Art Backlog 2011 Part 2

All of these images are available for fullview in my gallery.

Art Backlog 2011 Part 1

All of these images can be viewed in full at my gallery.

Moodboard #2 Black Forest Antique

Another moodboard I made today. Again, most of the images I used can be found on my tumblr.

Dreads

Around 3 1/2 months ago, I started dreading my hair. I realized that it was no longer an issue of commitment, as I've had dreaded extensions for almost 4 years previous to this.
I was telling myself that I was afraid of being held back, but I began to realize that I'd be where I really wanted to be regardless of something liked dread locks, and that if anything I was being more held back by (kick me for sounding so cliche but it's true) being something other than what reflected my true aesthetic self.
I know who I am and who I want to be aesthetically, I've been drawing this aspiration in pictures for years now. She appeared a long time ago, and it was a manifestation of myself. People have said that I my drawings look like me, but I explain that I look like my drawings....that I have become more like my drawings as time passes.
I thought it was kind of funny that in one of the pictures I took tonight the drawing behind me mirrors my profile:The drawing in the background: I actually have the gold earrings in the picture I drew, and I did get them after drawing it. I'm actually pretty proud that I have become closer and closer to my art. I think that as an artist it's a good thing to be in close enough touch with your art to embody it.

Long Overdue Art Post II

Another set from earlier this year...


These are all my original works.

Vulnerable Maidens and Vengeful Mothers

"Persephone"
Persephone was the original little girl to fall down into Wonderland. Hades is played by Ralph Fiennes for a reason, by the way. Because he gives us all Stockholm Syndrome.

"The Ghost"
I had a dream about the Ghost of an angry Mother in a house that was haunted with her rage. The walls shook and howled.

Within the twilight chamber spreads apace
The shadow of white Death, and at the door
Invisible Corruption waits to trace
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface
So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law
Of change, shall o’er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.
Adonais by Percy Bysshe Shelley

This-way-and-that...

Life has been good lately! This "status cloud" which was generated out of my Facebook status updates seem to confirm it.
I feel as if I've made a lot of progress toward living that feeling I wrote about in my last entry. I had a wonderful day off the other day; huevos rancheros for brunch, time spent with friends, including a beautiful walk through the Mountainview Cemetery. It was a very nice day out, even though Spring still has another month to show up!These three pictures are all from the Cemetery's website. I brought my camera with me, but lately I am trying to spend more time experiencing instead of documenting. Perhaps next time I will take more pictures, maybe when more trees are flowering.






































This is a picture Poet took of me at the Marin Headlands, the only photo I have finished from that set. He's a procrastinator, it may be a while before we see the rest ^__^


Next:
New art....



I am extremely happy with this piece. It's colored pencil, acrylic gold paint, and liquid gold leaf on "Scarlet Letter" paper. It's St. Cecilia. St. Cecilia is my namesaint, Sheila being the anglicized version of Cecilia/Celia .
Saint Celicia was the patron saint of music, she converted her pagan husband to Christianity and revealed to him an angel who crowned them in garlands of roses and lilies. They were both martyred; first the Romans attempted to suffocate her in the baths, but it didn't kill her. Next, they attempted to decapitate her, but her head remained partially attached. It was said she lived for three days before perishing.
Next up, new things:
I love my new boots, I found them on sale, best of all! Just when the world is ready to get rid of all their winter items, I lie in wait, ready to snatch them up!


Another new item, this one constructed by Your's Truly:


I made it using supplies from Michael's, and one of Poet's wisdom teeth.
It took me a very long time to drill through the tooth because I was worried about cracking it, but in the end it worked beautifully!

I'm not happy with this scan at all, it's so grainy and the picture looks so much better in real life, but here it is:Brown color pencil on bristol paper.

A take off on this photo:

The unhappiness with technology aside, I'm very happy
with this piece and I feel like I finished it in good time.

When I usually draw women or girls, I tend to make them quite thin and lithe, probably because of the context of our current mainstream/alternative aesthetics, or perhaps as an act of self-insertion or a symbol of frailty, but probably for all of the above reasons.
When you look at these visions of beauty from the turn of the last century, they tend to be a good deal heavier that most pin-ups and models of our time. When I draw a girl from that era, I try to make her softer and fuller, to do otherwise feels disingenuous. Nonetheless I try to split the difference, use it as a bridge between this time and the past, one aesthetic bleeding in between inspiration and perspective.






This is a lovely movie:


I think I like Charlie Chaplin better behind the camera than in front of it.
What can I say, I'm a lover of Buster Keaton, that's the kind of lovable hard-luck case I fall for.
I still haven't seen the end of this movie, it's hard to make myself, I know it will be so sad!

New and Old Art

This is a quick pen sketch I did a couple weeks ago, however I do not have the means to complete it as I usually would before posting it online. While I wait for a new computer I don't have photoshop to add textures and correct color, I don't even have a scanner to use.
Believe it or not often half the work of using photoshop is to make an image resemble itself on a computer screen as it does in the real world.
In any case, here it is:



































And I'd also like to share an older one that I meant to upload previously but somehow missed:
This one was inspired by an image I found in a book of vintage erotica. I loved the concept of the image but it was done so simplistically for a magazine cover, and I wanted to try and spend a bit of time and detail on it, and do it justice.


I'm really proud of the line work and shading I did on this one. I titled it "Cannelle et Clous de Girofle"
which means "cinnamon and cloves."
I sort of love the somewhat naive concepts about eroticism and exotica that came from that era. Not that eroticism on it's own was a naive concept back then, we have a tendency in these times too look back on earlier times as being closeted and ignorant of sex, eroticism, and perversion. Trust me, they could be quite scandalous, they were human back then too, after all!
But I do love the idea of what at the time was considered "exotic" being automatically erotic, there are so many neat photos of such "naughty" fan girls haha....
Maybe I'll make some more art of that theme.






Here is the original:










































Mata Hari:

Other lovelies. Would we think these women were beautiful if they were walking around today? Probably not, we've learned such a critical eye! We should learn to relax and enjoy beauty out of context the way we do when we're looking at someone from another era.

A Backlog of Art Part IV

My most recent works!


Again....all sepia, rose tones, and gold, haha! I drew on inspiration from classic illustration, fairytales and mythology, and the antiquarian aesthetic.
At this point, you might begin to notice a repeating theme of dual symbols.
A snake and a peacock, here.

Here, two octopi.

Here, two birds.



Although at the time, the deep significance of such things were only just beginning to become apparent to me, in hindsight it's a clear reflection of a split occurring in my life.































I was moving from one experience to another, one life to another, settling into the realization that there was somewhere else I needed to be, and I found myself caught between two influences.




Now, I feel as though I'm in the right place, with the right person. Life still has so many kinks to work out, but there's nothing that beats that feeling of being on the right path, of making progress toward where you want to be.
I eventually found my way.















This is my most recent piece:
Pencil and gold acrylic paint on vellum tracing paper, layered over burnt butcher paper for texture, with pressed flowers and leaves.






















I'm very happy with how it turned out, although I couldn't show it digitally in a way that does it justice. For instance, I don't have a photo-editing program at my disposal at the moment. But at least you can see the gold!

A Backlog of Art Part III

2008-Present: Getting back to naturalism, texture, mixed media, sepia and GOLD!

This was a commission for an acquaintance, whose girlfriend does tribal fusion dance:


watercolor, pencil, pen, marker, and a little bit of gold leaf paint. You can't see the gold on this at all, this was before I figured out how to make it show up on digital copies of my art, but there's a faint halo and her jewelry is embellished with it.

Sepia pen and marker, also my first successful photoshop-created textured background.

Getting into the archaic, the mysterious, and the vintage. Using motifs inspired by art nouveau and illustrators from the Golden Age of Fairytale illustration such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac.











Almost caught up!
So much to share....