Earlier this week I got sick. I don't get sick very often, but when I do, it's awful and I'm pretty much unconscious for the entire day. To amuse myself during the time I was conscious, I watched Labyrinth, in all its 80s Bowie glory (hispantsaresotightjesuschrist).
Here's what happened. This, and the uncontrollable urge to tell my boyfriend that he reminded me of the babe.
I actually have several more of these waiting to be finished, one of which does bear a resemblance to Bowie's wig in the movie. Since I was not physically up for anything that involved making and cleaning up a giant mess, I broke out my ancient set of watercolor pencils and made these. They have plenty of traditional watercolor, ink and gouache in them as well, all on 5 x 7 inch recycled paper.
All the ones with the long black hair are essentially self-portraits. (That would be the top five.) The one with the teeth is what happens when I have too much sugar. I also really started liking these teeth--they're really fun to paint.
The male figure with the bones in his hair is my boyfriend. It's only slightly interpretive, and he really does own a brown fur blanket.
He's great.
Below him are two more traditional goblin-types, one of whom has been punched in the mouth and now resembles Mick Jagger. The other one kind of looks like my dad. Some of the unfinished ones fall into this type as well, and I'm very pleased with them.
In other news, I also watched Mulholland Dr. while sick, and have determined that it and Labyrinth are actually really similar movies (down to their manic Davids), and have been constructing a critical essay in my head about that for the past few days. Because that's what I do for fun.
I would like to start off this post by saying that I hate painting on circles. Seriously. Circles are just awful. Someone bought me a circular canvas about, oh, six or seven years ago now, and except for the layers of erased charcoal smudges, it's still blank.
Circles are stupid.
They just are. I have no issue with ovals, and none with squares or rectangles. I can create a composition on any of those shapes just fine, but not circles. Everything magically looks cheesy on a circle. If it's a regular composition, like a portrait or a scene, you think, okay, but why is it on a circle? Why not on some rectangular shape? How is the circle relevant to the image? Or, worse, people try to get clever with circles and paint things like planets or celestial vistas or something and they always turn out just embarrassingly trite. I've seen some abstract work turn out successfully on circles, but I'm not an abstract painter. And meanwhile, I have this 18-inch circular canvas kicking around and I kind of just want it to go away.
I think the only time a circular composition is justifiable is when the circle on which one is painting is an object, rather than merely a canvas. This, for example, is the sawn-off base of an old Yule tree that I found in the yard. It's small size (about 3 inches in diameter--yes, I have little hands) and its nature as being a slice of tree trunk saves it from Circle Doom. If this was on a larger canvas, it would be kind of a fail. I was thinking of doing more of these, since we have some ancient firewood in the basement that I could cut up. But that means using the beastly circular saw (irony!) and I never really feel like doing that. Yet another reason why having a band saw would make my life easier.
So this is the Bird Girl. I was thinking of screwing a hook into the top (it's about half and inch thick) and making her into some kind of ornament, but for right now she lives on the kitchen table.
A while back I posted this painting under the tentative title The View, which I didn't like because it reminded me of that talk show with Barbara Walters, and I'd like to keep her as far away from my artwork as humanly possible. I also posted this on deviantART. It's kind of a silly place sometimes, and I'd like to see less "artistic nudes" if you know what I mean, but I've gotten to see the work of some interesting people and gotten friendly with a few of them.
Anyway, on dA, I told people to suggest new titles and today I got one. The lovely and talented Lolita A GoGo suggested The Valley, based on the landscape and the V shape between the two skullheads. Since the landscape is based on where I live (in a valley), I thought it was perfect. So this painting is now officially called The Valley.
Thanks, Lolita!
