"Requiem for an Anonymous Artist", 2013

   Here is one of my latest traditional works...it will debut this month at Raleigh's cozy vegetarian eatery, The Remedy Diner. The piece originated from a sketch I had done a while back. This odd little concept had intrigued me enough that I wanted to explore it further in a different medium. Visually it has weird narrative implications...what is it? Why does it have a fish/embryo/brain thingy for a head...under a glass fishbowl/helmet? And why is it walking around on stilts? The answer---beats the hell out of me? But to me that is the point anyway...I love being perplexed by my own subliminal juxtapositions. These little cryptic pictures are loaded with peculiar taradiddles...perhaps that echoes the kid in me. I never want to lose that.
   The challenge was twofold: capture the essence of the sketch, but reinterpret it into a more "rendered" illustration. The sketch had been scanned previously  and so for reference, I printed it out into a scale that would fit within the canvas (BTW... small piece at 9" x 12"). Painting on black background reminds me of the garishness of velvet paintings...love  that technique.  So I transferred the image to the canvas board and positioned it on the picture plane so his motion showed him walking into the shot. I also tilted his form slightly backwards to accentuate the weight of slugging long stilts over a terrain...and to have an opportunity for the horizon to bulge slightly upward.
   I wanted to place my critter in a tranquil environment, the fence posts evoked a southwest feeling, so I decided a pseudo-sci/fi-western setting would do just fine. The addition of the strange vegetation was important to add to the painting's spirit. I had originated the alien cacti while doodling many years ago. I compulsively do this in staff/board meetings...a little habit I fell into as a child when I would scribble weird images on the margins of homework or tests. I also try to save some of these for referencing later...so it paid off here (unfortunately the original sketch has not been scanned).
   My goal is to explore this image even further in the digital realm. Certainly using Photoshop to add color on the scanned painting. It will serve as a great gray scale base to work over. But I also will manipulate the sketch too using Illustrator's fantastic blob-brush. This will take it into a comic-book illustration direction. I can't wait to get cracking. I will post any results later on.
   OK...I suppose that is it for now. It makes me feel a bit naked...well, not so much naked, but dressed in my pajamas getting milk at the local Walmart sort of thing...to focus on my own work. These talks are a bit self-indulgent. They are soliloquies offering up a slice of my mind for you to ingest. Hopefully that means Bon appetite...instead of a bone at y'feet.
   Cheers