Elicio Spiritus (calling the spirits)

This is a small watercolor for me - 11 x 14.
I originally drew this on a piece of lined paper as a doodle. I loved that sketch and tried hard to recreate it. It had something special, that I'm not sure I captured here. But I tried my best. I find it hard to work this small.

The original concept was the elements, earth, air, fire, water.
Soon the symbolism of the senses was included. As well as a few personal symbols thrown in. I think I really need to pick my brain a little more as to where all of it came from and what it means, sometimes I think these things just flow out and then you have to figure them out!

This concludes our update programming, we are now in Current mode.

Alright.... that took quite a while, now it's on to the future and all the things I'm working on currently. So this blog will probably change a little now.

I am going to use it now as much to upload works in progress as anything. As well as to vent a little from time to time. Basically it will take the place of my livejournal which I only use now to keep up on some of my favorite artists who have blogs there.
This blog does much more than that one feature wise.

So now for a little venting:
Tonight I'm exhausted, it was a very long and stressful day. I took my grandmother to the doctor it was just one of those days where everything was off center. She had left her phone on so I couldn't get a hold of her, didn't know if maybe she had canceled it because she thought Em and I were sick instead of Bill. Or if something worse had happened so I called Art to check on her and I rushed down there.
Then Bill wanted to keep Em since I was going down there so I had to get all Ems stuff and her ready last minute. Then they moved grandmas doctors office to a new building and no one told either one of us so we had to search for it. then her health just keeps winding down, she's forgetting stuff, not eating right, messing up her medicines. The doctor basically tells her every time she's too weak to have any kind of surgery on her knee and hip, which is true, but it depresses her and it would solve so much of her pain. It's a vicious circle.

I feel like I'm witnessing a car crash in slow motion and there's nothing I can do about it when it comes to my grandmother. Put that with everything else going on and it's just exhausting. It makes me angry and resentful that I am the only one left. This should not be all up to me. Why did they all have to die? Life just isn't fair, and it's not fair that my grandma should have to go through this all either. Why did she have to lose her husband and all her children and now have to go through this too? With just me? Hell, this is why religion is such bullshit. I'm starting to think sometimes that it's not such a good deal to grow old.
Quem di diligunt, adolescens moritur- whom the gods love die young.
I could think of a few others but I'm going to try to get out of this train of thought. Just had to get it out somewhere.

I'm trying to get a second wind tonight so I can get some more progress on the new piece, I actually took a nap a bit ago. Now I have 3 days to myself, though I miss having Emily with me, she's my only companion pretty much these days.And it's not that I don't have a couple days alone a week anyways, but usually I work and then am just too tired to really work on art. This week was really messed up. So now I get to just do what I want pretty much, which is draw of course! So yeah, I'm going to so sleep in tomorrow, then I'll start posting new art! Yes! That's a good thing.

Pulling Apart

This piece originated as a doodle, as many of them do, in my sketchbook. I colored it in on a whim, with markers of some sort. I've liked it enough to take a picture, but never thought much of it.










Pulling Apart
prismacolor colored pencil 8.5 x 11

Then in a unique turn of events, I was reunited with an old friend of almost 20 years ago, someone who had inspired me at the very beginning of this long artistic journey of mine and whom I had always hoped I would be able to maintain a friendship with.
He pointed out some things in this that opened my eyes to it. And so I decided to redraw it the way I thought it should be. And now it's his.

This turned out pretty good for being so small, the more I look at it the more I love it. Hopefully I can do more like it. It was fast and fun to do.

(I still haven't mastered taking a picture without catching a bit of glare. You have to fixative it to prevent bloom. I think next time I'll try taking the photos before I do that last step. So it will be shiny but it's not that shiny.)

Microcosm

Watercolor. - size 22 by 30 inches.
Big, too big really, It proved hard to get a good picture of and I'm afraid a lot of the details will be lost.

I'm thinking of putting it on my myspace page: [link] - I'll add a lot of close ups there with the detail so they can be seen, since I don't know how you would do that here.

Kind of a self portrait, kind of not It's got a lot of personal symbolism for me which is in essence the portraiture.
The blade of grass in the hand is what started the whole thing, it's from Stephen Kings concept of our universe being a single cell in a blade of grass, in an ocean of grass.
It also brings to mind Blake's eternity in a grain of sand.
Basically it has a lot of my favorite Boschian imagery, animals, the Frida Kahlo thorn necklace, the fairy wings, a bit of vampirishness, a bit of tarot, etc. I can always think of more things to add. But it will have to wait for the next one, this one is pretty full!

Hollow Muse

Watercolor sky in background, all else is prismacolor pencil.
Size 18 x 24.
Idea popped into my head and wouldn't leave!
If I were to change it, the face and the hollow part are just not quite right. The cut away water is a vague reference to Daniel Merriam that I particularly liked but ended up harder to recreate than I expected! It's flatter than I wanted but as a whole I love the image! The title came about much later and is now my favorite too. On to the next one... I'm on a roll now!

The Tower

Colored pencil.
22 x 30
This is the first branching out of my personal symbolism style that I actually finished in colored pencil, my baby so to speak.
I've been told it's a self portrait but I don't see it. maybe the eyes? whatever, that wasn't the intention. What I wanted was to incorporate as much of myself symbolically as I could, my likes, and things that signify a lot to me. And of course my references to what I think is one of the best stories ever written - The Dark Tower series by Stephen King.

I could go into horrific detail here but won't. Any questions? ask away I'll answer them.

Reflections

Reflections of Carnelian Wings
Watercolor and colored pencil. Size 16 x 20.

I have no idea what it means but it's something that keeps popping up in my sketchbooks. Totally open to interpretation!
Usually it's only the top half of the head and she has pointy ears. I've been also adding this seaweed/ flame to the bottom third of a lot of sketches as well.... Once again. no idea why.
It's odd but I really like it now it's done.






















Same piece but with a digital reflection added via imageplay a kind of cool but glitchy art program. I really like this effect.

Secrets Amid The Mushrooms

Watercolor 18 x 24

This took forever!!! But I love it. There are tons of little tiny details in this one, I got out the itty bitty brushes for it and while it is technically done I may find myself adding to it from time to time as I think of more things! But for now it's done. On to the next one.

This was originally started for a competition. - Lucia's Princess with a Secret Competition

As for the mermaid princess I'm not sure what HER secret is, obviously she enjoys hearing them but she's not telling me anything so she's a pretty good confidante!

more "old school style"

Heart number 1
watercolor with ink outline. 5" x 7". This is kind of old and is about the smallest I've attempted. I usually work at least 11" x 17" and lately 22" x 30".
I have a hard time working small I always want more detail than I can fit in a small space. and I admire those who can work small. Maybe that's why I haven't finished much in the way of computer graphics, I need a big screen computer!!





















Spiral
this is, of course, colored pencil 12" x 14"
This is a different version of the next one down, "Family"
I was just playing with the background, color combinations, techniques etc. It's alright but off balance. I like the figures in the corners with the "spots" something different, but I like them.





















Family
18 x 24
This is a watercolor I painted for my friends Darren and Rhonda when they got married in June 2001.
The photograph isn't that great but it's the only one that I have of it. Actually the colors are a lot more blue tones but because of the darkness of the photo this is how it turned out. Not bad. but I'd like to get another picture of it someday. I may just have to make another version, that's what I like about these no two are ever the same.

Powerhungry

This is pretty much my favorite of this style that I do. This particular piece has much significance to me.

The idea behind this is that the boxed figures have a power, a vitality that the unboxed figures don't. The colors of the outside figures change as they absorb and destroy the boxed figures. It definitely has a cannibalistic mood to it. I don't think it feels dark until you actually look and see what the figures are doing. I put every emotion I was feeling at the time into this second version.

This is one picture I feel has been perfectly "solved".
I call it solving because these pictures in what I call my old style. are very much like puzzles, in that I have to get the colors I want but they can't blend with the background plus they have to have an emotional intensity as well. It can get very complicated and I've messed up more than one! This piece has something I hope desperately I can continue to achieve.














Powerhungry original pastel version 22 x 30 (shown below)
This was the first draft of the drawing.
Mixed media: Colored pencil and paint marker for the outlines
The whole surface was sanded down to get the mottled appearance.
I can't really recall the mood I was in when I came up with the original sketch but it wasn't a good one.

I ended up not liking the thickness of line and the color scheme when I was done with it, so it got stashed away. Then one night Chad and Darren came over for some reason. Bill and Chad were talking business, Darren (a former artist himself) and I ended up talking about art. He was great at pushing me to keep at it: "persevere, keep at it, what do you have to lose? Don't procrastinate. Work past the fear." That sort of thing.
So I was showing him a stack of stuff, I'd been looking through just out of frustration at not knowing what to do with any of it and he pulled this one out and said "This would be F-n awesome, what's wrong with you! You have to work on this one. Persevere, you have so much talent don't waste it."

So I started the second version soon after because I couldn't not look at this one and think of that talk.....A year later one of my favorite people: Darren Farwell was dying of skin cancer. he was 32 and it was way too soon.

It all happened so fast and yet once we knew it was going to happen it was agonizing for me. He was the first person I've known (besides my grandparents) who was going to be taken from us and there wasn't one damn thing you could do about it, I just could not deal with that. Not that it's ever easy.

Everyone else in my life had been taken suddenly with no preparation and no idea it would ever happen how it did. Boom, you're hit with it- deal. Shut down, fall apart, start over. This I didn't know how to handle, I remember crying almost every day the last few weeks.

It's not like we were best friends or anything really, just people with an extremely strong common interest and some wonderful conversations.
This picture was the result of our talks. Of his belief that I could do it.

In Memory of Darren. Wear sunscreen.
We love you and miss you... (I am persevering!)
June 25th 1969 - september 14th 2001

DLF Foundation for skin cancer awareness!
http://www.dlffoundation.com/pages/darren.htm
http://www.uvskinz.com/articles.aspx

Faery Thoughts

Well, I'm still alive, sick as a dog, about to lose a lung from coughing myself crazy, you can live with only one right?
At least it doesn't hurt, no tonsilitis, sore throat, I HATE that. It's just f-'n annoying! And wearing me down. I haven't been sick in a long time, I usually take pretty good care of myself, pretty run ragged the last 9 months or so, so I knew this was coming.

Well, I at least have to post this, then I can veg out tonight and try to go to work in the morning.


Faery Thoughts
Colored pencil 10 x 17

I've had a running fascination for faerys for a long time, I'm kind of moving out of it at the moment though, there's just so many artists in the market now, that it's kind of ruining it, not much originality anymore. It takes a rare artist to catch my eye now in this genre. I have ideas of what I'd do, and they're nothing like how this turned out. So this is the only one I've attempted except for Microcosm (coming up soon).




















Dive Deep
Colored Pencil
About 11 x 17.
This is one of my favorite newer pieces. Took a long time to get the background figured out, but once I did it just flew into or should I say swam into shape! I really like how this one turned out, I havent' found a frame for it yet. I have probably a hundred (I'm serious! ex- professional framer here!) and none of them fit, I'd hate to have to take it to a frame shop! ;) But I will have it on the wall someday!