This started as a scrabble on the canvas, and asking myself “What can I do with it?” Et voilá! I’d kind of like to scrub the tree and start over but there’s other ideas that need to spill out into reality. Why? It’s reminiscent of my early work, and I know I can do better. So, media… mixed of course. Acrylics, watercolor, pencil, pastel, and stencil.
“Her reputation preceded her, judging by the gasps of the people on the way to the castle. She was synonymous with evil, and had adopted the nickname of the light bringer, Lucifer. There was irony in that it was the same as the weapon she used to dispatch justice on those who had wronged her as she made her way back to the root of the problem. As she crested the hill, the familiar ramparts greeted her, and she smiled, in her unsmiling way, a most wicked smile; for she was home.”
Some hot off the render digital art I ginned up over the last couple days (and a backstory). The castle you can barely see in her eyes, which were the focus of all of this. Actually, it was reflections therein I was working on.
I’m driven in art by the notion that today may be my last day on this rock orbiting a small G2V star on the lesser known side of the Milky Way; which is why I try to do something every day. Good, bad, whatever, it’s a record i existed. So, here are some butterflies flitting about in a nameless summer field on a warm summer day.
Fear not, those that are here for my digital art (of the 3D kind. I haven’t abandoned it, I’m just waiting for a cool idea to pop up.
So this is digital, but it’s oil, spray paint, stencil and some watercolor – ergo mixed media.
I didn’t want today to go by without doing a doodle, so here you go. Technically mixed media in layers. Acrylic, water color, stencils, and a dash of magic. Better viewed on a bigger monitor, I can barely see the trees on my phone. But then, it’s a doodle, there’s more room for imperfections.
The idea for this digital art popped up around 2am, when my mind was playing out scenes of queerly anomalous and calamitous theatrics that awoke me from my prodigious sleep. I dare not expose my eyes at such an unholy hour to the preternatural light of a monitor to render such visions into artwork. So, with patient resolve, I waited until the sun lifted the veil of night to present this to you.
The title is a reference to the inexpressible horrors enamored paramours inflict on flowers as ancient mythical superstitions of love circulate in their minds. “They love me, they love me not”, is often said, as they mindlessly pluck petals from the decapitated flower in hand; with the last petal attesting to the binary nature of ones feelings towards them. Then, assured of the result, they move on to the next flower or wander away, cheerfully humming, whilst leaving destruction in their wake.
This is all tongue in cheek, of course. I wanted to see if I could put a Lovecraftian spin on an innocuous action. Did I succeed?
Remember when you were a kid, and you pretended you were on a rocket ship or airplane as you tried to swing higher and higher? That’s the feeling I’m going for with this. Whether or not I’ve achieved it is up to you, as that is the purpose of art. It’s a fantasy piece, to end a not so great year and bring in a new one full of hope, happiness, and dreams. I could explain the piece but I’m hoping you get it without that bit of tediousness. Happy New Year.
There’s a movie reference in this one. John Carpenter made one of the quintessential horror movies in 1982, the Thing, with Kurt ‘Call me Snake’ Russell. In 2011 a prequel was made, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead (sigh, heart). She survived the movie but we don’t really know if she was infected (aka the thing) or not. The dog that runs out of the Norwegian camp of the 2011 film towards the American camp of the 1982 err sequel is definitely infected. So I was like, “what if she was the alien and met back up with the other aliens at camp?” So, at heart it’s a girl and a dog happily reunited.
For those that are, like, “what’s up with this dude and horror?” I’m working through a thing. It’s called 2020.
In all of humankind’s explorations and raging against the borders of the unknown, there has been one thing it has never been able able to resist – the selfie. From the first transistors that allowed us to capture our location for our aggrandizement on social media, it has also been our downfall. Many have gone over cliffs, bridges, retaining walls, and railings in pursuit of the ultimate presentation of self. But no one has gone as far as that person in 2162, who, after calculating the risks and minimizing the egregious lapse in judgement, took a deep breath, uncoupled their helmet, and took the ultimate selfie. The death report listed the cause as ‘suspicious’ but ‘definitely not a problem with the helmet locking mechanism.’
Note, I’m not impugning the ladies with this image, it could just as easily be a man, and more than likely would be. I just find women to be easier on the eyes as far as art is concerned.
This is a doodle playing on the question “what if our universe were just an atom in a bigger thing, like a sewage pipe?” – it would explain a lot 🙂 I took some previously used elements and combined them in a different way, so, yeah. The gardener, an Android whose head provides life for the fruits of her garden, tends the various seeds of life in her garden. Space within space I guess is the theme.
No doubt this may be labeled NSFW, until I tell the censors that it’s art. This is about #depression – that black hound which haunts so many, including myself, and the tools one uses to breathe. It’s a self portrait, really, in all of its ingloriousness & probably an attempt to disavow any notions that anyone may have about my physical nature. The toll of half-a-Century on this mortal coil expressed in its full regalia, consumed by poor decisions, imperfections magnified by the waters of the disease, and the reaching for a cure that will never come. There’s more, but why be wordy?
Challenges were many in the creation of this artwork. Underwater is one of the hardest things to replicate in the constraints of my current software. So the ice is reskinned rocks, the bubbles are reskinned and modified confetti, and the splash is a raindrop, magnified 500 times, modded and reskinned in glass settings.
Paint for your era, they say, and don’t take the excuse that ours is an era of decline. Not a top-hat to be seen anywhere. so I’m painting for my era, digitally, because digital artists are still artists.
But enough foreplay, this is a portrait of our generation. Each element is carefully chosen.
This is four digital art paintings in one. It represents the things a tree would see over a lifetime. It got messy putting them together, but art is messy when trying new things. I may turn it into a gif.
The layers I used are each represented below in order. Layer 1 is infancy and youth.
Layer two is love and hope.
Layer three is strife and conflict.
Layer four is denouement and loss. The ghosts become real.
I suppose it could be a snapshot of any century, but I relate it to the post-9/11 world.