Day 35&36: Rainbow Heaven and Hell

Experimenting with a masking technique. Also wanting to get ahead, in case I miss a day. This painting connects to the one for Day 36. I painted them together. They stand on their own as separate pieces, or can be hung together, side-by-side, or one on top of its inverted mate. I do plan on some triptychs (3 paintings on a theme, see Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthy Delights” or any number of Renaissance religious paintings in 3 parts, but displayed as a whole) …

I have long been fascinated by the stories we’ve told each other to explain why we’re here. Because Judaism and Christianity have been so pervasive in Western culture (especially the USA, where I've spent the majority of my life), I’ve been especially fascinated with them. Christianity in particular has adapted to the tastes of the populace wherever it goes.

My research has shown the early Christians were masters at marketing their product, borrowing and adapting multiple-gods ideas from pagan peoples and applying the idea of saints, to aid the conversion of the pantheists. The vilification of a horned god to personify the Hebrew concept of Satan (viewed by Judaism as our own "Evil Inclination (Yetzer Hara)" -- the urges within us which hinder our better selves) http://www.beingjewish.com/basics/satan.html . Borrowing from the Jews, Christian Missionaries of the Middle Ages took the idea of the evil that resides inside each of us (Satan) and embodied it with the image of a horned Pagan god to make the non-Christian religions seem wrong.

In any case, the horned, red-faced Satan and the image of a bearded Caucasian God (Zeus? Jupiter?) make fine iconic shorthand for our cartoons.

So ... Fire and ice. Good and evil. Heaven and Hell. Pan and Zeus. Odin and Loki. Yin and Yang. Take your pick. You'll be right.

Day 34: Booze helps me be artistic

OK, I was drunk, tired, and lazy.

But at least I was drunk, tired, and lazy with discipline!

Wow, this project has helped me see how often I’ve been drinking recently. And how much even a single beer diminishes my motivation. I recently met a woman at an indie comic book show (SPX) who says when she wants to paint, out comes the Tequila. I can’t work like that, and would not want to use alcohol that way.

Although I am way too distractible to develop a hard-core drinking habit, I realize I’ve been glugging a bit much recently. (Mostly, Belgian ales, German wheat beers, for the taste, with the pleasant after-effects which bar the path to productive work.) I do need to scale back the booze though. Love it as I do, it’s getting in my way. And I’m starting to realize this project is a physical activity. There are so many hours of the day.

Day 33: Robot with tentacles I

Had a couple of beers. Not feeling like painting. Put some colors to canvas to see what would happen. Once I saw the swirls, I got images of The Day the Earth Stood Still – or at least that era of sci-fi. Makes me want to get some huge canvases and paint huge and see what happens. Need bigger studio space for that though. I love these kinds of paintings because I get to watch my subconscious at play. Klaatu Barata Niktu, dudes.

Day 32: Interchange

Dancing my way home at 2AM with my ipod after a neighborhood party. Feeling good, beautiful evening, happily tipsy and groovin’ to Baba O’Reilly, a Who song that brings me back to the good stuff of teenage rebellion and British Invasion super-groups. When I got home, I knew exactly what I wanted to paint, the image fairly well formed from the music, and later thinking of Pete Townshend’s near total hearing loss as a result of playing that wonderful music. When I got home, I was charged to paint, but boozy and tired. I fell asleep on the couch, woke up at 6am and whipped this out in about 40 minutes, desperate to get back to sleep and finish up my slumber. That is Pete’s guitar pictured.

Day 31: Unconventional fishing

I asked a friend what I should paint one night. He gave me a great theme: unconventional methods of fishing. While driving home, I went through a couple of ideas before this one jumped into my head. It was another case of relative sensory deprivation: it was dark, few cars on the back road, radio off, and, as stated on “Mad Men,” (I paraphrase) – “Think about it hard, then relax.” My first few ideas were very clown/cartoon like, in the Rube Goldberg realm, but I realized, needing to pace myself, I needed a simpler, more elegant idea. To date, this is one of my favorites because of the extreme lateral thinking involved, and it came like a Shazam thunderbolt when I was looking the other way. Those are the times I know I have tapped into something beyond the subconscious and hit an artery of the Collective Unconscious.

Day 30: Baba Yaga 2

The wife complained that the painting from Day 27 (Baba Yaga) was too dark. Historically, Baba Yaga was not considered evil. Her role in older mythos was to help those that have already died to find their way to the Spirit Realm. So although she was associated with death, her role was benevolent. This is similar to the Greek character Charon, the boatman at the River Styx (to whom you needed whom you paid to ferry you to the underworld, as we all learned from Chris de Burgh). At some point, Christianity came in, with more patriarchal leanings, and it was most efficacious to slander the older beliefs, vilifying the older gods/spirits/myths.

In any case, to appease the wife, I painted a friendly, happy Baba Yaga, playing with the child she’d given a flying mortar-and-pestle ride to a couple days ago. All is well and everyone’s happy.

This painting brought up some of my issues about trying to make one work to have the same look and feel of another work. When I do a completely new thing each time, my difficulty in making one thing look like another thing isn't apparent.

Additionally, I like to come up with new ideas each time. It's a mark of pride to be able to pull random things out of mid-air, spin them, and create gold. (Silver? Bronze? Corroded tin?) That said, I do recognize there's nothing wrong with visiting "old friends." Watching a documentary of Jackie Gleason, he said when he was putting together the "Jackie Gleason Show" (the show which created "The Honeymooners"), he realized if they were to do a weekly hour, it would behoove him to have recurring characters. I'm not yet settled on that idea, but it's definitely something on my mind.

I do plan at some point to flip through the paintings from the beginning part of my project and see where else those ideas take me. I'll save that for a day when I feel particularly empty.

Day 29: Directions

A few weeks ago, a particular thread on facebook got a visit from the “Drama Lama.” The wife and I were at a nexus at that drama, so that night, I decided to paint the drama. Originally, I just wanted to make a background and paint something on top (not even sure if I had an idea at the time) but this came out. I did some refining, but it’s an abstraction that I kinda like. I don't know how the colors are on your monitor, but I tried to get this scan to match the real thing, but then I realized your computer display is probably darker than mine, so it's futile. You want realistic accuracy, you gotta come to my art shows next year.

Day 28: Haring Cthulhu

It was a late night. I was compelled to paint, even though I was exhausted. “Think iconic,” I thought to myself. Keith Haring’s art came to mind as a style I could wing out quickly. I love the play of contrasts in art, not just in light or color, but also concept. Keith Haring’s art is always bright, happy and positive. It wasn’t a long stretch to find the opposite of that: Cthulhu. Satan seems just too ... friendly by comparison.