Six Characters in Search of an Author (Twist)

There was an online contest for literary crossovers. I did Leroux and Pirandello, because that makes pretty much no sense at all. I think I got a few chuckles out of it, though. Digital sketch.

Gothic Valentine

Digital. Mildly Leroux-related sketch.  I’ve always loved dark melodrama, and so this was a fun, quick sketch for me to indulge my gothic side.

Shadow Queen

Colored pencil on paper.

This is a drawing I did from the Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean film, Mirrormask.

Frozen Missouri

A story: After I moved from Oregon the last time (to Ohio), I found it almost impossible to appreciate any kind of beauty outside of my jagged-mountains, crashing-ocean, evergreen-trees, always-raining home. I was not living in the most beautiful place in the world at the time. Actually, I was living in one of the ugliest places I have ever been. However, I was also living in the hills of Appalachia, near Amish country, near rural Ohio. Even seeing lovely forests and hills could not make me appreciate them as beautiful. I saw any landscape East of Colorado as tame and boring, because if it can’t likely kill you with its beauty then what’s the point? But, when on one of my frequent (daily) visits to the public library, I found a birdwatcher’s memoir called Out of the Woods by Ora E. Anderson. People talk about books that changed their lives because the book was inspiring, or helpful, or gave the person the courage to do the right thing –clichés like that. This book was not about grapping the stars and wearing a blue bird of hope, perched jauntily on the side of a sunhat. I didn’t feel as if I could “be anything/do anything”. But, in a way, it did change my life. The book is a very gentle memoir of an eighty-year-old naturalist. He is observant, and I would say, in fact, wise. He can really see the beauty in the world, and has the wonder of a child and the knowledge of his age. He’s the sort of person I would want to be instructed by. As it happens, he lived in Appalachia. I don’t think my life was changed in that I could suddenly touch the moon. But, I wanted to see the world in this way and not simply sit around in my teenaged angst, listening to Goth music and feeling sorry for myself because I couldn’t go to the beach. His observations really broke me out of my inability to appreciate the variety of beauty.

Out of the Woods is still one of my favorite books, and I suggest it.

I am now living in Kansas, and I can honestly say that, like Oregon or Appalachia, it has many beautiful places. I still miss Oregon, but I don’t hate Kansas for this. This painting I did after a snow, while overlooking the Missouri River. I only had a few tubes of paint, one brush, and I painted it with melted snow and much shivering. I wanted to capture all the unusual colors of an icy day overlooking the river.

Acrylic and snow on paper.

Unreal City and Girl, Dream of Gold Bird and Beasts

This is probably another I will re-shoot, and possible continue to work on. I’m experiencing some technical difficulties. Once again, the colors are richer in real life, and I feel many of the details have been flattened.

This one was very much a free exercise in images, colors, and forms that I find symbolic or important to me in some way. I wanted to paint something that related to my feelings of wanderlust and being trapped in by a society that I feel is less real than even dreams of the outdoors. Part of the title is from my favorite poem, but I won’t tell you what it is or which part.

Acrylic on canvas.

Mountains in the Morning

Unfortunately, I have had some problems with photographing this painting. The colors are much more vibrant in real life. However, I am not sure that this is really the finished project, so out of the shots I did recently it turned out the best. We’ll see if I make changes later.

The painting is supposed to be the feel of mountains and forests on a misty, early morning. I tried to capture the hazy, unreal feeling of seeing this. Because I am from Oregon, I am very much inspired by these jagged landscapes and pointed evergreen trees. Even though I do not live in the North West now, I feel that the landscape is a part of my memory and forms what I think about the earth and our relationship to it.

Acrylic on canvas.

Fish

Charcoal and pastels on paper.

Once again, another fish piece. This was an expressive or “emotional” work, an introspective exercise working on what exactly the symbols really mean to me. These round, nebulous fish shapes are like my totems. They’re not real fish, of course, just as this is not a real river, and when one kayaks on a real river one does not see the fish and the water above and below. But, rather, I wanted to use them as a signifier for freedom. The lone kayaker is heading toward them. There is something very pure about solo outdoors adventures, and the way nature seems to wrap itself around everything. It can be eerie and overwhelming, but also exciting. The kayak is especially useful because a single-seat kayak ensures your solo status.

Clara Bow

Pastels and charcoal on paper.

Clara Bow.   

Mermaids II

The sequel to my Mermaids series. I have a strong affinity for octopi and squids. I love tentacles and the way that they move. I had been sketching an idea for a classical-looking girl with a squid on her head. The girls in this diptych are supposed to be fairly classical-looking. The purpose of the fish and squid (or is it an octopus?) are the quirky, unusual side of both my lovely friends, and of women in general. I think the photo captured the colors better in this shot, and I may reshoot the first mermaid at some point.

Pastels on paper. Thanks again to my lovely friend and model!

Mermaids I

This is part of my fish-woman series, an on-going study in female figures and nautical imagery. The title, Mermaids, refers more to literal mer-maids (women of the sea), and not the mythical half-woman, half-fish characters. To me, ocean is one of the single greatest metaphors for femininity. I have not found myself satisfied with the delicate, dainty, domestic imagery generally associated with women. Frail tea roses, china glasses, and lace, pretty as they might be, are too easily broken or put away in cupboards for my liking. (And I usually am the one to break them, too.) It has always puzzled me that the ocean, with its obvious connotations to womanhood in the way it bears life in water, should often in mythology be ruled by a male god, likes Neptune. I think the less Hellenized west and the non-western myth-makers understood this concept better.

Pastels on paper. Thanks much to my beautiful friend and model!

America

A pen and ink political piece on paper. I painted the background in acrylic wash. The color isn’t blood red, unless this is a Quentin Tarantino universe, in which case it’d be about right. The small details are difficult to see in the photo, so I’ll post detail images later. The figures are a satanic Uncle Sam, various demons, a dead and headless Miss America (bye-bye Miss America Pie…), and a butchered freedom figure in the foreground. Starting at the top and moving counter clockwise, the demons are Invasion of Privacy, Fascism, Pollution, Television, Apathy (with its eyes, ears, nose, and mouth sewn shut), Gluttony, Noise, and Violence. The design was based off of old Madonna and Child paintings from the late Medieval/Early Renascence periods.