is it dry yet and an apology

     First of all, I would like to thank everyone for the kind comments, emails and all-around supportive advice.  You guys rule : )  Second, I'd like to offer a bit of an apology for freaking out a little.  It was late, I was trying to relax a bit and post some freakin' art and then I get the "oh noes, boobies and penises are bad!" thing from Picasa and it just pissed me off.

     Aaaanyway, here's what I was trying to post the other night (didn't have to accept the terms of "service" this time for some reason)::
     As you can tell, I was working rather wet and laying the paint on thick and messy.  I thought to myself when I was done that this would take a while to dry so I let it sit for days but its wet appearance never really went away:   ...and I'm still thinking, "Is it dry yet?" and that there's moisture trapped under there.  Like if I just carefully used an xacto knife or a razor blade wet paint would start running out!  I guess this is just the nature of acrylic when you really glob it on.

     Thanks again for all the suggestions and advice.  I'll be looking into all the possibilities.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll find a much better place to call home than Blogger.

blood flood and a commission

(ADULT CONTENT BELOW)       This is the flip side of this guy and you might even say it could be the remains of one of his victims.  Not sure, really.  I just know there's a lot of violence to be had in my artwork.  To be honest, my first thought about this bloody mess was that it was the remains of somebody who'd been eaten by some great beast or monster and this is what it spat out when it was done.  You can't eat the bones but they sure do add flavor, don't they?

     In other news, I've received a request for a commission and I've decided to go through with it to see how it feels.  Wish me luck!

relaxing, giving up and geysers of blood

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     I've been concentrating on relaxing lately.  Getting back to my old habits of tuning out, wasting time and just resting.  Before this blog, before getting back into my art.  Just a nihilistic defeatism without hope, without dreams, without pain (or as close as I could get to it).  I would often play the game of thinking about being homeless.  Wondering what it would be like to not have a job, not have bills to pay, not have any "social responsibilities" or whatever you call them.  Just existing as a non-entity, a virtual zombie as it were.

     As a teenager, during my first of two senior years in high school I would often skip school to go down to the local creek and lay out on this big flat rock in the middle of the stream and just close my eyes and listen to the water flowing around me.  I miss that rock, that sound, that simplicity.  The freedom to just let everything fall apart.  Nowadays, I still hear water but I'm in a row boat with a slow leak.  If I stop rowing, if I stop bailing things get out of hand pretty quickly.  I still have the impulse to just chuck it all though.

     Perhaps that's what this abstract monster of blood geysers is all about.  Just a little wish fulfillment or a graphic imagining of the violence and destruction that would result in my life if I just gave the fuck up.

bloody teeth and Neil Diamond

     Been wanting to post this guy ever since I finished him but I can get REALLY distracted and lazy sometimes.  Anyway, here he is for your viewing pleasure.  As I recall, this was one from a batch of red eye pieces I cranked out while still buzzed from wine with dinner and jamming out to some old Neil Diamond (the really good shit:  Hot August Night, BBC Top of the Pops and Gold).  Man, what a crazy epic night that was.  I was so full of energy and just plain fearless!  Paint was flyin' and guys like this were appearing before me.  Sigh.  I miss those days...

     Feh, I guess you can't always be inspired and happy in your work.  Gotta have some malaise to make you appreciate the good times I guess.

chaotic mess and artistic funk

     I came across this and paused, then I looked a little harder.  I'm guessing this chaotic mess reflects my emotional state of late.  Anger, frustration, artistic funk, lack of motivation.  'Course, part of this is due to work starting to crank up the overtime again but I won't bore you with the details.  I would, however, like to apologize for not making my normal blogging rounds lately.

     Although I'm identifying more with this in the present I think this was actually completed back in October or thereabouts.  This shares a sandwich background with emergence and is the flip side of paleBleak just to give you a bit of creation trivia.  Well, it's getting late and I need to get my butt to bed.  Thanks for stopping by, you guys are the best.

a bird in my hair is worth two in your bush

     This was painted on the reverse side of this.  If I keep this up I'll have to make a bunch of double sided rotating frames to display a lot of my original works.

     Meh.  Still fighting with this laziness so I'll stop here.  Thanks for taking a look.

accidental red face

     Sometimes you just have to leave well enough alone and that's exactly what I did with this one.  This was one of my random wet sandwich backgrounds I made in a batch with a few others.  With most of my backgrounds there's some sort of suggestion of a face but this one had the face fully formed already so I decided to not touch it at all.  I love happy accidents like this!

a time to ponder

(you cleeka nao)
     After a full day of murder by dismemberment even the strongest of Fuzzy Skeletonians needs a few minutes to lounge and relax and reflect fondly on the bloody gurgling screams of his victims.  After all, if you don't take time to ponder and explore what you do then how can you hope to improve?  

puke face

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     This started with a basic monochrome print from an image of my own face.  I then proceeded with the marker and paints and ended up with something I wasn't satisfied with at all.  I then swallowed a bunch of grey paint, gagged myself and threw up all over it.  Well, that's what I felt like doing anyway.  Not sure if the final application of grey slurry enhanced this or just underscored my strong dislike of working from a prefabricated image base.

insane brother twins

     Thought I'd have myself a Monday-Palooza-Ganza and post two images at once!  Aw yeah!  This crazy train is flyin' right off the fuckin' rails, man!!  I'm outta control!!!

     Seriously though, this is vaguely special in the regard that you wouldn't normally see these two images side by side, as they are each painted on the opposite side of the same piece of watercolor paper.  However, through the magic of technology, here they are; a couple of dirty, bloody, twisted brother skulls in a kind of metaphysical emotional turmoil and insanity.  They share the same plane of existence, the same space, no doubt some of the same pigments, yet they've never seen each other face to face.  A pair of conjoined twins who are strangers to each other.

allies amidst the bleakness

     The background on this one turned out much more pale and bleak than most of my other Red Eye paintings.  Bleakness seems to be in the air lately.  It's almost as if everyone unconsciously believes the world will end this year.  I hope it does.  Humanity could use a big death and rebirth right about now.  A casting away of old habits, a blowing off of steam and a time to relax and get reacquainted with our true selves.  Just one big time-out to rest and reflect.

     Anyway, musings on humanity aside, the more I look at this painting the more I think it's a self-portrait.  I identify and sympathize with this guy's general state of emotion.  I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I'm right there with him.  I'm his comrade and ally.

emergence

     This is actually the flip side of stalactite rain.  I've often been using both sides of my paper lately to make the most of my materials and maximizing opportunities to practice technique.  Anyway, this guy seems to be emerging from some sort of bloody or fiery vortex.  The original is noticeably darker and bloodier, it makes me wonder where I'm going with my artwork.  Do I want to do it for art's sake?  Do I want to do it for myself only?  Do I want to make money at this?  It's quite an issue to wrestle with.  Hopefully, I'll emerge from this murk with some clarity soon.

stalactite rain

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     Here's another shadow of the previously mentioned cave skellie idea.  This image also spawned a further development in the story:

     He's spotted me and now his confusion seems lessened by having someone to focus on.  His erection wanes a little and now starts to drip blood as he advances directly towards me.  I continue to retreat, weaving in and out of the stalactites, stalagmites and columns, attempting to outmaneuver him.  His arms are outstretched wide as he continues pursuit, there's no way around.  Behind him I can see daylight diminishing as he forces me deeper and deeper into the cave.

     I'm even more curious now to see where this will all lead.  I'll keep you posted as best I can.

faces in the background

     This is one of the reasons I love creating random backgrounds first.  Sometimes the faces just appear out of nowhere.  All I did was follow the red spots with the black and it all came into focus.  Fun stuff : )

sharing the fear

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(klik)
     Here's something I've been meaning to show you all for a while and one of the reasons I am so into painting right now.  Just look at that dark, murky blackness!  The first time I laid down some thick wet lines like this it really got to me but now it's something that I've grown to love.  There's just something so mesmerizing about the light reflecting off the wet paint and the fact that all it would take would be just one false move, one sneeze, one over-excited cat jumping up on my table and all of this beautiful liquid fragility would be completely ruined.  Of course, all of this gets lost once it dries and that's why I finally decided to take a quick snap shot for the sharing and stuff...

     No, I'm not just stalling because I'm afraid of starting on the head and potentially fucking this whole thing up, so don't even go there!  I'm sharing with you the beauty of creation and you should be grateful for this glimpse into my process...  You know what?  I don't CARE what you think!  I"M SHARING DAMMIT!!1!

red eye and the click

     I think I'm starting to click a little.  When I'm first learning most things I'm rather slow and plodding as I get acclimated to the task at hand.  At some point I get to where things seem to "click" and suddenly methods make sense, ideas crystallize and I pick up speed.  Maybe it was just the long weekends in October but I've definitely become much more comfortable with painting even if it can't be accurately described as a full-on "click."

     What you see above is what I'm happy to announce as a new style of mine called Red Eye.  Not that this is the first one I've shown you.  I sneaked one in during my OPG, if you recall.  I did a bunch of these this past month and I'm still quite happy to keep on doing them.  I'm pretty hooked at the moment : )  Really enjoying the mostly unconnected brush strokes.

red mouth

     This past weekend I had myself the previously mentioned Paint-a-Palooza and, while I said I was going to sit on those paintings for a while and revisit them at a later date, I just couldn't keep this one to myself!  This one (like most of the rest) started out as a random background I made with six sheets of paper and various paint slatherings all sandwiched together.  After they all dried I had the fun of deciding what to do with all the backgrounds.  I think this one came together pretty well, if I do say so myself.  Man, am I lovin' the red and black lately : D

happy accidents and goofy skellies

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     These two ended up being an awkward pair of companion pieces when one of my wet/dry sandwiches went awry.  The face didn't transfer over to the other side, as I had used up all of my first batch of chunky, Crayola slurry prior to starting on this venture.  While I think the face side turned out pretty well, the other side ended up being more of a background than a finished work so I took the hint and painted my goofy, bad-day skellie on top of it.  Ended up being a learning experience and the first time I created a background before the main subject of the work.

human ugliness

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     I know, I know.  Here I go again with the cocks but this ended up being more than just an immature, self-indulgent cock painting.  I mean, sure, it STARTED that way but (as you can see) it ended up being pretty dang artsy fartsy, especially for me.  The colors really came together pretty well, if I do say so myself.  The blood vessel look came from simply sandwiching a liberal amount of paint between two sheets of watercolor paper and applying some smoothing pressure with a heavy metal ruler I had laying around.  It's a really fast, fun technique to use and (depending on the colors you use) the texture ends up looking like blood, leather, vegetation, etc.

     As for content, I think this turned out pretty obscene.  I'm definitely no stranger to obscenity in my art but there's something about the vivid red from the acrylic just makes me cringe a little, like I just witnessed, well...  a rape.  Or a murder.  Or both.  Yeah, a little nauseous maybe.  Heh, maybe I shoulda saved this for the OPG.  The best horror always includes more than a little real, human ugliness in it.