"Hidey Hole" step by step, sort of...

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I think I'm not going to put much more of my older paintings up on this blog, since most of what that would consist is already up on Facebook, HERE.
Meanwhile here's a 'step-bystep' of one I like from 2008, the most thoroughly documented "procedural" I've got.

First off the finished product, "Hidey Hole," 10x8" oil on canvas, 2008. From an old photo.

Step 1, sketch in with charcoal.

Then a monotone value study, with mostly just a wash of burnt sienna.

Next, block in the darks. Sorry, it's been too long, I don't remember the exact colors used.

The sky must be next, to help set the tone, you might say, of all that's to come.

I work...

...and work...

...and work on the sky. 'Til I get that "just right" feeling of it. Thin, semi-transparent layers makes it look more...airy, or something. Deep like a sky is what I'm after.

Starting on the background...

Establishing color in the background.

A little more detail...

...but the color's wrong. Start over

That's more like it. More muted, more like I actually see it.

Then a lot of fun drawing leaves and limbs in the deep shadow color.

A little bit of detail in the tree leaves, and the brush below.

A kind of neutral base color on the left tree, where the light hits...

...and the 'bark-y' textures pop out.

Hidey Hole is the first in a three-part series, the other two on which I've made a start, yet to finish. I call it, in my mind at least, the "Unconscious Perinatal Projection Series." A triptych, I guess. Sort of. More on that later...

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Turn of the Millenium Autosurrea

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Fields of Arkansas

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There are lots of them...

10x10" (cropped) oil on canvas sketch from photo, 1996.

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Harmonious Inconsistencies

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The Carefree Dental Card appears to be a ripoff, American Water Resources has 221 complaints on the BBB website--and they are still, oddly, accredited--and there are no words that rhyme with "poetry." However...

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"As time goes by, especially in the last few years, I've lost the knack of being a person. I no longer know how one is supposed to be. And an entirely new kind of 'solitude of not belonging' has started invading me like ivy on a wall." - Clarice Lispector violent waves of emotion.
via whiskey river

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Empty Driveways

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Cropped digital photo, fall colors, empty space(s), quiescent, sleeping things...in the sun...

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Old dreams...

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Reviewing some old dream journals I came upon this old ballpoint doodle. From early 80s I think.

Yeah it was 1980 because I remember showing it to a therapist I saw briefly that year. Of course she couldn't tell me what it meant, just wanted to know whose name I thought was on the grave stone. Like it might be mine and that would mean something. Well I've got news for her now. My name is on a tombstone--for real--and here's a sketch I made of that. From life. Heh, heh.
My full name and birth date are on the front, next to my deceased wife, the only part missing is my 'end date.'
Pretty sobering but that's about it in terms of "meaning."

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Interdimensional Barnacles...and Dogen

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“The coming and going
 of birth and death
 is a painting.

Unsurpassed enlightenment
 is a painting.

The entire phenomenal universe
 and the empty sky are nothing
 but a painting.”

~Dogen Zenji

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Art:  Interdimensional Barnacles, 24x36" oil on canvas, 2010, by me.

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ArarrrrrPOOM

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A Rainy Knife in Abcolab...

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I didn't want to write captions 'cause I's going for visual effect, but still want to say stuff, so down here.

The top pic is from a poster for one of Rob Zombie's Halloween flics, drawn with Uniball pens, and 90% without looking on the lines of the figure. Sort of a slightly modified eye/hand coordination exercise where you put your drawing under the table and try to imagine your pen point going where your eyes go on the copy. I looked for the shading though.

Next is a panel I drew for an abstract comics "Laboratory" where every panel was drawn by a different person. I wonder if I still have a copy of the whole strip somewhere...

Third is a cover I drew for a DVD of Cloverfield I borrowed from my step-son, that didn't already have a cover. I thought it needed one. This is the cropped version.

Lastly is a view from some mountain in Japan that I found on Princess Haiku's blog. In pencil. It's only 4x6 inches.

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