Thirsty Thursday

SO I didn't even want to go to the studio tonight, but I forced myself to go anyway (at 9!) and ended up having a really good time and got a lot done. My friend Anne stopped by (fortunately after I had stopped listening to the Mary Poppins soundtrack on my iPod, loudly singing, "A British bank/is run with precision!" hehee

BUT ANYWAY, I worked on a 1:1 scale sketch for ACTION RABBIT, which I am superexcited about (used charcoal!), and finished pre-glazing Persian Megature so that I can start doing the pencil drawings. (Yes, I am going to force myself to start them soon.) Naturally, I did not bring a camera to document any of these activities for your veiwing pleasure :( I need to start carrying it around in my bag I guess. No doubt I would take more commemorative pictures of other fun events too...

I DID bring back and scan Stage II of Scylla + Charybdis. Here it is.

I'm going to paint in all the rocks, as if they were mountains in the air, and then the waves over them so that everything is in layers for a very artificial, theatre-scrim effect. I'm really into that. I guess I like that it enhances the metaphoric effect of the work (? maybe ?)(that is, it takes a painting one step further away from verisimilitude, and more into a decorative realm of obviously artificial objects and effects - iconographizes things.)


Here is a digital piece I'm working on as an example for the digital illustration seminar I'l be conducting at Gordon on Saturday. It's part of a loosely-formed, slowly-coalescing series ("Series=serious!" as William SVTCHRNK says :) of digital illustrations, so far all of me but hopefully to branch out, drawing on photographic sources but also working with a surrealistic, iconographic set of elements. I did't really have any starting thought, except that I wanted to include more arms (multiple limbs being a rapidly developing schtick of mine), and then, once I had done the initial sketch, I thought of adding a little cape of wings, sort of along the lines of a tengu or garuda, and then, once I had done that, I was suddenly reminded of my favorite part of the The Epic of Gilgamesh, the description of the underworld, Irkalla:

Then he... and turned me into a dove,
so that my arms were feathered like a bird.
Seizing me, he led me down to the House of Darkness,
the dwelling of Irkalla,
to the house where those who enter do not come out,
along the road of no return,
to the house where those who dwell, do without light,
where dirt is their drink, their food is of clay,
where, like a bird, they wear garments of feathers,
and light cannot be seen, they dwell in the dark...

Gilgamesh, Tablet VII

Which inspired the gritty textural background and all the pale greys.

Digital series also includes this piece (double dutying as a poster for abovementioned seminar: