New Print

Night Gallery 2014 coming up October 4

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I’ve done Night Gallery for the past two years now and I’m coming back a third time for this awesome and creepy horror-themed art show! Not only is it dripping with fantastic macabre art of all types, kinds and prices, as well as tasty Halloween Treats, a minimum of 20% of all art sales goes to benefit PAAWS Animal Rescue!!

Night Gallery will take place from 6pm-9pm on Saturday, October 4 at the Ahh Spa in Evansville. See you there!

The Facebook events page is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/332689243579497/ and the awesome cover art (pictured above) is by Christy Jochum, from her insanely awesome “Beauty and Brains” zombie pin-up series!

Rex, jellyfish and more in the Threaded Canvas shop

featuring King Cupcake art shirt by Gary Logan Hobdy and Take Me With You art print by Heather Landry
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You know I had to show off the Threaded Canvas Storefront since it features Take Me With You as its print example!!

The store is a godsend to anyone who missed a particular shirt or print they wanted in past boxes, and has a lot of new and great art that hasn’t been in a box yet! I’m personally lusting after about half the store as we speak.

I’ve also added my Threaded Canvas Artist Page to my Social Media links below, and the store to my Purchase Art Online links.

DRIFT part 1

two children adrift on the sea of the earth's atmosphere, their ship a home-made rocket
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two children adrift on the sea of the earth's atmosphere, their ship a home-made rocket

A lot of people have resonated with this cute digital painting of two children navigating the sea of outer space on their home-made rocket, powered by a star. I’m even proud to say it took 1rst Place at Digitized back in 2011! It’s knocked around town in several places and forms (more on that next post) and finally come to settle on Society6 and Redbubble. But there’s more to the children’s story:

This piece actually has a place in my personal mythology. The two children are the same kids from Atomic Jazz!

a bright and glorious titanic jellyfish fills the sky, bringing either destruction or new life and vitality to the city below as two children placidly watch.

These two children are my son (right now still in pre-school, I aged him for these pictures) and the little sister I thought he might end up having one day. This little sister is also one of the two possible children filling out the mysterious raincoat in The Seashore:

A child in a red raincoat stands on shore and regards a sailboat while holding a bundle of brightly colored floating jellyfish balloons.

I made these three pieces when I had my son and was aware I was going to have a younger child to accompany him through life, but didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl. The little girl would have been called “Violet,” and so that is her name in these pictures. I did eventually have my second child, a merry little boy! And so “The Seashore,” which I deliberately kept ambiguous, turned out to be the first picture of him in my series of fantasy children.

Endless Forest

a photomanipulation of an impossible fantasy forest where there is no sky only trees upon trees.
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Possibly my most successful photo-manipulation and also one of the simplest concepts I’ve done: a fantasy forest that is unending, no sky but only graceful trees above and below. As with everything else I posted this week, this will be at both Art in the Wild Saturday and the Earth Day Art Crawl on the 19th.

Endless Forest is now available on Society6||Redbubble.

Photo credits:

http://carro-stalk.deviantart.com/
http://umbradenoapte-stock.deviantart.com/

Yggdrasil and WIPs

the world tree of Norse Mythology with the nine realms Asgard Vanaheim Alfheim Midgard Jotunheim Svartalfheim Muspelheim Niflyheim and Helheim as well as the rainbow Bierfrost.
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And just in time for my next three shows! Yggdrasil 11×17 posters will be proudly present at Evillecon, Art in the Wild and Earth Day Art Crawl…at least, while they last!

Here’s some process shots for you to sink your teeth into:

YGG_WIP01 copy
YGG_WIP02
YGG_WIP03
YGG_WIP05
YGG_WIP06
YGG_WIP07
YGG_WIP09
YGG_WIP10
YGG_WIP FINAL

There are a few interpretations on which worlds make up the Nine Realms of Norse Mythology, and where exactly they abide in relation to the world tree. Here’s what I decided to go with:

1) Asgard [Aesir gods] 2) Vanaheim [Vanir gods] 3) Alfheim [light elves] 4) Midgard [humans] 5) Jotunheim [frost giants] 6) Svartalfheim [dark elves] 7) Muspelheim [fire demons] 8) Niflheim [ice and the dishonored dead] 9) Helheim [the land of the dead] And of course the rainbow, Bierfrost and the Midgard Serpent.

Yggdrasil is on Society6||Redbubble.

If you haven’t met Angel Rex yet, it’s time.

angel res knows how to rock out with a guitar and halo.
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This guy is one of everyone’s all-time favorites, and it’s easy to see why. You just gotta love Rex!!

pink-blue-rex_sm

You may recognize Rex from my block print series post here. These babies will be with me at Wesselman’s Nature Center for Art in the Wild on Saturday April 5, and again on Saturday April 19 at the Earth Day Art Crawl on Franklin Street!

Millions of Rexes!
Millions of Rexes!

The many faces of Rex: sticker||shirt||Society6

It’s all part of his plan to take over the world.

Memento Mori

in the tradition of the medieval still life with a skull mixed in as a reminder of mortality
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Now to go back to a very old piece indeed, this conceptual still life from 2006 or so! My only goal here was to do my own version of the kinds of medieval and renaissance still-life paintings I remember seeing where various objects like books, globes or dead fish would be interspersed with a human skull as a reminder of mortality. If memory serves these were called “memento mori.” But it’s been awhile since I was in school, admittedly.

I was also interested in what was described to me as the “archaic smile” that was normally found on ancient Greek sculptures of girls and boys (Kore and Koros, I think). These beautiful young people wore enigmatic smiles as free-standing sculptures or pillars, supposedly because it made their faces look like they wore the proper serene expression when being viewed from below. I’m wracking my memory here, but I believe that’s what I was thinking when including the bust of the young man.

Memento Mori is on Society6||Redbubble. Among other things I made some depressing stationary you can use to remind people of mortality.

a skull superimposed on a cracked eggshell turned into a piece of unique stationary for the goth in us all.
Oh no!!

Ode to Homura

clocks and higanbana abound in this homage to Akemi Homura of Puella Magi Madoka Magika.
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I made this gearing up for Evillecon. Since Evillecon is an anime [Japanese animation/cartoons] convention, the subject is anime related! These gears, clocks and spider-lilies (higanbana) are all symbols associated with one of my favorite anime characters, Akemi Homura. If you’ve ever seen a show called Puella Magi Madoka Magica (or just “Madoka Magica” in the U.S.) you know who I mean! If not and you’re a geek like me, I highly recommend it. It’s definitely not your typical cutesy magical girl anime.

Naturally, I think this baby looks particularly good as a clock.

wall clock inspired by Akemi Homura of Puella Magi Madoka Magika

More at my Society6!

Love Letter

two children standing in front of the tree upon which they pledged their love in chalk
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I did this work in 2013 for my “Patchwork Dragon” solo show in November 2013. The show version had pages from my childhood personal diaries collaged around the edges to form a border. After its debut at the show, this piece with the diary page collage was auctioned off by The Literacy Center to raise money to help adults learn to read. I picked this piece especially because of the title “Love Letter” and the diary entries attached to it. It seemed the most perfect piece I had for a literacy auction.

It’s sold now to a generous supporter, but this teaser I did for the Patchwork Dragon Show shows some of the diary collage on the original piece:

two children pledge their love in chalk on a tree, surrounded by collage from my childhood diaries

Love Letter without the collage is on Society6||Redbubble.

You can check out The Literacy Center on their Facebook and at their home site, www.litcenter.org.

helping adults learn to read

Toxic Angel

a holy temple now defaced and painted over with graffiti as the former guardian, now in a gasmask to ward off corruption, looks on
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I deliberately inverted the peaceful Holy Place from earlier in 2013 for my end-of-2013 solo show God From the Machine. The solo show focused on mechanization and the sometimes sinister mating of the machine-world with the natural world, so letting this discord and unnatural atmosphere seep over Holy Place seemed like an effective way to evoke that. …it kind of hurt to do though!

Available on Society6||Redbubble.

Sushi!!

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We’re getting quite close to Evillecon 2014! Evillecon will be held in Evansville, IN the weekend of March 28-30 and will feature, among other things, an Artist Alley cram-packed with talent. And guess who’s going to be wedged in there with all those wonderful artists? Me!! I have a lot of different things I’m bringing, including many of the fantasy and sci-fi prints you’ve already seen on here, as well as pinback buttons, charms and little stuffed stars, but today I thought I would share my cute sushi art with you.

These sushis, wouldn’t you know it, are also available as keychains! I’ll be selling these at Evillecon.

shrinkydink sushi, cup noodle and riceball keychains

If you can’t catch Evillecon though, Sushi is also on Society6||Redbubble.

Elegy

a tree in autumn reds and purples with a halftone background and cicada husks clinging to the branches
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This is a digital painting of a lovely tree we used to have in our backyard. The cicadas loved it. Unfortunately it died one year and we had to cut it down. Our neighbors lost a tree as well, I heard it was some sort of worm epidemic that claimed a lot of the trees in our neighborhood. I did an earlier version with much brighter colors but ultimately decided on the more autumn-colored piece.

a brightly colored tree with tiny cicada husks clinging to the branches.

I did this piece so large that I was able to isolate one of the cicada shells on the tree and make the small print from this post!

“Elegy” is available on Society6||Redbubble.

Atomic Jazz and my most touching customer

a bright and glorious titanic jellyfish fills the sky, bringing either destruction or new life and vitality to the city below as two children placidly watch.
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This painting of a jellyfish/bomb was responsible for creating one of my favorite customers of all time, a little boy no more than ten and probably not so old as that. He and his sister admired the different digital paintings at my table at Evillecon 2011 and their mother told them that they could each buy a print if they wished. The little boy considered long and gravely and then asked me the meaning of Atomic Jazz. I explained pretty clumsily, how the city is meant to be dull and drab but suddenly, this impossible amazing thing has happened, and this great creature of color and vitality has descended upon it to shake up all the people in the city.

Wide-eyed, he said “So they jellyfish didn’t come to destroy the city…but to transform it??” I couldn’t believe my ears and I felt no end of amazement at this sweet child and his marvelous insight. He asked his mother if he could buy Atomic Jazz and receiving her assent, handed me the money with trembling hands and asked if it was really okay for him to have it and take it home. Aside from my own boys I can’t remember the last time a child touched me so deeply! Wherever you are, young man, you will always be one of my best memories!

Atomic Jazz is on Society6||Redbubble.

And now I am curious: have any of you been deeply touched by a customer, artistic or otherwise?

CORE

A mythical reactor core, super heated on one side and super cooled on the other, sci-fi cyberpunk
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Made in late 2013, this was a HUGE piece in my last solo show. As I made it I was thinking of some kind of impossible reactor core, superheated on one side and supercooled on the other, a little like the thing that held Akira.

Available as a print from my Society6.

City Eye

A vaguely gothic lolita looking woman lowers her umbrella in the rain as the spirit of the city descends behind her.
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I did this piece to display at the 2011 Evillecon Artist Alley (ramping up for this year’s Evillecon right now)! I woke up from a daydream where I had this vision, but I suspect that it was partially inspired by Harlan Ellison’s short story “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs.” The spirit of a city plays a part in that story as well.

This is available as a print and other items from my Society6 shop.

Holy Place

A marble statue holds a marble dove in a peaceful abandoned temple.
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Made this at the very beginning of 2013 for a contest. I didn’t win the contest but as sometimes happens, making and showing this piece led to a lot of other opportunities. I did an inversion of it called “Toxic Angel” for my December 2013 solo show. I’ll update with that piece another day!

Now a piece in my Society6 shop.