heat tumor

     I was leafing through some of my recent works, trying to decide what to post next, and this one jumped out at me.  I immediately showed it to my wife (who's been having a bit of trouble tolerating the heat lately) to show her that she's not alone.  Yeesh, the summer heat malaise is in full swing, init?  She remarked that at least my hairy heat sufferer above had a flower in their hair.  I prefer to think of it as kind of a "heat tumor", if you will.  A bright swirly orb of pain, much like the July sun here in Kansas.

     Heh, considering these recurring red and orange backgrounds, I might be on the verge of a new series/style.  Maybe I'll call it heat stroke in keeping with the bodily ailment theme that I started with nose bleed.  We'll see.

Jack-O-Melon 2011!

     Since both 4th of July and Halloween are my two favorite holidays, this year I decided to combine the two by carving me a watermelon and jamming some fireworks in it, like so:


     Now before you say, "Oh no, mister! That was a PUMPKIN!", watch it one more time and pay special attention to the beginning when I'm lighting it. After the fuse is lit and I move away you can see the brief flash of watermelon green as my flashlight passes over the front of the jack-o-melon.  That brilliant Halloween orange is all from the fireworks, baby!  That was two small fountains called "Tequila Sunrise".  I'm gonna buy 50 of them next year : >

     Anyway, I hope your 4th was pretty dang awesome and thanks for stopping by, you crazy kids!

under the surface

     Here's a moldy oldie from the Summer of '89.  I find this one interesting because seems to show the content that I fully embrace today just barely starting to emerge in my early drawings and doodles.  It's just under the surface and it's poking its head up to say 'Hi', trying to disturb the serene scene above.

     Heh.  Maybe this guy'll show up on the 4th, bringing his flamey flames with him and I can drunkenly order him to light all my fireworks for me.  Have a good holiday, folks!

fuzzy skeletonians and the greater whole

     Just wanted to share what I've been doing lately with my fuzzy skellies.  Here's a quick work in progress .gif I threw together of the fuzzy fella I completed last night.  One of the many I plan to have ready for my OPG in the fall.

     This whole idea was born out of a combination of seeing what ROUBLE RUST often does on her art blog and the desire to share with you what I see when I'm creating these guys (or any of my creations for that matter).  It's just lines on paper and some watercolor paint, of course.  All these steps are what I see when I look at the finished product.  When my works are freshly completed what you're seeing above is what often keeps me from seeing the greater whole.  I get the individual parts stuck in my head and it takes time for them to finally combine in my mind, allowing me to finally see what I've ultimately created.

     Anyway, just thought this little glimpse into my process and methodology might be interesting.

hot and cold

     I've been diggin' on these red and orange backgrounds lately.  Or perhaps they are just a product of my hatred of summer.  Can you fucking believe it's summer already?  THE YEAR IS ALREADY HALF OVER!  Where does the time go?  Oi, no matter.  At least the best half of the year is ahead of us now.  We'll get to see the demise of summer, the rise of fall and finally the sweet, sweet cooling of my molecules that winter brings.  I love the cold.  If it never got above 50 degrees again I would be just pleased as punch.  Just need to keep my head down and get through this heat as best I can.  Stay cool, peeps.

soulless technique and blame

     Here's some crap from early college.  Mainly concentrating on technique more than content, although it seems I was partial to black lines on white paper form an early age.  I remember being very proud of this at the time.  I even made a couple more versions with different colors and textures and matted them all nicely on some black card stock with the careful use of spray adhesive.  My narcissistic young self admired these works and thought them fit for framing at the time.

     But now...  Now, I kinda hate them.  I look at the above image and what I see is all the excitement and raw content of the Sharpie craze and nose bleed trapped inside a kind of soulless technique.  I know I was young and still learning but I can't help but hate this.  I fucking hate it.  Those straight lines and unimaginative use of still life objects.  Sure the contour lines on the leaves are nicely done but there's absolutely no self-discovery going on here at all.  Funny...  this isn't the first time I've been way too hard on myself for crimes committed in college.  I know now that I needed help and encouragement at the time but I still have trouble fighting the impulse to blame myself.

Fuzzy Skeletonian Drawing & Giveaway!

Once upon a time there was a Fuzzy Skeletonian looking for a good home.

Then there was a hat with the names of very kind, generous, attractive people.
Finally, there was a winner!  Who's the lucky individual?  Check your email today for the news!

     In all seriousness, folks, Stacia and I really appreciate your generosity.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  And for more pictures of hats, cats and little slips of paper, check out Stacia's drawing.

dad or murder?

     This one reminds me of my dad for some reason.  I think it's the hair, except my dad's hair was curly and not at all coarse or spiky.  Also, my dad only had one eye and it wasn't in the habit of bleeding profusely.  So maybe this isn't my dad.  Maybe it's the partially decomposed corpse of the guy I killed back in April.  I think I like the sound of that the best.

     Tired ramblings aside, this is my latest greatest effort with my brush markers.  I do love using messy, impulsive technique.  Very fun and satisfying.  Hey, thanks for stopping by and have a good weekend!

Fuzzy Skeletonian Extreme Mega-Raffle!

     Stacia over at She Blogged By Night is currently holding a fundraising raffle for her BBFF (and my most recent follower) Ivan.  Not a week goes by in our household when I don't hear humorous news via Stacia from Ivan's corner of the world.  He's a great guy and practically a member of the family.  Stacia is offering a $20 Amazon gift card in her raffle.  For my raffle I will be offering the following original art giveaway:



Actual size 5.5" x 7.5" on 90lb. watercolor paper and more detailed than what the scan shows.
     Each raffle ticket is $1.00 (i.e. 5 bucks = 5 tickets).  Just make your donation below or on my sidebar.  All donations made on my blog will be credited to my PayPal account so we can keep the raffle items separate.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Please keep in mind there are two raffles going on here with two different prizes.  Please make sure you are entering the correct raffle.  If you wish to enter both raffles it will require a minimum donation of $2.00 ($1.00 for each raffle) and a note stating you wish to be in both raffles.  If you're feeling generous please include further instructions as to how you want your donation divided between the two raffles.  Also, both raffles will end on the 15th.

     When my raffle is over all monies will be transferred to Ivan's PayPal account.  Now, if you'd feel more comfortable making your donation directly to Ivan's account please do so on his blog (left sidebar) but make sure you clearly communicate that you're entering the Fuzzy Skeletonian giveaway otherwise you'll be entered into the Amazon Gift Card raffle.  Lastly, if you win my raffle you will have to supply me with a street address I can mail your prize to.  Please email me if you have any questions.


[BUTTON REMOVED, DRAWING WILL STILL BE HELD]
     So toss a few bucks Ivan's way and help the man continue his insightful and entertaining perspectives into The Thrilling Days of Yesteryear!!

logo man and the pain of college

     Recently got the courage up to go through the two old beat up portfolios of crap I saved from college.  Mostly messy charcoal drawings and the like.  No two ways about it, college was messy.  Amidst the flimsy, torn charcoal drawings I came across this little bit of brush work from one of my classes.  We were working with an India ink wash or some shit an this was one of my little doodles.  If you don't know already "Vincent Stemkin" is my pseudonym and what you see above are my real initials.  Dang, just look at that shit.  So young and positive and fullo ambition.  Egotistical dreams of greatness...

     Man, this is difficult.  I'll stop here and let my ambitious little logo sit and gel, hopefully finding a place for itself in the latest chapter of my artistic life.

BEARS... IN... SPAAAAAACE!!!

     Can Uwe Boll direct his way out of a wet paper sack?  Do the mentally impaired make good zombies?  Can Lou Ferrigno throw a bear into orbit?  The answers to these questions and more will all be revealed during the Netflix Instant Bad Movie Twitterthon!  I've officially got the weekend free and I will be geeking it up this Saturday night with my bestest net buddies as we all try to endure a marathon of some hand-picked, rust-proof, quality-free movies!  And the best part is:  YOU'RE INVITED!!

     So cancel that hot date, skip out on that sex and drugs party, sell those tickets to the theater.  Instead grab yourself some booze, energy drinks, lots o' pizza and log on to The Internet and embrace the goodness of bad movies.  You know you want to!

bloody dismember

(ADULT CONTENT BELOW)


     Well it's about damned time I cranked out a fuzzy skellie!  I made that announcement about being your official home of all things Fuzzy Skeletonian and all I've been doing is planking myself off, foolin' around with nose bleed and mucking around in my past.

     What I ended up doing with this guy was good ol' bloody dismemberment and decapitation.  This is something I've done before, sans blood (i.e. tornApartParts, bonePile).  Tearing things apart to perhaps find new ways of putting them back together.  The lack of the head, in particular, has happened a couple of times lately in my recent drawing sessions.  Sometimes I don't feel like drawing the face.  Perhaps I get a little apprehensive drawing the eyes.  There's so much power there.  What is done with the eyes completely changes the work.  The whole drawing comes to life when you finish the eyes.  I guess I didn't want the responsibility this time around.

hollow head

     Okay, now that I've gotten planking out of my system, we can get back to bidness.  Here's some pencil from my late teens.  The original is noticeably lighter than what you see here.  When I was fiddling around with this post-scan I hit ye olde auto-adjust on the colors and everything just popped.  It really brought out all the original detail from this old drawing so I ran with it.

     As for content, methinks this has something to do with an artwork I often stared at as a kid in California.  It was in this book called The Mind my parents had in the living room.  The artwork in question was a painting done by a schizophrenic depicting their skull split open lying in a grassy field and you could see different compartments inside.  Each compartment showed scenes, memories, abuse, insecurities and the like from their life experiences.  I remember being obsessed with that book and that painting in particular.  As for my drawing, the head seems hollow with all the interesting stuff on the outside.  Perhaps the inside was gutted by fire, as there are some small flames still burning.

go plank yourself!

     I was making my regular visit to Cup3Tint3 the other day and I got introduced to planking.  Spend a few minutes and take a look.  Take a slow look, look at them all.  Just stare at them for a while.  I'll wait...

...

...

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...

     Now I'll admit that since I've been getting back into my art I have found myself to be a lot more impressionable but after looking at all those people planking can YOU resist the urge to do THIS?

     I wasn't quite as daring as some but it was the position you get yourself into that interested me.  There's just something so intriguing about it.  For that moment, you stop, motionless, expressionless and suddenly you're no longer a complicated human being living in an insane world.  You're a plank.  A mindless, wood-like THING.  You cease to be complicated and are as simple as a piece of wood, a random pebble or a puddle of water.

      I know it looks absurd but that's not the way it feels.  Don't believe me?  Try it!  Go plank yourself and report back.