: 

 

Miniatures at the Metallo Gallery in Madrid, NM

First off, it's pronounced MAD-rid.

The Metallo Gallery in Madrid, New Mexico holds an annual miniature show in the spring. All works on display are 36 inches square or less. 

Two years ago I had my first art sale ever there, this painting called Do Not Duplicate: 

 

This one, Blood Tree, didn't sell but it's still there at Metallo someplace, probably in a storage closet or under a cup of coffee or something: 

 

Being in this show and selling a painting was a gigantic, life-changing event for me because it was the first time I'd ever felt affirmed that painting as a vocation was a viable option.

  

This year I'm going to submit a series of paintings of fake vampire teeth: 

 

Why plastic vampire teeth? For one I like artifacts of pop culture. I think they're cool. But I believe they also say a great deal about our hopes and anxieties as a people. Halloween and horror I love in particular, admittedly because of nostalgia (it's the best fucking holiday and time of year and you know it), but also because I think there is something remarkable about a culture that alleviates its fears of death and dehumanization by dressing up its children - its children - as the dead and horrifying. 

What a way to come to terms with our mortality. We fetishize youth culture (sexually active youth culture, anyhow) then once a year we symbolically kill and maim it. Horror movies perform the same morbid task all year long. Extraordinary. 

I wish I could know how history will judge such strange behavior. 

So, vampire teeth. Why not? I'll keep you posted if and when I get into the show this year. Until then, I have at least two more paintings to do. 

 

Lovecraft

Ink, acrylic and gouache on canvas board, 4X6"

The master himself, H.P Lovecraft. Behind him is a symbol from The Necronomicon, as well as names of some of his mythos beasties written in Arabic.

 From the top and moving clockwise: Cthulhu, Azathoth, Yog Sothoth, Ellis (that's me!), Ghatanothoa, Shub Niggurath.

I did this piece as a birthday gift for a friend of mine.

P's and Q's

Graphite, charcoal and chalk on back cover of a dictionary

Daedelus Considers Certain Facts

Pencil, Ink and Gouache on paper

Man-O-Man

Time

With stark efficiency

of language you learn

to teach the child to

tie her shoes

and leave no room for dark self

doubt,

Interpretation. Things are done this way,

expedient and absolute,

so that we may hurry along

to buy apples

for lunches this week.