Return of the Shadows

This is a fairly ancient piece & some of you may have seen it before, but I couldn't resist pulling it out again for this week's IF prompt, "Shadows." I think any illustrator will recognize the subject!

Acrylic on paper, 6"x9" Please click for a closer view... there's a lot going on in the border!

Voracious does some Word Processing

Here's an image you may have seen before: Voracious, a painting I did in 2008 for Cameron Village Library in Raleigh. The library kindly lent it back to appear in a group show opening 18 January 2011 at the Cabarrus Arts Council. (I have 9 pieces in the show.) If you are in the Concord/Charlotte area, please drop by! The show will be up until 10 March 2011.

Cabarrus Arts Council facebook page

The Cabarrus Arts Council welcomes you to our first exhibition of 2011, Word Processing. Artists use text, letters and words as texture and design to deliver their points of view. Ceramics, paintings and installations are featured in this exhibition. Free and open to the public, as always.

The Galleries, 65 Union Street South, Concord NC

10 am - 4 pm, Monday through Friday

Only Waiting

Another illustration in progress from The Old Man and the Cat by Anthony Holcroft (see earlier posts). Here all the wildlife has vanished, & the old man is left to carry on alone with his dreary tasks.

Acrylic on collaged maps & texts from antique sources, on canvas, 9x12" Please click on the image for details & to find the hidden cat.

Magical Music

This is my first illustration for an upcoming picture book, The Old Man and the Cat, by Anthony Holcroft, to be published in 2011 by Penguin NZ. I've decided to post some of the illustrations here rather than creating a separate blog for them. They will not be in order, but rather haphazard as is my nature!

In this image the old man has just discovered that the flute he carved has the power to summon birds and other creatures.

Acrylic on text (including diagrams, illustrations, and musical notation) and maps on canvas, 9"x12"

"Old" & News

This is a very old illo, one I did over 10 years ago for Cricket magazine. But in addition to fitting the "skinny" prompt, it's related to some wonderful news!

The story this illustrated was "The Old Man and the Cat," by Anthony Holcroft. I've always loved this gentle, yet dramatic tale, so I was thrilled when Anthony asked me if I would be interested in doing illos for a picture book version of the story! It is to be published by Penguin New Zealand (Anthony is a New Zealand author).

I'm thinking about setting up a blog for the book & posting some of the illos, which will be done in the collage & acrylics of my more recent work, but with characters based on the original Cricket illos.

Watercolor and colored pencil on paper, about 3.5"x6"

Shellbound

I've been working on this piece on & off for nearly a month in between deadlines... just like this poor creature I'm desperately eager to get moving, but my progress is oh so s l o w...
if only we were both better adapted for speed.

Acrylic on text (from Steele's Fourteen Weeks in Physics, 1878) & star map (from 1906 Chambers's Encyclopaedia) on canvas, 12"x12" Please click for details.

Shellbound will be in my upcoming show at the Block Gallery (Hargett Street, Raleigh NC) 4 June-28 July. It's called Picturing the Fantastic & includes 22 pieces of mine as well as the wonderfully weird work of Tisha Edwards Weddington. Her paintings are HUGE while mine will be accompanied by magnifying glasses (really!)-- I think the contrast adds a delightfully vertiginous Wonderland effect. Thanks to Sarah Blackmon for putting this together!

Running Slowly

The dodo: a fleeting presence on this planet, but apparently not very fleet of foot.

According to my trusty 1878 Chambers's Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge, "The birds were easily killed, being wholly unable to fly, and running slowly. Their speedy extinction after the islands began to be visited and settled, is thus easily accounted for."

Maybe it was the shoes?

Acrylic on text & map of Mauritius, 4x5"

Victor's Victim

Acrylic on text (definitions of victim & victor from an old dictionary) on Victor brand rat trap.

We actually bought the trap late last Summer when hordes of enormous rats invaded our neighborhood (after the closing of the local pizza place & consequent dearth of dumpster delights).

I just couldn't bring myself to use it for its intended purpose. I thought about live traps, but then what??? So I quit composting food scraps instead... it seemed to discourage them, at least temporarily... but they're seasonal, right? (Squirm...)

Anyway, one day as I was contemplating the trap & wondering if I was a hopeless softy, I realized what I really wanted to do with it.

The Barking of Trees

In the winter I always find myself looking at bark... none of the usual colorful distractions! I love its strange (& intricate) contours & crevices.

I'm not quite so fond of barking dogs, but one appeared in my sketchbook one day growing out of a dogwood stump, & I just felt like painting it.

Browsing an 1878 encyclopedia for text to use in the background, I was thrilled to discover instructions for the barking of trees! The phrase actually refers to the harvesting of bark, but the article gave me both background & title for this painting.

Acrylic on text on canvas, 9x12"-- please click for details.

Oh! I almost forgot. This piece will be at the Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh. I'm one of the featured artists in the Exchange gallery for March. I'll be at the opening on Friday the 6th (First Friday).

Escape Artist

This is one of my very first "curiollages" from a couple of years back. I turned to this crafty art form after a long stretch of working digitally, out of frustration with the coldness of the computer. I remain entranced by the amazing possibilities of Photoshop, but after doing nothing else for a while, I was desperate for the tactile pleasures of stuff. So this is a sort of self portrait (yes, my torso is actually a used up paint tube! You didn't know?) showing my climb back onto the paintbox & away from the computer monster. (He's made from an old disk & a circuit board, plus paint & polymer clay, with a bit more electronica thrown in there...) Please click for a closer view.

Polymer clay, acrylic, collage & found objects on stretched canvas, 5"x10"

Poppycock

My second custom Dunny is similar to my first, yet they are far from identical. Clearly this fellow has a great deal of rooster blood. His tail, however, suggests papaverous genetic material. Wonder how that happened?

Acrylic on 3" Kidrobot Dunny, with a real poppy pod, & text from an old dictionary (defining poppycock: "bosh; nonsense").

A Venture Into Vinyl

I've been looking at custom vinyl toys for a while now, thinking "That looks like so much fun!" This week I needed some paint therapy & decided it was time to try a toy.

So I'd like to introduce my very first custom Dunny, "Shroomy." This little guy is 2 3/4" tall, painted with acrylics, & holding a real poppy pod, also painted with acrylics. The text collaged on the back is from a dictionary.

This was just what I needed-- a new challenge, but pure play. It was tricky painting the tight curves, & even trickier collaging on a curve. This is the first time I've tried to do that, & I'm not completely happy with the results. I'll have to explore other techniques, next time. But there will definitely be a next time-- this was too much fun!

Okay, I'm just pretending that I did this for the IF prompt, but since it's a Dunny pretending to be a mushroom, it seems appropriate enough!

SOLD!

Clockworks

This is a "curiollage" I did a few years ago for Cricket Magazine. It illustrated a very funny poem about a clock that wouldn't work. The blank yellowish parts are where the type went.

The piece was assembled from watch parts, jewelry findings, wire, a key, paper collage, polymer clay, beads, & acrylic on the back side of a stretched canvas. The whole thing was 9x12", but the part you see here (which was the printed version) is 8x10".

Sweet & Sour

"Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour." --Shakespeare.

A quick one for IF's "Sugary" theme. First time in ages I've done one specifically for IF... and possibly the first time ever that Pepto Bismol Pink has figured so prominently in my palette!

Acrylic on text (from Foods and Household Management, 1915) on canvas, 4x5"

Separation Anxiety

If it's hard for human parents & children to detach, imagine how tough it must be for marsupials.

Sorry about the gore... I tried to keep it subtle, but it had to be there.

Acrylic on text (from a 1901 Young People's Natural History) on canvas, 5x4". Click for a closer view.

This was my first painting using Golden's Open Acrylics. Wow, they are fun! Go get some! What's really cool is that they mix with their standard acrylics, so you don't need to start with a huge palette.

Edit: Rima's comment made me realize I didn't explain what was different about the Open Acrylics. The difference is that they are much slower to dry, so they can be worked much longer. Yet they are somewhat faster drying than oils, thin & clean with water, & can be mixed with regular acrylics or Open media to tweak drying time in either direction. Paint on the palette stays workable for an amazingly long time, so it's much easier to keep a mixed color consistent over several working days. I've tried water soluble oils & I like these better. In fact I like them so much that I'm thinking right now that I've found my dream paints. I'm working on a portrait of my Dad right now & they are bliss for portraits.

Passage

Having accepted your coin, Grey-bearded Charon is ready to take you across the Styx to the Underworld... not in a sailboat, I admit.

Acrylic on dictionary definition of passage on a vintage book cover: Is This Life all there is? 4x6" Click for a closer look.

Unfortunately you can't see this in the scan, but the title flashes in & out of view depending on the angle of the light. (It was stamped in silver but painted over with thin washes of green, blue & black.)

Last Ride Rides Again!

My attention surplus disorder has kicked in & I can't stop messing with this. It's not exactly finished but this will have to do for now. Since the image is so tall & skinny, it shows up extra small here, so please click to see the details-- that's really what it's all about. That & the flames... inspired by Chris Buzelli & medieval apocalyptic illuminations.

Acrylic on old dictionary text (definition of "surge") on canvas, 6x12".

Oh, I almost forgot to give my tenuous connection to the topic-- this cowboy's soon to be out of a job!

Lungfish

Believe it or not, this piece was inspired by the IF topic "Foggy"-- but it sort of drifted away from me into an undersea anti-smoking thing. I don't keep very tight reins on my sketchbook, obviously! Once again it's not quite finished but since it's the 11th hour I'm posting it anyway.

Acrylic on text from an old patent medicine handbook (c.1907) on canvas, 6x6".

Pickleface

This is painted over a page from a home-ec textbook published in 1915. Take heed, friends, & avoid pickles when acid is craved. Acrylic on text on canvas, 4x4".

Microcosmos: Flea Circus

We have recently been invaded by a host of extremely bold, fierce & bloodthirsty fleas. They scoff at Frontline & seem to relish both cat & human flesh. I really, really wish they would go away.

This image was inspired by the proverb, "Big fleas have little fleas/ Upon their backs to bite 'em,/ And little fleas have lesser fleas,/ And so ad infinitum. "

I was imagining the dorsal inhabitants of one of our evil companions, & thought it would be funny if a strange little circus populated his back... & a leg or two...

So here you have it. Acrylic on map & text on canvas, 6x6" Click for a detail view-- I needed the magnifier for this one!

NEWS FLASH! This painting will be in the Raleigh, NC. Visual Art Exchange "What's In A Name/Microcosmos" show beginning this Friday. There's an opening event on the 11th, 6-9. If you're in the area, stop by!

FLASHIER NEWS FLASH! The folks at Visual Art Exchange called to tell me that my painting won a prize!

SUPER FLASH! I found out on opening night that it won first place! I guess I should be grateful to those fleas...