Last time I featured some images from my sketchpad, in which I have been doing pen drawings.
I've also talked at length about my writing, and how it intersects (or rather, how it doesn't usually intersect) with my art, and how I like to keep them separate. Both my art and my writing tell stories, but in vastly different ways. The art is a single image, and usually speaks to a more nebulous emotional space that is difficult to put into words. The writing, on the other hand, usually expresses a more intellectual or cerebral idea that translates well into words. They don't mix.
But, as with all things, there are exceptions. I find, sometimes, that drawing little portraits of my characters can be helpful (somehow) and so here are two of them. This is Annemarie and Isaiah. They will kill you. Like seriously. They'll kill you.
That's the other major difference between my writing and art--my writing's a lot more violent.
I don't feel like talking about the story they inhabit too much, but it's full of murder and mayhem (more murder than mayhem, though), and currently weighs in at 80 pages on MS Word--single-space 10-point font. And it's not done. But I like how it's going, and there are certainly scenes that scare even me. Fun times!
My mom gave me a sketchpad a while ago. I don't typically use sketchpads, or anything spiral bound. I'm very particular about my sketchbooks, but I started carrying it around anyway, in addition to my regular sketchbook. I decided it would be a good place to draw the stuff that I don't like to draw in my regular sketchbook, namely pen drawings. My regular sketchbook is generally used to try out new painting ideas, and I don't like to use pen in it. So the sketchpad became the place for pen.
Here are some samples of the pen stuff I've been doing. I'm not entirely satisfied with them, as pens have never been my preferred medium. I think they're a little cartoonish, and that's not a style I particularly like (even less so after everyone in high school insisted that cartoons were what I "should" create). Most of these images are drawn fairly quickly, and represent pretty uncomplicated ideas.
At the top is a form of skullhead. She's a grown-up skullhead, and kind of south-of-the-border-themed. There's not much to say about her.
Then comes a self-portrait. Yes, that's me. I consider all of my work to be self-portraits, in that they express interior feelings or processes of mine, which, to me, is a self-portrait of the most intimate kind. So it's weird to do an "actual" one, of a physical representation. And anyway, I don't feel that my physicality is terribly interesting. But I like this picture.
Then comes Spider Mouse. I had a dream about Spider Mouse one night and it was just the cutest little thing, crawling up the wall and being all fuzzy. I tend to dream about really fucked-up animals a lot, but they (the animals) are usually really friendly and cute. Recently, I dreamt about a small furry horse who lost two legs to a bear attack and lived in this family's front yard and ate cereal.
I really want a Spider Mouse.
Here's a little picture to tide you over until the larger paintings I'm currently working on are completed. It's been slow going, between the humidity slowing the drying process and work, but things are chugging along.
In the meantime have this. This is what happens to my hair when I get out of the shower--I've been calling this "Apres le Bain." Pretend there's an accent mark over the e in apres. And anyway, everyone loves tentacles.
From the top: Skull on Fire; Intelligent Design; The Stage is Set; The Game; Pointer
If you've played the immensely popular sandbox-style game Minecraft, you might be familiar with Swedish painter Kristoffer Zetterstrand's artwork without even realizing it. Zetterstrand has long been interested in the way traditional art like painting intersects with the 3-D landscapes generated by computers in games; he once did a series of lansdcapes based on the views in Counter-Strike--but only the views the player could see when "dead" and lying on their back. In Minecraft, players can create paintings to hang on the walls of their houses. The randomly-selected images include the work of Zetterstrand, including Skull on Fire and Pointer. (The selection also includes Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of Fog).
His oil-on-canvas paintings incorporate traditional oil painting techniques, resulting in realism, with flat, cartoonish images, and solid blocks of color that evoke the pixelated images of computer games. His work also speaks to the creation and generation of landscapes as understood and designed by the human mind, and imagines things like game worlds outside of the confines of a computer screen, as three-dimensional lands. The Game illustrates this idea quite well, with the human figure considering the miniature landscape sprawling over his desk. This idea of creation and design inevitably recalls philosophical and religious debates, as is explored in Intelligent Design, which also showcases some of Zetterstrand's black and white work. In both of these paintings, a human is considering an abstract idea by laying out his thoughts in front of himself, it seems, in the form of a series of images for him to consider. (I don't know if this was what Zetterstrand was going for, but I know that's how I think, and so that is the conclusion I naturally draw.) The human figures are separate from the images before them, but simultaneously linked to them on a deep level.
His work is meticulously detailed and he pays special attention to his use of color and style, often juxtaposing two seemingly opposite styles to achieve a startling effect. You can check out more of his work and information about his inspirations and work on his website.
So, wow, I can't believe I forgot about this one. I sort of took for granted that it was posted here.
This was completed in the winter of 2009-2010. It shows the secretive Ladybug Death Cult, a religious society that worships the ladybug as a symbol of death and transcendence. They are rumored to practice human sacrifice...
36 X 48 inches, oil, collage and glitter (Martha Stewart, of course) on canvas. It was actually inspired by the fact that during the winter in which it was painted, scores of ladybugs came into our house, looking for warmth, and promptly starved to death, leaving their spotted little corpses everywhere. I mean, everywhere. Finding a ladybug used to be exciting, and I still like them, but that experience destroyed some of the magic.
Anyway, this painting hangs in my room, near The Pardoner, and looking very nice against my pink walls. Enjoy.
This is Angelus, the center piece of what will become a triptych, complete with hinges and wooden cover. The two outside panels will be based on some of the stages of the alchemical process. He's 14 X 14 inches, oil on canvas.
This image was what happened while I was reading a book about Byzantine art while listening to the amazing soundtrack to the equally amazing game VVVVVV, resulting in an ancient-religion-meets-retro-space-age thing. Those are astronomical glyphs in the halo (which did not turn out as perfectly round as I had hoped). It's also based on the original cover of Meredith Ann Pierce's Darkangel trilogy, which I never actually read but always kind of thought about reading when I was in middle school. But I think mine turned out better.
More on this piece as it progresses!
It happened.
I made a cartoon.
A real cartoon with panels and speech bubbles and everything. (Click to make it readable.)
It's only a page long, because that's all the cartoon-making I can stomach. Seriously. I hate making comics and cartoons. Hate it. It's tedious and dull and completely unfulfilling. I like to write and I like to make images, but I don't like to do both at the same time.
Part of the reason was that was I was younger, I was somewhat pigeonholed into being someone who made cartoons exclusively. To the point that people seemed to get annoyed when I expressed interest in doing any other forms of art. You know, because to admit anything other than entirely predictable behavior is hard for some high-schoolers. In fact, I've been told by one particularly silly human being that I "should really stick to cartoons." Needless to say, I didn't take this brilliant advice. It should be also mentioned that this person was not a terribly good artist and was troubled by the fact that anyone might be better than she. It should also be said that this person asked the school librarian what anal beads were.
But there are times when I feel the need to cartoon. It's good, cheap, dirty fun. It's like smoking cigarettes or doing Jell-O shots or making out with strangers. It's not good for you in any way, and you'll feel cheapened afterward, but damn if it isn't fun.
Enter Duck Vs. Cactus.
Duck Vs. Cactus was born on a dark night in a diner while waiting for a spinach-and-American-cheese omelet. There are 5 in total (I think) and they're all scribbled on the backs of placemats. It tells the (roughly put together, non-sequitur, surreal) narrative of the conflict between drug-using criminal lowlife Duck and shady, two-timing Cactus. On Duck's trail are cops Octopus and Triangle (Cactus is revealed in one episode to be on the police force while simultaneously being a strong presence in the underworld). Other episodes feature Duck's girlfriend, who is kind of a cross between a bird and a bowling pin, a gang of violent drug-running Goldfish crackers, and Wendy Williams. It all takes place in a desert. Duck has died several times and it doesn't really matter.
This is Duck Vs. Cactus #4, the shortest one. Because it's so short, I was able to clean it up and render it in ink pen and Sharpie on Bristol plate. It's tentatively titled "You Might Be Trippin' Balls." Because, well, that might be what's happening. This should probably have a continuation of sorts, but I haven't been to a diner in a long time and these only really manifest in diners.
I suppose this can actually tie in with my fascination with corrupt and decaying Americana. But this is less nostalgic and less informed by 19th and early 20th century images, and is more snarky and post-modern.
Or maybe I'm just trippin' balls.
