All You Need is Love (seriously).

Trust in the conquering power of love. William Blake was right when he said that "if a thing loves, it is infinite." Love is the gradual wearing down of all the bullshit barriers telling us that we are separate from one another. The more you love someone, the more the barriers erode. The more this happens, the more you merge. Love is like water. Water wishes to merge, but the land keeps it apart or the sun burns it away. But it always finds some way of reconnecting to itself, like in cool gentle rain upon the surface of a koi pond.

There is very little of value in the things that I make, but if only one can appreciate it, then it has served something of a purpose. I think that I have been stunted artistically. I still want for everybody to like what I do, but I am beginning to realize that this is not possible. I am basically a small child fastening his drawings with magnets to the refrigerator door, hoping to win praise from mommy and daddy. But if mommy and daddy are strangers, then why would they care?
This is why to me, it is futile to create works that do not inspire love. If it does not inspire love, then it is not infinite. Love is a cycle just like water is a cycle. It is always in your best interests to perpetuate love because when you do, it comes back to you. It just works that way.
Why not make work just for the people I care about? Who cares at all about a whole planet full of haters? They can't even perpetuate themselves since they're so busy bringing one another down. When they set about destroying someone else, they take themselves down too. And the saddest part is, most of them will never want to change until it's far too late!
i don't do things in an orthodox way. I don't pray in an orthodox way. Prayer is an act of giving something up, something precious like secret beliefs, and it is having full trust and faith that your giving will not be in vain. I think that's a prayer. You can recite familiar words, of course, like an Our Father or a Hail Mary, but those words don't mean anything without being given from the heart. They can be. These words, too, can be.
Words spoken, words thought, lines written, lines drawn, they can all in their own ways evoke the feeling of love. Music can evoke a feeling of love. It is easier than ever now to publish your own words, so why not do it generously? Why be stingy with what you have to offer?

Waddles, Mascots, and Folk Singers

This is our last full week of summer vacation before having to go back to school. I can't gripe about it because I am glad that I have a job. Between getting ready and painting murals, there hasn't been as much time as I would like for sketching. I made the most of Jeanne's eye doctor appointment this morning and drew Chuck up there. The other two drawings have been worked on since last month.
Aren't turkeys gross? The only magazine in the office that had interesting stuff to draw was the same outdoors magazine that I referenced last time. Everything else was a lot of 'Better Homes' crap, or worse yet, Golf Digest.
For those of you who are just joining us, WoofOink, The Mystical Pig-Dog is this blog's official mascot. WoofOink's new look is a much cartoonier synthesis of pig and dog that doesn't have a head on either end. The thought of how the poor creature would actually poo was keeping me up at night!

I guess the reason why I like to draw and paint so much psychedelic hippie stuff is because I sort of wish that it would have worked- I mean their whole ethos about a more peaceful and loving world. I wish that it would have worked, but obviously it didn't.
There aren't any real hippies left today, unless you count all the ones who actually lived thorough that time period and are probably all grannies and grandpas by now. The people who define themselves as such in this century are either being superficial or delusional just like I was ten years ago.
Not to say that there aren't people in the world today who share those values, yet don't call themselves hippies. There are people with good souls and people who place much importance on their dreams. Just because they don't reek of patchouli and wear a tie-dyed shirt doesn't mean they aren't children of the revolution.

Fly your freak flag!

Musicians

Copied from a photo in an old book from 1972.
Ink, Prismacolor, and acrylic in Moleskine, 2010.
I love hippies!

It hits on color combinations that I like. I am interested in exploring monochrome figures further. I am getting very accustomed to the cream color of the Moleskine being in the background!

Cranach the Elder: Original Gangsta, 1508

Prismacolor, ink, acrylic, collage in Moleskine, 2010

The detail from Lucas Cranach the Elder's original painting, The Martyrdom of St. Katherine, that the central figure comes from can be seen below.
It is with great ease that I can draw and paint grotesques. It is much easier to render something hideous than it is to create something beautiful. One reason why I like Cranach's paintings so much is that the old master was also adept at painting horrendously ugly creatures, and it tells me that I am not so far off base.
Some art historians believe that this was actually Cranach's self portrait as St. Katherine's executioner. Sneaking my own face into drawings I've made is also something I enjoy doing.
The works of the old masters can provide interesting subject matter for new compositions. I was never much a fan of doing straightforward 'master studies', I am more interested in only paying attention to details that intrigue me. I do put some effort into being thorough and honest about my sources, however.

Doodles From the Noodle

On the left is an imaginary home I designed for me and Jeanne. On the right is a self-portrait with cartoon eels where my head should be. From my fingers dangle the four yellow talismans that once in a dream foretold my doom. Sometimes I don't know where I'm going when I have a brushpen in my hand.

We are preparing for our wedding which is in less than 90 days! We are painting murals for the nursery in the school where we work and we are not getting paid a dime for it. I am inadequately prepared to teach my first classes when school starts up again one month from now. There's a lot on my plate. Yet I am still finding the time to exercise, make playlists, read fantasy novels, and go for twilight bike rides around Old Metairie.
I hear crickets outside my window. The moon is a fingernail sliver in the sky. Cats are sleeping on top of my car. Nighttime in the summer is a fragrant and muggy affair that most people ignore within the confines of their air-conditioned palaces. I like to glimpse inside of them while passing, usually to see nothing more than the glow of their TV sets.
The nights of suburbia inform my dreams. I ride upon zephyr wheels, inexhaustible, down amber-lit tree-shrouded avenues. The occasional quaint architecture stirs the imagination. In my nocturnal paradise, I am surrounded by funny old buildings with elaborate gardens. To glide down an empty street is a favorite pastime.

A Dessert So Sweet, it Made Cake Taste Like Straw!

Images from last night's somnambulist slide show.

systema magicum universi

Prismacolor and graphite- two kinds of media that never look the same after they are scanned. Nonetheless, here we have a random stranger transformed by the alchemy of drawing. Is drawing a kind of magic? Our ancestors in the caves at Altamira seemed to think so. Drawing is my systema magicum universi.
I don't pretend to know rationally how this system works, I just have faith that it does. Even failed attempts at art enrich my reality. Looking at any drawing I have made evokes the thought process that went behind it. It almost becomes an exercise In mapping my consciousness as it solves creative problems.
Drawings conjure up the dichotomy of light and dark, of form and void, of all there is and of all there could be. Stare at any pattern long enough, or at any image with a high enough contrast, and then close your eyes. What do you see? It is as if your optic nerve has taken a picture, as if the negative is burned into your memory. The image is transformed into mental energy, and mental energy becomes thought.
Pick up a pencil and do it yourself. Make a new reality. You have the power.