The Temptation of Saint Anthony (WIP)
Posted: December 13, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 CommentI’ve been posting a lot of work-in-progress type things lately. I’ve managed to be really productive lately and am very much enjoying art production. One of the things I have managed to do recently is start on a homage to one of the paintings of one of my art heroes – the artist is Hieronymus Bosch and the painting is ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony.’
There are a lot of things to like in Bosch’s painting. ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony’ was a pretty popular subject back in the day and I’m not certain I understand all of the ways in which this saint being tempted was significant to people in Bosch’s time, but I always liked the image of St. Anthony sitting in his little hut in the wilderness while little monsters crawl around him. I had been drawing some random things in my sketch book and found myself playing with the image of a tree stump:
I didn’t quite know where I was going with this, but it reminded me of the Bosch painting so I dug out a book about Bosch and had a closer look. After mulling it over for a bit, I started sketching out a plan for my painting on a panel:
My Saint Anthony looks a bit more nervous than Bosch’s. His tree-house is surrounded by some symbols of office life – the phone, filing cabinet and out-dated computer with big old CRT monitor and papers carpet the forest floor instead of leaves. A mermaid is surfacing in the water in the lower RH corner and one of the goblins from Bosch’s original has become a more menacing figure, peering over the little fence like a nasty co-worker peering over a cubicle wall. For reasons I don’t entirely understand, one of the tree roots has become a hand wearing a watch clutching at the ground.
I thought that was a pretty good start so I started blocking in the painting with raw umber. I’m trying to be more disciplined in my painting than I have been in the past, and part of that is resisting the temptation to start working on some tiny detail that interests me instead of working on the whole painting in stages. Raw umber is one of my favorite paints for the early stages.
One of my goals is to learn more about introducing a sense of space and atmosphere to my painting. A warm/cool underpainting will hopefully help pull Saint Anthony forward and push the trees of the forest back. The red is a bit overwhelming but I think I can fix that.
Next step is to go in with white and start giving things more shape. Eventually I will start to work in ‘local colors’ like the brown of the monk’s robe, skin tones, etc.
Carrington
Posted: December 11, 2015 Filed under: art, Uncategorized Leave a comment
Posting activity has declined recently because a day job is keeping me very busy. Here is a magical, ecstatic, alchemical painting by Leonora Carrington, another art hero.
Rose knight WIP
Posted: December 7, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment
Compare this to yesterday’s post.
Rose Knight (work in progress)
Posted: December 6, 2015 Filed under: art, Uncategorized 1 Comment
This is a painting I have been working on, tentatively called ‘rose knight.’ Rose knight was originally started while I was listening to sometimes sentimental and sometimes bombastic classical music (Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier). He is a fearful and dangerous bully who clutches weapons and other comforting items to himself while worrying about what the cone head people are saying about him – at least that is the story I was telling myself as I was painting it so far. Please create your own narrative.
The scan is a bit flat and dark. There are hints of green in the knight’s face. Still working on this one.
MORE ART FOR SALE!
Posted: December 5, 2015 Filed under: art, crass commercialism, Uncategorized Leave a comment
Christmas is coming and I NEED CASH to buy THINGS! So scoot on over to my online shop and pick up some art! “It’s Wizard Time” is now framed and for sale and that painting will look SWEET hanging over the fire place while you swill your eggnog and teach the children to fear Krampus.
Fixing ‘Diver’
Posted: December 2, 2015 Filed under: art, Uncategorized 1 CommentHere is a painting currently on my workbench… a ‘work in progress’ but I am growing more interested in how it will turn out. I’m calling it ‘Diver’ for now – the name may change.
When I sat down to paint this evening, I wasn’t very optimistic because the above painting looked like this:
I don’t like it. Yeah, it’s supposed to be sort of an exaggerated self portrait – I was poking fun at the ‘portrait of the artist as a sensitive person’ and then there is that big old trepanation wound in my skull. Both in terms on content and execution – blech. About the only thing I liked was that little monkey skull sitting on my shoulder. How to rescue this mess?
I went in with white and black paint and began painting right on top of the thing (sorry, this is just a cell phone picture):
I think the exposed brain made me think of the alien from “This Island Earth” (see below) but in the painting it morphed into some sort of Darth Vader gas mask type affair. The pathetic little hands reaching up, as if he can’t quite figure out what he is wearing are a nice touch. Finally painted over those awful eyeballs.
This Island Earth
Orange inside the gas mask/respirator — I’ve had an idea. Hard to see in this picture but I’ve worked in some washed with a pale aqua into the face. About the only part that remains from the original is the ear (which, at this point, I have begun to quite like) and the exposed brain.
The respirator has become a furnace grate! The diver must be a passionate man – he burns inside his suit! Of course it’s no where near finished… there is all that space in the background and I am still undecided about the exposed brain, but I’m a lot happier with it now than I was when I first sat down.
Spelunker
Posted: November 29, 2015 Filed under: adventures, art, Goodman, Uncategorized 1 Comment
What is in the pit?
AVALANCHE LORDS
Posted: November 27, 2015 Filed under: art, Goodman, Uncategorized Leave a commentMore plugs from our shameless commerce division: Goodman Game’s Holiday adventure, ‘Advent of the Avalanche Lords,’ by Tim Callahan is out today: Official Goodman Announcement. Cover by the most excellent D. Kovacs featuring ‘heat mistress’ and bad elf riding an abominable snow bear and some BW stuff by me inside, including the below ‘splash’ page (the title and credits go in the upper LH corner). 
References to 70s era X-mas TV specials abound in this book, but these pass over my head because I was deprived as a child and my mother declared a war on Chri$tma$ long before it was fashionable to do so (explanation: Germans of her generation think ‘Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’ is for suckers).
Fifty Fantastic Functions for the d50
Posted: November 26, 2015 Filed under: Goodman Leave a commentAnother announcement from the shameless commerce division: The Goodman Games / Lou Zocchi ‘Fifty Fantastic Functions For the D50‘ kickstarter is live. I did the cover art and some of the insides — also work by all of the usual Goodman Games suspects. Pledging can get you the book and/or a d50 depending on how many $$$ you want to throw into the bucket.
Here is one of my 2 page spreads from the book (click to enlarge):
In other Goodman news, the DCC 4th printing Kickstarter finished yesterday — very successful! I’m looking forward to seeing that in print.
Wizard Time (again)
Posted: November 24, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
This one is done. You can look back and see it in process here.