Day 13: Coagulation

Sometimes, when I have a little extra paint at the end of an evening, I grab a blank canvas from the box and swaggle it around. I look at the shapes and see what I see. The shapes in orange suggested dribbling blood to me. A couple of days later, this is what evolved from it. It's kind of a zen exercise to look at essentially nothing and while actively trying to find "Inspiration." The active part is actively forcing myself to not be active. In other words, I give my brain a nudge and then relax and let my subconscious do its thing.

Yes, this one kinda creeps me out too, but I think it’s kinda cool.

I wish you could see them up close. The colors are much better in person.

Day 12: Smiley Slacker

Went to the beach with the wife and friends J&G. I had been up late the night before (painting) and had to get up early (6 or 8:30 or something. I’m not conscious at that point until noon most days) When we arrived, the wife and J’s wife stormed down to the beach; J and I collapsed in the hotel room with our dogs.

One thing I brought on the trip was some fruit juice that had fermented in our kitchen. Usually when this happens, it smells like sulphur and I can’t wait to pour it down the sink. Once in a while, some really fancy, high-falutin’ mix of yeast and bacteria settle in and make it happy juice. By taste test I’d say it’s 2-2.5% alcohol and a Mexican friend told me that this is a common drink in her native Mexico: they put cloth over (usually pineapple) juice overnight and the next day, it’s bubbly and tangy.

Well, by the time J and I woke up, the sun was heading down, the girls phoned and were on their way back from the beach, so I had a big cup of my happy juice and went out to walk the dog. I knew I didn’t want to spend the night painting because we were on holiday, and I was kinda tipsy. So I collected some dirt and and sand and lawn clippings to help my painting take shape.

So whereas the beach gave me less time to paint, there is a little bit of beach in this work.

Day 11: Skull and Crossbunny

This one will be on a T-shirt soon (drop me a line at AwfulCute.com if you’re interested, with your T-shirt size) I may have to clean it up for T-shirt use, but I have to figure out the best way to do this: probably heat press.

Other ideas I cast off from the same session, were a clown skull with cross-chickens and a hooker skull with cross (bones)

Day 10: I Will Finish What I …

I imagine those with an artistic mind, overachievers, people with ADD/ADHD, and parents should know this feeling/anxiety. How this came about: I was flipping through sketchbooks looking for inspiration for today’s painting and I found this rough idea scrawled in a margin. I finished filling that sketchbook in 1996. I thought it was funny then, and I think it’s funny now. What’s funnier is the idea remained in a sketchbook for over 13 years!

It was particularly fun to use paint to create a chalkboard. I worked a lot with the wet paint and studied a number of reference photos to get that mostly-erased look on the background, which came out way more trompe l’oeil than I expected. I’ve been learning a bit with masks in Photoshop of late and I’m seeing that masking tape is the primitive form of that technique. It’s pretty awesome in both the analog and digital worlds. Photoshop enables much more complex masking, but even just a straight strip of tape can create delightful results.

Day 9: Punk'd

Larger idea = larger canvas. This is a 12”x9”

I’ve always loved Spiderman. I think of all the superheroes, he’s the most likely to be embarrassed in this way. The reason Spiderman has been so popular -- apart from having cool powers, a cool uniform, and he shoots freakin’ webs out of his hands – is that he is human. Not a caricature of a human, but real problems. Bullied at school, misunderstood, can’t pay his rent, his boss is a jerk, and nobody really knows how awesome he is because he hides it. He’s a hero with low self-esteem and a fantasy life that isn’t a fantasy.

But he’s still prone to being pantsed by green goblins.

An artist friend critiqued some of my work yesterday, for which I’m thankful because I’ve seen her work and know she has a good eye … she pointed at this one and indicated some minor compositional issues. I have a good sense for focal points, but if I’m not going to break an edge with an object, I should steer clear of that edge. Spiderman (and his shadow) are a bit low by about 1/4 to 1/2 inch. Not awful, but a good tip to hear about early in my project and something I'll definitely keep in mind.

It makes me happy to be at a point in my development where I can admit I don’t know it all. I spent many years not wanting advice because it might show I was – I don’t know, incompetent? – and now I realize if you say, “I don’t know,” many people are happy to teach. Some even know what they're talking about, but I find the BS artists can also be a source of inspiration.

I can’t say I’m completely without ego about my art – I really do like my stuff -- but it’s liberating to know I can always improve myself and others are willing to help me do so.

Day 8: Uncensored

OK, I love women. I really love women. I would say I like women naked, but that wouldn’t be art. I like them nude. That’s art. Since this is art, it’s OK if the kiddies see it. This is a cultural experience.

This painting represents, well, my love of cartooning, the female form, and my hatred of the Puritanical censorship that masquerades as “protecting the children.” Whereas I think children should be remain safe from life-altering trauma, I don’t think seeing a titty is among them. Especially since science is pointing more and more toward breast feeding as an almost magical experience, nutritionally, immunologically, physiologically and psychologically.

It may be an unpopular view among those who think the world is only 527 years old, but WE ARE MONKEYS! Monkeys play with their naughty bits and fling poo. We’re not that different, we just pretend we are. Take away our electricity and our internal combustion engine, give it two weeks and we’ll be doing the same thing. Only we’ll have guns. I’d much rather have poo flung at me than get shot.

But I digress. Janet Jackson’s titty at the 2004 Super Bowl? I think it’s obscene that it became news. It’s obscene that children saw their parents over-react and dump heaps of shame over the human body, the one that our Creator has given to us. Fig leaves? Shame? That’s sooo 496 years ago! Let it go, and (I dare say) evolve!

day 7: I Drive a Babe Magnet

My beloved 1994 Toyota Corolla wagon. Leaks oil, transmission slips. Dinged, dented, what's left of the rear struts rattles around like Harvey Fierstein with bronchitis ... but it still gets 30-34 mpg loaded up with junk.

It's on its last legs and I intend to drive it into the ground, but I just received word from my mechanic that the struts are completely gone and will cost $650 to replace, and probably will need an alignment. So I know I'm going to have to shop for a new car.

I'm hard on my cars on the inside but I try to maintain the motor. But the missing hubcaps (and recently I covered it with band-aid shaped bumper stickers) say I don't really care to be struttin' around in a Beemer.

So $650 to put it on hospice is overkill. I know it'll die soon so I'm going to slowly find a good used Toyota/Honda with under 100,000 miles. (wish SUVs didn't replace wagons in this country). Unfortunately, the other day, I ran over a nail. I patched the tire, but it inflated weird (it started to look like Jabba the Hut with a goiter) so I had to buy a new tire. The cheapest I could find was 60 bucks, gol ding it! I paid, since donuts aren't supposed to last more than 100 miles, then it's borrowed time, and the wife expressed concern that I was planning on borrowing that time. My mechanic corroborated, stating that the donut is made of a different type of rubber and is designed for getting you from the side of the road to the auto shop.

In any case, I painted this one up before all this came down. Just a tribute to an old friend and an acknowledgment that I know I'm not going to impress the ladies in this beloved pile of junk.

I want to revisit painting another car at some point ... I know I can do better, but it isn't a strength. I have been working on perspective, but that's one of those things you get in art school which I chose to run away from. Plus, I prefer organic shapes with fewer straight lines. Curse you Greek mathematicians with your straight lines and Platonic ideals!