Woodland Manifesto

A few weeks ago I rediscovered this important early work from c2003. It's a collaboration with Jon Zoba, and is heavily influenced both by his use of geometry, which has largey informed my ideas of structure since then, and by my discovery at about that time of the work of Swiss Art Brut artist Adolf Wölfli. You can see some clear parellels in last year's Narnia pieces and also in my senior thesis work, esp. The Lover's Resolution.

Also incorporates excerpts from Dvôrak's symphony From The New World.

Probably the biggest I had gone at that time, and the most extensive use of decorative and ornamental elements.


Woodland Manifesto/The Planets ink, mechanical and colored pencils on paper, aaprox. 11"x18" (?)


detail (Earth. Coilglade.)
Frog, rabbit, lynchee, hedgehog, Wölfli snails, lotus buds


detail (Mars)


detail (pediment)


detail (Lisa)


detail (swimmer)


detail (Ice. Galeglory)


detail (Munephorse. Tiderace. II:Adagio.)

More Foxes

A fox meeting a rabbit under a moon and a pine.

All handmade elements assembled in Photoshop.

From The Vault
Summer 2006. Some details from an album cover I did for After The Sirens.

field of thorns


the sky is assembling an army


cities built on bones

Two little creatures, probably from 2004 or something like that. Wow.

beastmonkey


otterstar

Some Random Stuff + Vault

Beverly, MA, present day:

Sketch for Snared In Its Glory, last projected major work in the White Rabbits series. I had been working on an (unintentionally) similar image for the tondo from Silver Worlds a few month ago, but eventually abandoned it because it hadn't been planned superwell, but the other night Susie and I were looking at the underdrawing for From Battles! and she asked if it was going to get tangled in its horns, which of course is the obvious logical conclusion if you look at these images from a purely biological/practical point. Plus I love the stimmüng of this; goes back to Thorn in the flesh/at the height of his powers. (no image available :( )


This is a thing I've been side-burnering; using a transfer technique that Steve told me about (Kellogg might use it too -but her ways are a mystery...). (Steve, you need a blog so I can link to you at opportune moments!) As you can see, I've transferred the Day At The Races drawing from a few posts ago onto this panel; starting to build up an interesting collage effect. Not sure what I'll use this for in the future but it has all kinds of imaginable applications in the fields of Exactitude and Perfection.

Sometime In The Past

Hmm, this is an interesting one. Digging through The Vault, I found this from last October. It's after Murakami after Francis Bacon. Not finished - can't find the .psd I was working from - but interesting. I like it.

Murakami's^

Bacon's (BBC News)^


on Arches Cover Buff


on Arches Cover Buff. Sometime in August 06.


monotype from printmaking I.


artist's proof from the telamon plate that I used in The Sheep and The Goats.

The Vault Opens

Recent work in the studio is preparatory and unscannable, so I have an X-tra Big Helping of Vault today - for the first time in a while!


Duck underdrawing on panel. This is an abandoned drawing from when i was still hopeful about embossed gold-line drawings (turns out they're not really high-contrast enough to hold up from more than arm's length :( ). I love the duck, but the background details were not supergreat (and, as Out recently noted, coral is so three months ago.)


Rabbit Diagram from the first Italy Sketchbook.


detail of Virtuous Rabbits which is currently on haitus but will be featured in the NEXT show...probably. Also the inspiration for the Rabbit Triptych I am currently working on.

Progress Continues/Self-Reflection/Geeking Out

Was back in the studio last night doing a little more drawing on the megature - dogs, tigers, more spines on the snakes...

While I was creating a series of arching, fluted horns growing from the back of a floating, greyhound-like creature, I found myself in a moment of self-recognition.

backstory:
A week or so ago Jonathan Bennett came by to discuss some potential collaborative work, (ekphrastic stuff, as we say here in Wenham) and we got into a fairly in-depth talk about my artistic motivations (it was actually a little like being in therapy). At first I was a little wierded out, but eventually he explained that he was just trying to find out what makes me tick artistically so that he could respond informedly to the work.

Since Jonathan is a poet, the conversation naturally drifted to my past work in orthographies and constructed languages - what sounds I like, how I go about choosing and developing letter/character forms, etc. I have mostly abandoned such pursuits in the last few years since they're time-consuming and fairly solipsistic, but it was fun to babble about them to someone who was actually interested.

One of the languages, Oriset (the only one with a semi-developed working grammar and vocabulary) whose script is calligraphic and resembles sequences of clouds or waves, has a very complicated system of verbs, with many irregular ones and an ornate method of conjugation. The entire language from the choice of consonant sounds up to conjugations and noun declensions, was developed for beauty, flow and a rhythmic, embellished sound, which brings me back to the Persian Megature.

As I was drawing the various creatures, it struck me that I was designing the line-quality of the Megature in much the same way that I went about building the sound-quality of Oriset. I take the necessary and essential elements of the creatures I choose to include, and spin them out into a sort of attenuated Mannerism that borders on the Rococo.

So, an interesting observation - don't what what I'll do with it yet.

From The Vault


Speaking of hyperstylized linework: a rabbit grooming itself in a thicket by a pond, in the Thai style. Circa late 90s?


Illuminated manuscript, color pencil, 2004ish

The Matrix II

Here's a scan of my plan and overall organizatinal scheme for the show (drawn over a botched
attempt at Hints/Accusations. (Sorry, I wanted to make it bigger, but apparently if it's too big, Blogger makes it a thumbnail only?)




From The Vault
Earliest extant rendering of the rubric, circa 10th grade (2000).

Hunting Party/Ad Poster

Hunting Party, watercolor and gouache with silver leaf on paper, 2008

Poster for a digital illustration seminar I'll be holding at Gordon sometime soon (dates + times are placeholders). Scanned drawing and digital color courtesy of Photoshop.

From The Vault

Process scan of drawing for a button I made for the band After The Sirens. You can see the completed illustration here.

My this post has a lot of tags!

Sound of Silver

This is a piece I'm donating to Montserrat College of Art's Artrageous fundraiser, a juried auction/show. I'm a little sad to give it up, after working on it (on + off) for three years (I know!!) but hopefully it will be selected by the jury and get some good publicity. And I suppose supporting education is always a worthwhile contribution. The colors on these black ones have inevitably become warped in the uploading process, but if you click to view larger they look a little better.

Here it is from an angle so you can see the framing. I gilded (silvered? :s) the inside lip of the frame to produce an intimate little mirrored enclosure. Thanks Tim for technical expertise!!!!

Just for kicks here's the painting with the creatures (very hurriedly) photoshopped out. Actually a really helpful step that got me thinking about different compositional possibilities in the series.

Sketches for Silver Worlds series.
In an effort to be more focusing I'm going to be selecting a few pieces in the coming days and expanding them into series of about 1-0 pieces each - maybe I will choose ten types and thus have 100 artworks. We'll see. When I'm 28 or 29 I'll be able to have a show :P
The Silver Worlds idea is exciting I think because it will lend itself to a lot of permutations: space, underwater, caves(?) - obviously they don't all need to be set in naturally dark environments either.
From The Vault

Cicada God from large Moleskin, about a year ago. See The Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis

Ex Nihilo Rears Its Head

detail from Ex Nihilo: Birds of Prey, walnut ink and watercolor on Arches Cover Buff, 22" x 15", 2005. Collection of Bryan and Natalie Parys.

So three years after my best-selling-yet series Ex Nihilo, I am still getting comments about it, and how much people wished it was still going on. Never one to rain down sorrow when I could be dispensing joy, I am going back to the grindstone with a huge sumi brush, my trusty Arches Cover Buff, and that gem of art supplies, Walnut Ink. It practically does the painting for you. Process pictures to follow.

From The Vault


Here's something in Walnut; a picture of Bruce Herman working on his Mary murals in the bottom of the Torre del Moro, Orvieto, Spring 05. Originally to be included in Gordon College's Stillpoint magazine...and then not. Such is the publishing industry.

Highlighted with white watercolor. Probably about 4" x 6".

Ciao tutti.

The Green Bird

The Green Bird, acrylic on panel, in progress, 12" x "24 (?), fall 2004 - present

From The Vault


Drawn in a Moleskin about a year ago.

What A Good Monday

I have a few things to put up - I had a nice time at the studio tonight and got a lot done. Because I work with a lot of layers I usually do a little bit each on 5-6 pieces every time I go in; that way each can dry while I work on the others. Above is a study of an arm that I'm working on - don't know how well it will translate to the web; I'm doing it all in white, because I think it will be fun :) and probably help develop some color sensitivity.

This one's a figure study for a painting I'm working on based on Fergus and the Druid, by W.B. Yeats. I've put in the druid already, but the figure of Fergus was very blocky and not that convincing, so I did this sketch before going back into the painting and glazing over my underpainting. (Confusing, I know :P ). Fergus is crouching in the surf on the bleak beach as the druid looms over him.


Here's a photo of the painting. I know, it's a terrible photo. Get used to it:) The color is off and it's fuzzy, but as you can see, I've patched Fergus in as a lavender/white area. I've started to think a lot more about color choices, composing the colorpan of the painting harmoniously, and using color emotively - that is, don't just make a person's skin flesh-colored because "that's how it is" - ask what would communicate the psychology of the painting best. (Thanks Tanja.) So I've put the Druid in as an ochreous color, since he is old, wizened sunburned, like a husk. As first I was thinking of Fergus heroically (in keeping with the really blocky frame of my initial draw of him), and was going to have him be tanned like the Druid. Then when I drew him leaning over, and thought of his words - "Now I have grown nothing, knowing all" - I wanted to make him very ghostlike. Fair Irish skin with a good bit of purple in it and red hair, all to make him appear very wraithlike and juxtapose his sound body with that of the Druid above him, who even though he is frail seems to be in the controlling space of the picture.



I've decided to post something from 'the archives' every post too, so here's a sketch on bulletin, from all the way back in 2003! I was only 20 then! Wow.
I promise I concentrate better on the sermon if I can draw. :D

Rabbits and Bears

This one is a detail of a large watercolor that I started in the summer of 06, and have recently resumed work on after 2 years of doing mostly acrylic painting. I love the effects and depth you can acheive with acrylic, but watercolor and gouache are still my favorite media. I feel totally conmfortable with them and free to explore without worrying about technical issues. I stretched + dyed this paper using heavy washes of watercolor, and now am going back in with watercolor and gouache, and maybe some touches of acrylic later if I really need opaque white effects and the paper has become too pigment-saturated for gouache to go down cleanly.

Rabbit Court, watercolor and gouache on Arches Cover Buff, in progress, 15"x22"

Here's a scan from my sketchbook, probably done about 2 years ago now; in spring of 06. A comic detailing a Eurotrash party I attended in Grantham, Pennsylvania.