Monday, November 12, 2007
So part of me — luckily a very small part of me that doesn’t listen to instructions very well — is saying that I shouldn’t post any more of my paintings, because their content (along with the content of other artwork) is being used against me in legal proceedings to make the case that I’m [insert inaccurate crazy/violent person term here]… I really found the idea of using someone’s art to demonize them extremely disquieting and frankly offensive. What’s next? My goofy little kid’s limericks are going to be used as evidence as something more dastardly than the fact that I have little sense for rhythm in a rhyme scheme?
On that note, work’s moving ahead nicely on the potentially damning Death Comforts You… It looks better in the picture to be honest than in real life, which I’ll remedy soon with a few minor touch ups, after which I’ll do a topcoat and build a frame… I’m motivated to get this one done quickly because it’s already spoken for and I need to make some money to go Christmas shopping! The frame is going to be a deep red frame covered with little cartoon skulls. I actually have a few frames to build right now (Tikikaiju and Rookaiju are both unframed).
Sunday, November 11, 2007
I can’t actually take credit for this painting, as it’s done by my daughter (age 4 1/2). It’s called “First Snowfall”, done with marker and tempera paint on a 24″x36″ canvas (I helped with the finish painting part but other than that it’s totally her creation from concept to execution). It’s a duck, a spider, a muscular bird-beaked man with bat-wing hands about to sit down on a chair, a “bat cat” sitting on his knee, and a couple of butterflies all caught up in a snowstorm.
We’d actually planned to go to Riverdale Farm today (which we did do), but on the walk back to the car we passed the necropolis and read the gravestones, and actually took about a two hour detour through the graveyard (and insists on returning tomorrow — future zombie hunter?). She’s at a wonderful age where rambling storytelling that’s 75% fact and 25% fantasy is what it’s all about. Because PlanetSpace is talking about building the first Canadian spaceport near our homestead on Cape Breton Island — which I’m very excited about — we spent some of our after-supper time drawing rockets and watching videos on YouTube of shuttle launches, space walks, and moon missions… The funny thing is that all of the space things that I was convinced I’d experience as an adult are now the things I’m convinced she’ll experience… I hope my predictions are more accurate now than when I was a child.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Since it looks like this painting is already sold I put a little time into laying down basecoats on it today. Depending on how much time I can dedicate I figure I’ll finish it this week, although I anticipate it being a rough week… Dealing with the despicable things being attempted is extremely draining. Hopefully I fare better than my lizard friend here. His week got the better of him.
I have a bunch of old paintings that I don’t really know what to do with because they’re low quality work and I just don’t have space for them all. I’ve been making assessments of what’s worth keeping and what’s not… Some of the canvasses I can reclaim, but unfortunately most of the canvasses are too small to bother keeping, and because I don’t think it’s good work, I’d rather scrap the paintings than see them hanging somewhere else. I use them to do experiments first though — seeing how different media combine and so on — so it’s not a total waste at least.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
I posted the sketch a few days ago, but I had a chance to sketch this out on the canvas today and it’ll be the next painting that I tackle…
I like the paintings I’m doing a lot these days, and I’m building up a nice portfolio of work in this series. My friends say nice stuff to me about them, but I really wonder if I’m kidding myself that I can actually pull off a successful gallery show let alone sell enough art to maybe live off it one day. I mean, it’s not like the stuff I paint isn’t something that anyone could paint… All it takes is the motivation to do it — but maybe that’s the big scam in art… That anyone can do it, and anyone can do it well?
But I guess that’s true of most things, and one of the realities of success in all things is that it’s as simple as just going to the effort of doing it.
