day 27: Baba Yaga

I sat in as videographer on my wife's guest lecture at University of Maryland's Women's Studies dept. on women and spirituality. She touched on Baba Yaga, from her part of the world, as she was born in Eastern Europe.

Those versed in Eastern European folklore will recognize this wizened old hag, the Slavic version of the Bogeyman, who flies around in a mortar and pestle, abducting children to eat them.

Though her house is not made of gingerbread (but rather, is built upon chicken feet) some believe she was the inspiration for the witch in "Hansel and Gretel."

The wife did not like this portrayal. The idea of this benevolent figure abducting children was introduced by Christian missionaries to make way for their "new, improved!" belief system.

Day 26: Octopus

Had some extra paint one night and basically just scribbled on a board. A few nights later, it was an octopus. I like this guy, and never before have I been able to draw a real-looking octopus.

I enjoy this process of creation because it allows more expressiveness and accesses corners of my subconscious that I normally wouldn't go. I'd tried drawing octopi in the past and they never looked real. It took some random brush strokes to prompt this one out of my head.

Day 25 - Dance the Night Away

Saw a production of "Crazy for You," kind of a Gershwinesque (apparently Gershwin music, but the story/dialog written more recently) musical with 400 costumes and bunches of songs and lasted about 16 hours.

The last number basically felt like this: Boy gets the girl (strangely, despite their initial differences). They both magically end up in ballroom clothes, and the small mining town transforms into a glitz-fest.

Still playing with the idea of looking through something to see something else. Which is of course the function of the theatrical proscenium.

Day 24: Pleasant Dreams

Although yes, I loved Superman (and still do) as a child, there were no Bogeymen in our household. Our father, of German descent, and who served in WWII (on the Allied side) would threaten to bring the "Gestapo," who would put us in the "Hoosegow." Largely in jest, we were never really fearful of such entities.

Regardless, we all have our childhood Bogeymen, who live either in the closet or under the bed. Interestingly, it was the little girl down the street who informed me about the Bogeyman. Also, since I grew up in a secular house, I had to learn about God that way, too: from the same little girl.

Day 23: Small Clown, Big Hat

Clowns compel me. Not in that obnoxious "clowns are scary, clowns are creepy, kill the clowns" sort of way, nor in the treacly saccharin sunshine-and rainbows way either.

Like any art form, there is good and bad in the Clown realm, but some of the funniest stuff I've seen in my life has been in the clown arena. And also, some of the best people I know are such artists.

This is nobody in particular, though it could be considered a composite of aspects of clowns I know. I guess if pressed, I'd say he's part W.C. Fields, part Pickle Family Circus' Mr. Sniff, and part pimp.

Day 22: She Loves Ice Cream

From a photo. This random woman just looked so pained to be eating the deliciously sweet dairy goodness that I had to capture her in plasticine pigments.

Day 21: Piano Man

Another one from the long early morning car trip to Rehoboth Beach, DE. Since I'm not a morning person, I spent much of the drive sleeping groggily (but wisely with my sketchbook in my lap), and occasionally I'd wake up, sketch something, say something incoherent to the wife, and then go back to sleep.

I can't say exactly where this image came from, but just that it came fully formed, in my head. That, and I looooove Alpha waves.

Day 20: Deep Thought

I was looking for something to paint. I had no idea. So I painted having no idea.

As has been expected, there would be days that I just have no idea what I’m going to paint, despite the 20 years of sketchbooks, being surrounded by people, animals and nature day in and day out … it’s almost like the universe is a cacophony of inspiration, and the function of a creative type is to be able to filter out all the noise to pick one idea.

A successful creative is the one who can filter down further from the ideas s/he picks out to only executing the good ideas.

In any case, this is from a day where I had to paint, didn’t want to go to the sketchbooks (my ego keeps telling me that would be cheating, though It’s not a rule). So there I sat at the easel, with no idea. Then it dawned on me: that is what I will paint.

I actually considered long and hard what word/picture would go inside the word balloon and then I finally decided it was better empty. That said, I’m not above selling the painting and customizing the balloon for the buyer.

Personally however, I am quite happy with it being empty. He can be thinking anything: the possibilities are endless. A word in there, in my opinion, would cheapen the work. But like I said, I’ll cheapen my work if I can make a buck. I have no problem being a sell-out. To paraphrase my hero David Cross: “The mortgage company won’t accept my artistic integrity as payment.”

Day 19: Three Little Birds

I notice I'm starting to run low on black paint. This is kinda cool, since that represents a lot of painting, including the art show I did a couple years ago.

This is one of my favorites, not necessarily because of the subject or execution, but the story behind it. First off, this is one of the two paintings from this project that no longer belongs to me. Our friends K and B were over, K being only slightly more pregnant than a ground-dragging heifer. They were looking for a song to sing to their new child when she finally came into the world. Kind of a childhood song sort of thing, I guess. I don't really remember that from my infancy, but it makes sense.

My wife suggested "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley. You know the song:

"Don't worry
About a thing,
'Cos every little thing's
Gonna be all right"

Well, K and B were dawdling at our house late (not that we mind; always welcome) but I knew I had to get my painting for the evening started. I set up my easel on the kitchen table (one reason I do my painting after the wife has gone to bed) and started work.

I quite enjoyed walking into brunch the next morning at the New Deal Café, handing this painting to the proud parents-to-be. I have been told it will be hanging in their nursery. I think they liked it. (Baby S was born in early September, 2009)

Day 18: Self Portrait

Interestingly, the photo reference is from a photo I took myself, at arm's length. So really, this is a self-portrait of a self-portrait.


I’ve had thoughts of scotch-taping this one to Day 16: “You’ve Said a Mouthful” and making it a Halloween mask. They look really funny together. Maybe I’ll try that as a painting sometime. I haven’t yet really revisited any ideas because I keep getting new ones. It’s a double-edged sword: do I go for the shiny, pretty new idea, or do I develop an already explored one? I might make a week or a month of revisits, because there are a few that I want to try again and improve on.

This painting came out of a conversation with a vicarious artistic friend who keeps saying if I don't learn anything and stretch my artistic comfort zone, then I will have wasted the opportunity this project presents. So I went home and did this. I can see where I can learn more and improve, but I'm quite happy with the results. Doing this exercise gave me the confidence to undertake my painting from Day 19. (tomorrow) This also builds on my Day 3 painting, "Nerd Starter Kit," when I painted those glasses.

Day 17: Dado

One of my favorite sketching activities is to start my hand moving around the page, making ink swoops and swirls and then see what happens. Most of them become characters. This one kind of evolved really quickly with a minimum of the stray lines that normally accompany a sketch.

In 2007, I traveled to a Clown festival in Shanghai, China. One of the performers who follows one of the more modern traditions of Clown/Buffoon has a very simple, hunchbacked no-makeup look. He squawks like a surly semi-verbal 4-year-old and hits people with a duck. He makes me laugh.

Day 16: You’ve Said a Mouthful

The eyes are the window of the soul, but the mouth is the window to the gullet.

The fun thing for me is even I'm not sure if this is an extreme closeup of some entity or if the canvas itself is the creature and it's all mouth.

This was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. I didn’t know what to paint, but I know one compositional trick is to peer through an opening to see something else, which creates depth of field. The mouth is an opening; a tongue is something else. I’ve always thought the eyes and the mouth are the most expressive parts of the face. Nothing more profound than that. I found this one goes well with the one from Day 18: Self-Portrait, though that was entirely unintentional.

Day 15: I've Got My Eye on You

In 9^th grade (age 14), a friend brought a book to school of Basil Wolverton’s art. I’d seen some of his stuff before in vintage pre-magazine Mad Comics, but didn’t know the guy’s name,. I loved the depth of field with a simple pen and brush. Black lines and black dots made these impossible characters pop out of the page and appear real.

One such drawing was a guy with one huge eye and one withered eye. The caption had something to do with Visene (or the 1950s equivalent) I’ve revisited this fascination a number of times in my work, since 9^th grade, but never before had I considered just how or why the guy’s eye would have gotten that way.

Now we know.

Day 14: 2AM

This one always makes me smile. I like to believe we all have an inner freak we bring out when the shades are drawn, be it dancing to the rhythm of the washing machine or singing karaoke into a toothbrush.

I had drawn this guy in my sketchbook on the way to the beach 2 days before … my lovely wife had taken pity on me having to roll out of bed so early so she drove the whole way. I drifted in and out of sleep with my sketchbook on my lap and let my mind wander.

I see sketchbooks like bibs: they are there to catch the things that leak out of you.

For a long time, I just kept them and would enjoy thumbing through them till they got full, then they would end up in a pile or on a bookshelf or in a box in the attic.

In the last couple years I’ve taken an interest in these old sketchbooks. They’re mostly full of crap, but there are moments of genius going back to my teen years. It’s particularly delicious to see my younger self trying just a bit too hard to be eloquent, witty, profound, and artistic. It’s kind of like self-reflective Schadenfreude: boy, was I an idiot! Ha ha! OK, with occasional flashes of genius, but still, MORON!.

I have long understood that 90% of anyone’s ideas are crap. It’s the ability to recognize the other 10% and run with it that makes one great. I probably run with 30-40% of my ideas, but I like to think I choose some of the genius and for the rest, I have a well-honed talent for turd-polishing.

This painting comes from deep within I think. We all have a pathetic weakness for our inner fantasies. Or at least we should. When I was little, I used to wish upon a star that I could fly like Superman. Then I would test it by running 2 or 3 steps, launching myself on the lawn, and then landing on the lawn, outstretched, belly flop. I bet mouse ears and cheese hurts much less.