Hands & Pants collab : Many ideas, one outcome

My friend John Casey has been doing a specific collaboration with artists from all over for years that he calls "Hands & Pants" because that's what you get when you participate: a hand and a pair of pants. The rest is up to you. I had the opportunity to do this last April when I received a 8.5" x 11" pen and ink drawing of a hand and pants. With the composition and size, I was sketching, sketching SO many ideas. I went to the several boxes filled with collage pieces and thought, "Oh this would be fun" since I hadn't done a collage piece in a while. Well, the piece I chose, the flower headdress, extended far beyond the paper's edge. After hemming and hawing for a while, dabbling with a few other ideas, I made the (in the back of my mind, a possibly regrettable) decision to cut the being out and adhere it to a watercolor piece that I had been working on around the same time. I think it turned out nicely.

Thank you to John for the experience. The next Hands & Pants show will be in the Fall 2019 at Faultline Studios.

Old Small Jewel

  "Quiet" done in watercolor and ink crowquill is a work I finished a few days ago - after this piece sat langishing in various stacks of half started pieces for a number of years.
  I love it's vibrant misty silence. I can hear a hush of water and a rustle of leaves. I think I kept it unfinished for so long because of how much I enjoy this small jewel.

Spirit Flowers

These are small - 5.5"x 5.5" - pen, watercolor, and colored pencil spirit flowers. I do these sort of mindlessly, working out different color pallets/combinations, designs, and just general warming up. I did these at work where I don't have a compass so I used a paperclip and a pushpin.

Honeycomb Heart

Mixed media watercolor, ink, and colored pencil on bristol paper.

A Valentine for my Valentine

Last year I made pretty elaborate valentine and decide never to do another again. Well, that was a lie that made itself true less than a week and a half ago when I drew some fiery heart designs and thought how great they would make for a valentine. This was much more complicated than I initially realized, but I'll be damned if I don't finish what I start. This is constructed from 90# and 120# watercolor paper. Watercolor, colored pencil, and some gouache. And about 10 hours of work.

But this was all for love. Unless the focus of your affections doesn't much care for these sorts of things. Then don't fucking bother.

Song of the moment: "Ready to Bleed, by Prayers
Color obession: Dove gray
Smart words: predilection

Mask concept drawings-Buffalo

This is a concept sketch from about 3/4 of the way done to finish I did this past Monday (MLK Day) while hanging out in a café near my house.  I've been doing drawings of buffaloes a lot as of late, and my thoughts always turn to the way early American and European "sportsmen" decimated the American Bison population to the point of near extinction.  And, to add insult to injury, mainly did so just for buffalo hide leaving the carcasses to rot in the prairies.  Now, buffalo only roam on protected areas, such as ranches and preserves, their numbers not even close to what they once were.  I know why this bothers me.  It's the narcissistic, tyrannical attitude that people, especially in first world countries, seem to have in them.  I don't know why though, if you have a brain and a heart and aren't a psychopath, you wouldn't care that this has a history and continues.  So many creatures that make our world a really cool place to live are being brought to extinction, or near it, for what?  Delicious soup, a nice rug, a trophy, more land to build more structures that will remain mostly empty.  So many reasons and all of them bullshit.  It saddens and shames me beyond belief sometimes.

This concept I've called "Goodbye Buffalo" but have also been toying with naming the actual mask, if I make it, "American Domestic Policy."  My concept was to have a tired buffalo, with his head cover in blood and the beard made out of used rifle casings.

These were done in watercolor pencil, ink and gouache.

Music obsession: "Dulcinea" by Isis
Color of the Moment: Burnt sienna
Words that make ya sma'ta': Verisimilitude

Star Killer Dream Retriever

So this is Star Killer Dream Retriever which is based of a piece I did in a sketch book with a poem that went with it. This was a creation that came about super late night after another failed attempt at making a connection with my then best friend. I was pained by remembering all the wishes and dreams I've made...I wanted them all back, because I was and at times still am, extremely embarrassed and angry that so many have never come true. But, being older, and in a better place emotionally, I'm not so disappointed in all the wishes that have never come true, because really, the world is better for the wishes, the hopes in your dreams, however outlandish or impossible. I try to remember this.