The Horrid Shapes Behind All Outward Veils That Cloak The Universe

So I finished that poster last night and made a couple of color mock ups.


I'm not the best at picking colors and might have done this a little hastily but the idea was for my friend to use a slightly transparent lighter color ink for the smoke layer when printing to attempt to replicate the smoke effect I like to do in paintings. I think it looks a lot better and more legible (also way creepier) on grey paper with bright colored smoke:

All in all I think the drawing came out well and the printing should work fairly well. This is for the upcoming Des Ark LP recorded live at WXDU on my friend Mike Brennan's label Paramnesia Records. Like all the good things it is a true labor of love and mostly exists to release projects he's excited about for his friends. Mike is an awesome dude dedicated to building community and has done a billion favors for me (if it weren't for him I would pretty much never have a functioning computer which is important these days) so it's cool to be able to do something for him. The poster will be an bonus insert for preordered copies of the record so if you like Des Ark and want a poster get on it!

It's also worth noting that I have done two other skull faced owl drawings, one about 4 years ago and one about 2 years ago, both of which came out so so and as a result I never used any of them in shows or to make prints, but I really like this drawing. A lot of birds have that strange ocular bone that looks like a pair of goggles in the skull which can make drawing the skulls in just black and white and the eye set in it come out sort of weird and confusing.
Anyway, this was fun to do, especially all the detail in the feathers. Finishing up a few projects before I leave for my trip next week!

Along The Draughty Corridors For Miles And Miles She Goes

So this week I finished that suprise piece I can't post for a little while still and got started on the final drawing for the print I sketched out last week. Decided on a horizontal orientation so I could have the owl's wings out.
There are a lot of things I'm still working out, like whether the smoke will be solid or translucent, and what kind of color to use. My friend's one request was that it not be too hard for him to register, and I'm still working out the kinks in making separations and easily screen printed designs for other people. I've gotten so used to using every color at my disposal it's also really hard for me to think of a limited color design (in this case paper, linework, smoke color). This will just be linework so once I get to the inking stage it should be relaxing and simple, which I'm looking forward to. The pencil drawing for black and white stuff is always way more involved than the drawings for full color things which are more like blank coloring book pages.

I think he needs more mushrooms too. The symbolism here is pretty obvious so I wont bore anyone but I've been trying to integrate regeneration and decay into pieces here and there and maybe someday I'll do a whole painting about it. It seemed appropriate when my friend requested another one of the skull faced animals for this poster.

Also check out all of these amazing mushrooms which I read about both while reading up about bioluminescence (for another project I should start soon!) and looking for mushroom pictures to reference for this drawing. I've actually spotted a few things on that site, like this stinkhorn (seriously) but would really love to see some of these biolumenscent mushrooms:
In other (appropriately skull faced animal) news I experimented with embedding something in resin for the first time this weekend and it came out really well. I have a growing collection of dessicated dead mice sent to me by my aunt (she calls them "pompeii mice") and dead bats and stuff from the warehouse where my partner works. I really have no idea what to do with them and this weekend I was given a small bottle of resin and tried it out. Here's the mouse before:
and here he is in the resin:


My favorite part which I was most concerned with preserving was the way its spine and skull are exposed and lead into whats left of the body cavity. This was actually a little tricky because when I got to the second embedding layer of resin I had to pour it into the mouse's body to keep it from floating. I got some air bubbles and he sank into the first layer of resin because it wasn't solid enough when i put him in but it mostly came out ok. I think he looks like a little pushead drawing (minus the bandages). Anyway, resin! It's pretty cool.

Also worth noting I'm going to Ireland and England this month using the money I made from that last show. So far I've been able to turn the profit from all three of my shows into a trip, which is really ideal. I've been to Ireland before but never to England, and we're doing some last minute planning so if there's anything you recommend let me know! I like neolithic stone sites, castles, skeletons and reliquaries, beautiful natural spots and grim historical stuff. I also poked around the Website for the Tate and discovered that they have a lot of stuff I'd really like to see in real life which is really exciting. I'm especially excited about these two:

William Blake-The Night of Enitharmon's Joy (formerly called `Hecate')

John William Waterhouse- The Magic Circle

Yes!

Huginn To The Hanged And Muninn To The Slain

Heya

I'm feeling uncharacteristically down on stuff lately so I admittedly haven't been very productive. Here's a few process pictures of stuff I have managed to get started.

The ink drawing for the topper that will go on the frame for the giant piece I have in the works:
And a shot of it as I started to paint it last week. I've gotten way further since:
This is Huginn and Muninn Odin's ravens (thought and memory) flanking his eye which will be positioned at the top of the frame looking down at the whole world that will (hopefully, by the end of the year) be rendered below it.

Basically for this project which will take place over the span of en entire year, I needed to think of a subject that would be able to do in pieces on a large scale. It's hard to explain but the way the paint I use seems to work, and the rate at which it starts to dry out and separate after being mixed means making one big uniform area of color is really hard for me. I wanted to do something with a layered world with a lot of different textures and colors, something where I could represent water, forests, sky, creatures, and subterranean creeps. It occurred to me that the Norse structure of the universe would give me lots of opportunity to do all that. I'll write more about it when it's a bit more underway.

Aside from this project I'm working on a present I can't post for a couple more weeks, and starting a small poster for a friend to be used as a bonus insert for pre-orders of a record he's putting out. Here's a sketch for it:
This is a noteworthy sketch because generally my sketches are jumbled completely unrendered garbage that I can't make heads or tales of even a few days after making it. Observe:
Good thing I labeled everything?

Bleh.

All That Tread The Globe Are But A Handful To The Tribes That Slumber In its Bosom

Hey hey,

I have a few more images from the show. You can see pictures of the opening on Part Time's site (including a photo of the awesome anchor shaped cookies my mom made!). Here's a picture our friend Roxy took of the window vinyl:
And here are a few photos my friend Ryann took of two of the pieces, the Melusine with some close ups:

And one of the whale bones I had previously only posted close ups of:


I also thought I'd talk about flea markets for a minute. Around PA (and Jerz) we have "farmers markets" that are not at all what you are picturing. While they do sell produce and supplies, they are essentially elaborate dirtmalls with extensive outdoor (and indoor) flea markets where people sell all kinds of terrific (and pointless) junk. Whole stalls of rusty metal, single watch bands, 12 packs of dollar store bras for 5 bucks (suspicious), knock off handbags, bins filled with hundreds of dirty toys, knives, swords, biker jewelry, cassettes, old magazines and comics, essentially heaven for cheap junkhounds. There are also many food stands but my friends and I have a long standing personal rule to never eat from the dirt mall that is only broken at the Berlin Mart apple cider donut stand. My two favorite are the Berlin Mart (NJ) and the Quakertown Mart (PA) (aka Qmart) where I found this:
Framing for shows can be really expensive, even when you do it yourself with cheap(er) ikea frames, and while I think uniform plain frames can be good and less distracting I'm usually after weird shapes and elaborate decorative frames so all of mine come from one of three places: the aforementioned farmers markets where I've picked up dozens of frames usually for 1-6 bucks, from my aunt who finds them at thrift stores in Nebraska and mails them to me, and my grandfather's basement. Last weekend we went to the Berlin mart for the first time since the fall and I did really well:
I got those four frames plus another round one I didn't photograph (plus all of that other awesome junk). I'm generally after gold, round or oval, decorative frames. I think all four of those came to 3 dollars. At this point I have a pretty good stockpile of weird medium to small size frames and just grab one and make a piece to fit when I think of something appropriate. I recommend this tactic as you 1) save money 2) don't buy something new when something used works just as well 3) give your money to a flea market weirdo instead of a big company and 4) will have a bunch of really cool looking frames.

Unrelated to art my second most sought after items are "shitty gorillas" for my collection of poorly produced and poorly painted plastic gorillas:
Anyway, hopefully soon I'll have a scan of the last piece I did for the show, some babble about Kull and Atlantis, and some process photos of what I'm working on now, which is my piece for the "1 Year Project" (heads up, my piece is Norse themed and huge).

Originals for sale online!

Hey, guess what! The gallery hosting my most recent show will have an online store up for a limited time where you can buy a framed original piece of mine or Mike's. And they ship! Feel free to contact me for better images of pieces I haven't posted yet if you can't make them out from the webstore photos.
Visit the store here:
http://www.parttimestudios.bigcartel.com/

Infinitus Sleep Has Ended

I'm waiting for some photos of some of the bigger (less easily scann-able) pieces from the show to post in full here as well as some photos taken of everything hanging and the opening itself, so in the meantime here's the full scan of the Bake-Kujira I just posted a close up of previously:

and a close up of the weird pink water:
and a close of up of one of the weird birds:
I'll write a longer entry about the show when I get some images to share, and when i have some more rambling junk about what I'm working on next.

So We Go Inside And We Gravely Read The Stones

I'll save my long update for later this week when I have everything photographed and scanned but I finished my last piece for the show. Here's a teeny tiny detail I thought I should post since it's doubtful anyone will notice it otherwise. A cemetery the size of a nickle in the sunken city painting:
The frames are mostly painted, most of the backings are cut, just assembling the display boxes that Josh made for me (expertly as usual), getting all the hanging devices in order etc. If everything is ready to go by wed I might make two miniature last minute pieces. I'd really like to get to those but I'm trying to be reasonable. Until then, more coffee!

Light From Out The Lurid Sea

Heyyyyyy. Having a bit of trouble keeping up with the blog at the moment since I'm in the home stretch of the show work I have left to do. Next week when the show is ready to hang I'll probably have a ton of stuff to post including full scans of things I just posted parts of and photographs of things framed.

I finished the last painting on bone I had to do. It's the one on what is possibly a whale's growth plate. Well, it's definitely from a whale and theoretically a growth plate:
This thing is a Marool, an obscure little creature I found an excerpt about in one of my books.

"The Marool was a sea devil who took the form of a fish, and was a very malignant creature. He had a crest of flickering flame, and eyes all over his head. He often appeared in the centre of mareel-that is sea foam when it is phosphorescent. He delighted in storm, and was heard to shout his wild exultant song when some luckless bark went under"

I'm so-so on how this came out. It straddles the line between creepy and silly, though it might just read this way to me because I can't stop being reminded of this:
Also this particular bone was covered in ridges since it seems to have formed in rings like a tree so it was pretty tricky to paint on.

I also started what will be the last of my bigger paintings, one based on Poe's the City in the Sea.
The color is vibrating pretty bad in this photo but it's a bit less glaring in person. I can't say Im particularly excited to paint a bunch of buildings as straight lines are not my strong suit but I think it'll come out pretty cool.
I also wanted to mention the book where I found the blurb about the Marool. My buddy Ned got this for me for my birthday and it's great. Don't be fooled by the title, it's not so much about literal fairies as it is about the supernatural world in British/Scottish/Welsh/Irish folklore. It's FULL of stories about ghost dogs that haunt moors, long-armed swamp hags who drown lost travelers, ghost lights in the woods and banshees.
I have another book by Katherine Briggs and it's also really good. Her research is great and the excerpts have general descriptions along with synopsis of related folktales and the index in the back is arranged by theme, which is really cool.

I actually also found a little more information about the Melusine which I wrote about last week. According to this book her husband first began to suspect her supernatural background when their children were each born more and more deformed and evil. One of them, called "Geoffroi with the Tusk" burned down an abbey and killed a hundred monks. When her husband lashed out at her in response Melusine pledged to appear to each lord of his family before his death until the entire line had vanished, much like the ghost barge and banshee lore I mentioned a month ago. I love when a bunch of things I'm reading about end up having some common thread like this.

I have so much stuff to do. sob.

If I Rock Upon The Waves, Then No Corpse Can Lie Upon Me

I took me two weeks but I finally finished that big piece. Last week was kind of a wash, so I did most of the work on the weekend and once again messed my hand up painting scales for like 10 hours. Here are a couple photos of it. I'm still figuring out how to get something this big scanned:
This is the Melusine, a (often) twin tailed serpent woman from Medieval European literature and folklore. She married a mortal while in human form with the stipulation that he never see her bathing every Saturday. Naturally, he peeked and saw her in her serpent form at which point she flew away (in some stories she can still be found roaming as serpent or beautiful woman with a golden key in her mouth). The idea of mortals marrying gods and supernatural creatures is present in a lot of myths and stories, and usually comes with some caveat like this, and pretty much always ends poorly. The twin tailed mermaid image is also used as an alchemical symbol, and in heraldic imagery:
Here she is fleeing the castle:
When I was planning this out I wanted to make some nod to the medieval habit of using arbitrary scale in artwork, presenting a building as tall as a person, focusing more on narrative than realistic presentation. I also combined my idea for the Melusine sketch with a sketch I did based on a Robert E. Howard poem, the Singer in the Mist.

"At birth a witch laid on me monstrous spells,
And I have trod strange highroads all my days,
Turning my feet to gray, unholy ways.
I grope for stems of broken asphodels;
HIgh on the rims of bare, fiend-haunted fells,
I follow cloven tracks that lie ablaze;
And ghosts have led me through the moonlight's haze
To talk with demons in the granite hells.

Seas crash upon dragon-guarded shores,
Bursting in crimson moons of burning spray,
And iron castles ope to me their doors,
And serpent-women lure with harp and lay.
The misty waves shake now to phantom oars—
Seek not for me; I sail to meet the day. "

If I haven't recommended his poetry before, I am now. 50% of it is about werewolves.

So, I've noticed that Pelikan Plaka is becoming less and less available and decided to start trying out a few new kinds of paint. My two biggest requirements are that it have a matte finish, and be opaque with a high level of pigment. Also water soluble.

I got a couple jars of this Turner Neo Color and so far I'm really into it. I will admit I was drawn in by the labels which don't seem to have changed since it was first intruduced in the 60's and by the fact that it comes in fairly large jars (and can also be purchased in what are basically small buckets). It's made for sign painting and design much like Plaka, but is a bit more fluid, cheaper, and doesn't have the same alarming chemical smell. It also doesn't build as quickly on the paper so the finished product is relatively free of all that pesky texture which bothers me so much.
I also tried out some of this Acryl Gouache. It's pretty cool but a bit more expensive and less fluid than the neo color, but with really bright opaque colors. Not bad! I'll still be bummed if Plaka disappears altogether though, because somehow their black is the BLACKEST and that's essential.

Anyway, I'm hoping to crank out two more pieces before doing all the framing and whatever else I think I can squeeze in before the show. Listening to Fever Ray and getting weird. Bleh!

Last Minute Group Show!

This flier is really heinous. Anyway my friend Alicia who's an extremely nauseatingly talented artist works at a fancy flower shop and curated a little show for what they're hoping will become a second Thursday regular event. It's in liberty walk, a creepy pre-fab art community in No. Libs. Most of the people in this show are my cool talented friends so if you're around check it out! Also PIZZA. She asked for pieces with animals or flowers in them so I gave her that Laurel Hill piece.

Bury Me At Sea, Where No Murdered Ghost Can Haunt Me

Well as of right now I have 5 pieces finished for my show, with one in progress and two more on deck (pardon the unintentional nautical pun). I finished the Bake-kujira which I posted an in progress photo of last week. Im back to just posting in progress and sneak peak photos until closer to my show when I'll hopefully have good scans and nice photos of the full pieces. Here's a shot of the finished Bake-kujira:
The color is pretty off there, the background is actually green. Strange.

I'm really excited about the piece I just started. It's the Melusine, a two tailed mermaid/serpent woman from medieval French literature, who married a human and attempted to hide her monstrous secret from him. I'll write more about that later. Here's a close up of the pencil stage:
And here's a shot of it with the background finished:
What's really exciting is how I've managed to scale up for this show. I guess I'm getting faster because These pieces have the same amount of detail but are all as large or larger than the biggest pieces from my last show. This one of Melusine is the biggest so far and I'm putting it in a mirror frame I got at a dirt mall:
Here it is with a regulation size cat, Mr. Vinegar Vincent Price, in it ^ I like the way it looks gold but I'll be painting it black for the show since all of my pieces will be in black frames and all of Mike's will be in gold. Because this one is a little bigger I'm assuming it'll take about a week and a half to finish since there's a lot of water detail, the detail in the castle bricks and all the scales on her tail. Woof. After that I'm aiming for another medium sized piece and that final whale bone.

I'd really like to do a few little fun things for this show, like design a button set to give out, and make some screen printed labels to put on the back of all the pieces as well as looking into getting some limited runs of prints made to have available at the show. But first priority is making the paintings. I was also going to try to make some anchor shaped cookies for the show. What's my problem?

Next week I'll hopefully have a lot more of this painting done and will also probably make a long winded post about supplies since the Pelikan Plaka well seems to have run dry and I just bought a whole bunch of other kinds of gauche and casein paints to experiment with. Oh and I'll be busy turning 30 tomorrow .