31st of 12th month

Well, it won't win any awards, as-is. In a different media, with better suited colors, I can see potential but as it is right now, nothing much more acn be said or done.
When I made the absent minded mistake of picking up the black pen instead of the dark blue pen and carved a little bit of agony center page, I had the bright idea that I could just make the whole space black and grey, but then I guess I just forgot or thought, "why bother? These colors are not what I wanted as shades anyhow." But, if I thought that, why NOT put a small grey splotch in the center?

Either way, not what I wanted.
I note wrong colors as reason for discontent, I'm a mono-tone person, not multi-shade.

"God only knows where I'd be without you"

Did my traditional X-mas tradition of watching. "It's a Wonderful Life'" and "Love Actually." Every year, the same thing, but I think that is what they mean for it to be like if I want to call it a tradition.
"Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love." I love that line.

That's my son, playing in the sand on a beach on Kaua'i, probably Wai'oli Beach off Hanalei Bay. Who knows where I'd be without him?

the 22nd of December

I had hoped to be done with this by now as I have like a backload of sketches swimming around in my head, I especially want to get back to my, "abuse a textbook/vandalize a text" series and I need to get started on a pin-up girl for this silkscreen project that came my way in November. Mmmmm... paying projects w/ potential for future exposure, tastes good.
...
Odd bit of Too Much Information (OboTMI) for this week: I had a dream that I worked in a office with Judy Greer and we went out to dinner after work and had an awesome time chatting & flirting over pasta. she was really an interesting person, my dreams are telling me, and a sharp wit and easy to talk to. Good smile, as well. Then I woke up with it still a half-hour until my alarm would go off. I dozed and the alarm went off and my last memory was of looking into Alexis Bledel's bright blue eyes as she fell down into darkness, like Alice down the rabbit hole.

16th of December

Above: clip of scan I have not done progress on as I discovered the joys and frustrations of co-op zombie-bashing/general run-for-your-life survival game, Left 4 Dead, and have not sat down at my maple wood drawing table for fear that if I do not annihilate all zombies they just might overrun the digital landscape, and I just could not sleep at night knowing I failed to do my part.

I hope to get this to a better place art-wise before next monday as I really want to find out where I go wrong on this one in coloring it in. It will be like a early christmas gift.
Plus, I really want to see what I do right with it, too.

...

My son assures me that Santa Claus will be bringing me presents but since we live alone in the middle of the badlands, and he only has a couple grand but no one but me to take him shopping and Santa Claus is, like... Well, it is complicated my relationship with Santa, so I know that Santa is not getting me a thing. Alone, no gf, no bff, no friends w/ benefits of gift buying, alone.
Santa will owe me.

You can go your own way

This little quick sketch doodle is named, "Pi Waffle." Not 'Pie', but Pi the greek letter. He had a whole complete story to him but having sat in my folder for so long and all, I forgot it. All I know is that he wants to be a hero... Actually, he wants to be a super-hero, to be more exact. I do not know if his plan of action was to pursue it masked as a bowl of nacho chips and spring out of his bowl upon evil-doers or what, but I believe him to be sincere.
If there can be a "super-hero" named Robin (a common song bird), a guy like Pi Waffle must have some chance, I'd like to think. I suggest he start a cute side-kick or something, get his feet wet.

Eighth of December

This is about as far as this sketch will go. In a larger format, it would definitely go further and with oil paints it would take on a entirely different look (just as it would if I [re] created through digital painting, or even further, in a 3D modeling which I think would be really fun but very time consuming but that is what makes it fun for me; simple and fast is for commercial artists, time, care, and sweat is the heart of art for real artists).

{But, that is just a quick opinion. I sure as heck cannot offer an definition of what a true artist is as I have always held that it is a constant evolution and there is no way but the fool's way to call someone NOT an artist.}

First of December

It has been almost a month since I posted last, so I thought I'd post something new, even if it is only half done. Here is the black and white and red.
I am still recovering from my falling down the stairs in the dark but enough time has passed that I have gotten two bills; one from the ER doctor, the other separate charges from the hospital. Merry Christmas just in time for Christmas Shopping, yeah, $400 from the Doc for giving me a aspirin and a narcotic for the pain, $200 for the hospital for giving me a narcotic and not allowing me to leave for five hours because I did not have a ride home for me and my impatient five year old after a nurse told me I did not break both my feet or the black swollen toes.
I've been to Hawaii in the time I have not posted, beautiful place. Both my son and I want to live there, he wants to meet a nice surfer girl, settle down, and make sand castles for a living. I just want a nice patch of earth to grow taro and a studio to draw in overlooking the beach and ocean. Moreover, the girl w/ red glasses working at Island Hemp & Cotton in Kapaa was pretty damn cute. Throw her in the mix and it is a dream come true.

It is nothing personal, you are just better off alone

Green under white, at least this pale green at this small tiny size, does not work well.
Plus I am rushing it because having a small child sitting behind you... There is no contineous flow.

"Daddy, TV."

...

"Daddy, I want water."

...

"Daddy, I want to play a graphically inappropriate video game that will make me happy until I get to a part that is tough so I will ask for you to break from what you are doing and play the game for me."

...

"Daddy, I want to watch TV again."

...

A week of blank-out, or no posts starts next monday and goes until the monday after when a new post will be made... Maybe.

Thank you for judgement without wisdom

Above: Artist recommends not painting next to a small child that wants to help and is sincere in his desire to be a help because he will then climb upon a stool to look over your shoulder and then try to anticipate your needs and fall into wet paint.
(and, nothing personal is meant by the subject titles... I am just trying to stretch my thoughts since the true title of this is something about 'Being alone when surrounded by others that are also alone but they do not know you are alone because they themselves have their own places and movements and the whole universe revolves around something but not me or you but I am some percent sure that it is connected to a theory that will include string and a big bang and maybe a few other things but no need to get really nasty in the details as it tends to take care of itself and maybe we should take care of ourselves too since no one but your mother or father ever thought they had to and they have maybe long since stepped back from that.' That is really a long title, so I am trying to find something better, you see?)

Thank you for not putting the effort forth

Usually I get to this point of near-finish and I feel something, maybe pride or accomplishment, or like I learned something. I do feel like I learned, but the disconnect happens on the whole accomplishment part or the pride part.
I think I rather see this in oil than ink as I can "see" the limitless ways the color could be played out in oil but only see that flat limits of ink with this as posted. I mean it is only a page from my sketch book as I cannot seem to possess a digital camera that will work for me for very long (same goes for wristwatches, things that require batteries hate me) and put up the bigger pieces.

Yes we can

Yes.
We.
Can.

Home. Sick. No image.

WARNING!!!! OLD DATED POLITICAL CLAPTRAP INAPPROPRIATE FOR AN ART BLOG!!! Yes, I am not a "republican" but i am also not much of any political party or label. I must be blanketed under some label but I try to not label myself. Anyway, the below is just some stuff I vented about that I am keeping here to remind myself in 2012 if another politican calls one city in America more "American" than another city in the United States of America... Real Americans are pretty much the population of thecities of the U.S. of A., and no city is MORE american than another.

My photoshop is on the fritz, so no scanner at home, so no new image today. Tomorrow, two.
Hard to believe but I forgot for a moment what today was. Then I brought up the computer and found I had left open the screen about the flier telling these people in a predominately black area that voting was postponed for some to the 5th, but if you were going to vote for McCain that they should vote on the 4th, if voting for Obama that they were being requested to vote the day after. That and the girl who carved a backwards "B" in her face does not reflect to well on certain people. Not that the guy in West Hollywood is any sort of Brianiac for making a Holloween display with a noose around a mock Palin, and mock McCain in flames and claiming free speech when the same noose around a effigy of Obama... Legal action soon follows that.
We feel very strongly about our American path, to be apathetic seems depressing.
I read how Palin is warning of a, "Far Left takeover" and using such scary words like, "San Francisco" and "Liberal" and "Muslim" like they are not a city, or a loose pattern of thoughts, or a religion much like the many religions that transferred over here with the pilgrims seeking worship in freedom free of opression and hate. I dislike Palin, there are no pro-American areas of the United States of America, it is all America and we are ALL Americans; there are no anti-American areas for her to rail against. It is only more ironic that she sleeps with a man that is part of a anti-America/pro-Alaskan freedom party, and she talks of San Francisco as if it were stronghold of nazis or terrorists and not an american city and part of our grand diverse nation.
To be apathetic in the face of that is stupid in my view but I have a narrow view having lived seven years in the south east part of America and 31 years in the west part, I have not found any anti-american cities or people living here and that is only my take on my country.

Thank you for not noticing.

Above; This cropped section reminds the Artist that using every color possible is not always a great idea. A limited palette of colors may be less dynamic but it is better than getting to the midpoint and realizing the colors you chose have painted you into a corner and what could have been a strong composition now has leaked out all over the floor and is pushing you to rein it all in. And, shown you the next few things to embark on. Larger ideas come from seeing the smaller mistakes and moving on from there.
There is a great quote from Theodore Roosevelt that I just read in a Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, I don't recall it completely accurate as it is not in front of me, but; something "do the best with what you have where you are at" but better phrased. I will read up on Calvin and post the correct verbage later, if I recall.

Thank you for not wasting any of my time

Above; 25% done was the estimation of the artist as to what point this was in the piece when asked of this page in his sketchbook for future projects.

More waste, less want

waste not, want not.
I do not know if I have posted this before, more wasted time playing with color in illustrator from 2006 ,or '07, perhaps maybe it was 2005?

Zero days until "Blankout"

My, how quickly 12 days pass! the Blank out begins right.... NOW!
...
Okay, so maybe a few more days but I am seriously wrestling with the idea of shifting to a "one a week" posting schedule as I feel nothing drives up interest like letting 6 days pass and getting people to forget to click back once a week as the time passes and distractions mount up, and life goes on. And, then on some more.
Moreover, life goes on if you get my drift.
...
Above; Quick doodle on a cd-disk, work time: 6 minutes or less

12 days to the "Blankout"

above: unfinished piece, unspecified percentage done, sketch done with probable later revision at larger medium.
12 days 'til the blankout when the streak of 5 days a week posting of works will be interrupted for a week's time while blogger is encased in steel and given time to heal.

"bad scan, needs rotation" is my comment

"Those that write clearly have readers, those that write obscurely have commentators." -Camus

Life imitating art

Last night on CSI:Las Vegas, an artist character said, "I don't like looking at inferior art. It sears into my brain like bad mexican food."
I thought that was just made-up fiction created by non-artists but now I know why Vincent Van Gogh was so miserable in his lifetime.
[Not comparing myself to Van Gogh; I am not miserable in the slightest.]

...the above is still in-progress.

Clipped in-progress sketchbook page

It seems all I do is post sketch book pages. yeah, but so what?
Here is a sketchbook page I started last night. It is a lot harder to do painting with a 5 year old around, my paint dryed on the brush twice running around feeding him. The lines have less flow also when the phone rings twenty times a night because the family that had your number before the phone company gave it to you was a republican. If I hear one more time how it is not unamerican to have your husband be part of a group that wants to leave the United States like the South left the USA in the Civil War but it is to live on the same street as a guy that blew up a statue 38 years ago, I am going to vomit. One good thing that came out of it, I checked Wikipedia and found out that the Weathermen never killed one person in their whole short time. Well, no civilians. They killed themselves botching the making of a bomb once, 3 members dead.
Wiki says that after that drama they were meticulous in making sure they targeted empty buildings and made sure no one was around when they did their protests against us being in Vietnam or the assasination of the Black Panthers leader when the FBI shot him while he was in bed asleep. They were radicals and they did not help their cause one bit, the war or racial violence did not end.
If I was not already being called a, "Liberal" by virtue of being an artist as explained to me when I lived in the South, I might become one.
Knowing professionally someone who 38 years ago protested violently by blowing up empty govnt. property due to govnt. shooting black men in their sleep vs. someone who is married to someone who "today" was actively planning and participating in group seeking to leave the USA for whatever reason, which one is Joe the Plumber going to be compromise to?
Neither?
I just wish the Republicans would let me paint in peace. The Democrats just send me e-mails asking for money.

Coils- 95% done

Your perception may vary from my own.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3046/2965796640_9eb6878d0c.jpg

130th daily post (M-F)! ...and, more on the Coils

Yeah, I project maybe one more day (or night) and I will be done (w/ the reserved right to come back and paint in white high lights where the threads pass too close for my big clumsy ink pen to give me the fine control I so professionally desire).

...
Today I heard Hayden Pantettiere say the "F" word three times and Jenna Elfman said, "Bitch" at least twice, some days are weird.

Flickr? I don't even really know her, I was just checking to see if her windows needed to be shut from outside as it has gotten so cold lately.

And if the link does not work (http://www.flickr.com/photos/23751452@N08/)

the picture is below but at smaller dpi.

It might take awhile to get the hang of this.
Flickr thing, I mean.

On to more obscure things... I have been said to be really down-to-earth, and yet I would presume that with my abstract art, people would judge me to be really, "spacey" or stellar or up above the clouds. That is all great but it won't get me a date. No one seems to keen on the guy that resembles a celestial body of void and matter with smatterings of intense solar fire and occasional gases, at least no one I have met. Having the passion of a raging sun, and yet being grounded with a bright and small son is a unusual combination, not for me, but I speak of the female population that is not so confidant at the mixing of energy and solids.
I know I fear the unknown, I do not judge anyone else at their trepidation but I just think it is silly. So, I emcompass all things, and I am god-like. I get that. I really do, even if I am joking about all this. I just want some star-crossed mud-covered hijinks or adventures, too, before I fade off into oblivion.

Is it really so hard to read what I write?

Chicken-legged BB-eyed Bullet-head!

Hey! Be nice, he is sensitive about his appearence. Plus it is not like anything has been done with him since the mid-90's when I built him, so he probably feels a bit neglected also.
Prof. Atom is his name.

Punk.1

It would be nice if I did not keep forgeting my passwords to this site.
Also, I have not input famous actresses' names in here for a long time and thus site traffic has gone way down, I mean way,way down. You'd think I was just some commercial designer with only 8 years experience at my job it is so down.
I have 10+ years.
Cassidy Freeman. The most beautiful, engaging actress I have to offer up randomly with a large amount of bias and sincerity... Actually, there is no good way to namecheck a total stranger w/o seeming like a total lunatic, so I will just try to skate the surface and say "I hope she gets a lot of people typing in her name to Google and they accidentally come here artifically driving up my numbers, since my artwork is not doing the number on the collective consensus to shower me in public adoration. I don't even have one stalker."
Good job at not sounding like a lunatic, I must say.

(that is a joke there.)

{"I don't even have a stalker." Words to die by.}

Another fine mess, in progress

Some times you you just have too many ways you can go w/ a project, although I wish it had a more delicate finer thinner line but that is part of the forward motion... Seeing what you'd change in the past after being there.

Maybe.

Generally, I prefer thinner lines.

Still a single father, still one income, still one child to father.
Still happy.

Because I want a thinner, more delicate line? I'd like to think I don't know.

Still only my perspective to contend with, still no one to widen my perceptions, still believing.

Still dreaming.

...

Still me.

-What this all has to do with the swirling stuff above, I have no idea. I am just sleepy right now.

Moment, passed.

Doodle, done.

Whim, satisfied.

Family Crest? 75% done?

Yeah, I think it is ludicrous also the junk I post here, but who's going to tell me otherwise? It has been, like what? 144 days since I started, well at least 125 days of daily posts Monday through Friday and no feedback, no audience.
Q: "What sound does a tree make if it falls in a forest but no one hears it?"
A: "CHUBB!!!!"
;)

I am now posting two weeks in advance (okay, a week as today for me is 10/06/08 but I have not posted for a week as a sort of a vacation for me that no one knew about so it was two weeks until last week). So, maybe sometime between then and now things will pick up. State of the world and America is kind of depressing me., through I must put out a shout-out to the King of Saudi Arabia for getting the Taliban to peace talks and splitting with Al-Queda and possibly weakening the supposed/suspected Iranian influence in Pakistan (typical airhead not sure who is hiding Ben Laden).

Whine much?

As the new Master of Time (and Space, cross your fingers... No, wait. Waste of time, I won that, too, three seconds before I typed that. It is very convenient being Master of Time), I got some wine bottles I made before I was ... Wait, as Master, nothing exists 'before,' so how does it all fit together..?

Never mind.

Election year

I am running for the office of, Master Of Time.
If I win, I promise to take on the Master of Space. He has gotten too big.

Mogo

Mogo had fallen asleep with his cowl on after a long night of crime-fighting, which did not make getting ready for a 6:30 AM board meeting any easier, or so his mirror told him.
The life of a billionaire playboy ape who fights crime at night dressed as a bat was not an easy one by any measure, but trying to get some control of this mop might be harder than the time he and Ace (that son of a she-hound) mistakenly got in a fight with the Wire-Ant and Firefrog in a case of mistaken identities.

"Coils" - 50% done!!

It is HALF done, Ho0-Raaayyyy!
Wait, it is only half done.
Wire ants...
Is "wire ants" a curse word?

Stick it!

I love you enough to give you more lit dynamite.
...Now, that is love, people.

BOOM... Oh. Well, wait for it.

4 coins and a cross, in-progress

a family heraldic badge, modified and in progress.

Bats

There is no bats, just one bat. I swear, people see one bat and they think that a whole legion are present. That gives me an idea, a "Legion of Bat-Heroes"...
Who needs super-heroes when you have bat-heroes fighting to save the future?

"15 Skulls" - part14

Funny, I do not recall ordering the cleavers but at least there is no mystery about them. I saw them being delivered by the girl I went to the prom with.
Oh, there is a note attached. "Being overly clever gets you nothing, but cleavers."
I am baffled, and flummoxed. I cannot think of one more clever thing to say, so I guess this is the end.

"15 Skulls" part 13

Having dragged this whole strange affair out making this whole day seem like some two week long odd misadventure, when truthfully I may be went 50 feet with in my small neighborhood making this a very small 'hood. Two Movie theatres, one ice skating rink and a butcher shop, all in a 50 foot radius. Moreover, this is not supposed to be about 50 feet, or as Holmes said, "Afoot" but 15 painted skulls.

This girl (above) has nothing to do with anything that happened before, I just happened to see her putting something at my backdoor as I went into the kitchen to get my long-awaited coffee ice cream.
They looked like fifteen brightly colored meat cleavers.
...It looks like I will never crack this case.

"15 Skulls" - part 12

Having narrowly avoided Tran's even tempered manner and logic, and totally forgotten why I ever thought Marvin could help. He wore his cleats everywhere, and that played havok on the natural wood parquet floors of my mansion, I went to my mansion.
I found a chainsaw.

That is all.
Why does finding a chainsaw HAVE to be a big deal? There are enough of them around, I am sure everyone has found a chainsaw at sometime in their life. It is not like they are going extinct.
Anyway, if you recall... it would have been helpful in use of tree removal but now that is a moot point.

"15 Skulls" - Day 11

Tran Oozing met me out front, he told me to go home. It made no sense but so far it was the least bizarre thing that had happened all day.
So I ignored him.

He seemed fine with that.
Having no recourse, I decided to go home.
Let me explain myself, there was nothing funny about Tran and my curiosity was not piqued. That is the only explanation I can offer but things were getting neck deep and I did not want to get involved in Tran's non-funny business.
I had a job to do and there was definitely funny business going on, so I had no time to take on Tran's business and double my workload.
If I was a franchise, I'd just give him our 1-800 number but I could not.

Tran did not get my number that day, but I think you now know why as I just explained it in the last sentence. You were paying attention, weren't you? Because I certainly am not getting paid for all this.
Maybe I should have taken Tran and his business, as non-funny as it was. He might have paid me.
I am going home, in case you forgot.

"15 Skulls" - Day 10

I took my stuff in my duff and went to the Drippy Film Theatre, luckily it was not far.

The Drippy Film did not have a lot of patrons, I was never sure as to why but as a detective I thought the name might be the answer. I suggested they change the name to the Oozing Film Theatre but they said they would not change a thing, that Drippy was a family name and Oozing was a competitor of theirs and they did not want a bunch of confusion.
Their logic was sound.
Marvin was not there. I was going to have to see Oozing establishment and see if Marvin was there. Maybe see what their films looked like, too, but it did not seem like Oozing's would be too clear. They showed foreign art films that tended to be surrealistic and meandering in nature.
Like I said, 'not too clear' and I liked a strong narrative.

"15 skulls" - Day 9

Marvin was a player, a player of football. And, since he insisted on wearing his cleats everywhere he went, there was no chance of him being at the ice rink out on the ice. I don't know why I went there to find him really.
Marvin would be at the movies, I don't know why I thought that but it seemed now in retrospect a better place to look for Marvin and maybe I could lose the chick caterwauling about paint on her in the dark theatre. I really did not have a clue, but I did have 15 skulls (assorted colors) that were weighing on me.
I shifted the bag of them to my other shoulder. That seemed to help.

15 skulls - day 8, a day somewhere in the reverse to Friday in some sense.

The Meat-hook was a particular place, not many places allow you to skate around on thin ice with cold cuts and slabs of pork, chicken, or beef. A few but not many and we were all probably pretty thankful for those few that did.

I strapped on my blades, put the toy skulls in a sack, hit the ice, and went to see a man named Marvin. But before I got a chance to see him, the management told me to put on some ice skates. The butcher knives I had just bought were not accepted as outerwear. Sure, bring your meat but leave your cutlery at home. I smelled bigotry but it could have been pastrami. Whatever it was, it made me hungry to see Marvin.

15 skulls - day 7, the day after the day before Friday

His wife's name was Victoria but everyone called her, "Cherry." Everyone but me as I was always out of the loop, and no, the loop was not a place like the Meatgrinder (the corner butchershop next door to the ice skating rink that was named the "Meat-hook").

He (the man in the hockey mask) thanked me for doing most of the things he requested and explained that he was just joking around about the cherry tree and shaving his wife. I failed to correct him that I had done everything he asked and assumed that one way or another when he got home he'd find out. I forgot to ask him for reimbursement for the tree I bought and planted in his yard, then cut down. Shaving his wife did not solve my problem with the 15 skulls dropped on my doorstep, but it went a long ways.

Her sideburns/"mutton chops" were absolutely freaking me out.

15 skulls - day 6

It was odd. Chopping down cherry trees seemed to have gone out of style, I tell you no lies.
It seemed a lot of work, especially to ask someone to do if you were going out of town. Moreover so when you did not even have a cherry tree to be found on your property. Some people just really don't like cherries I was to find out.

15 skulls - day 5

Being in a butchershop, I do not know why it would shock me to see a guy wearing a hockey mask in there. It was right next to a ice rink, and often you'd see blood on the ice in there next door. People kept dropping their prime rib and steaks when skating. The lockers were broken, so people always went skating with their meat.

I was just shocked to see him.
I thought he was out of town. Why had he asked me to pick up his mail, water his plants, feed his dog, paint his fence, and chop down his cherry tree? Not to mention shave his wife?

15 skulls - day 4

I was being put through the Meatgrinder; my expected or at least anticipated meal of coffee ice cream interrupted, fifteen toy skulls ornate and still a bit tacky even without the semi-wet paint covering them, a girl I could have loved if she would just get off my shadow following me around like a paint-splattered siren (the ambulance kind, not the sea ship wrecking kind), and my favorite knife from the 99 cent store, ruined. I did not know where I would go to replace it.

The Meatgrinder was a small butcher shop on the corner, maybe I could replace the knife there.

15 skulls - day 3

With 15 toy skulls painted all the colors of the rainbow, a screaming mimi, and a dull knife due to its apparent use to open fifteen paint cans, I had a lot of things that went together and I wished they had not gotten together at my place.
All I needed was a motive, a crime, and a paying customer and the way things were flying around today I was not sure it was going to end being paid by a knife in the back, the crime being the girl would not shut up about some spilled paint, and no motive as there did not seem to be any purpose as yet this day.

Oona Hart

I'd like to know what happened to Oona Hart, why her last movie was 2002. Where has she gone, what has she been doing since then?
Anyone knows, pass it along.
Much appreciated.

15 skulls -day 2

Early morning ice cream was soon to be a thing of forgotten things to be done this day, or in shortened phrase, not checked off my to-do list, with the shriek heralding a E.T.A. soon (or ASAP) of a female (or "dame" as we call it in the shamus biz) with something to shout about.
"There is paint everywhere! Everywhere!"

Then, things got a bit colorful and I am not talking about her language.