Digital Paintings Hitherto Not Here

 



 Can you tell what they are yet?

2003, into 2004

2003, into 2004....

Beach Boys, Brighton, crusty painting, high faluting ideas, specific palettes...

Crusty etheriality...


Not long after I graduated, I discovered the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, and I found this gave me a good deal more to believe in.

At the time I lived in Brighton, in a little terraced house on a steep road opposite a nice little church with seagulls on the roof. I was in the real world now, except I wasn't.













I was unabashed about being soft and having feelings.
(Goodness knows I always have to have something to be unabashed about. I'm pretty much abashed about everything else.)





Part of me finds these a bit namby pamby. Part of me accepts them as part of the past. Part of me quite likes the naive qualities and sometimes I think if you stick with naive qualities you attract people.










but it was all a bit fragile, breakable by unbelievers ... and by my self-doubt

and you can't sell your feelings and your sincerity very easily


though I remain unsure what you can sell very easily.

and the things you're sincere about change....

joy of chalk

Now this is a bit more fun, if not actually less stupid.





I have some pastels now, but most of the colours are a bit full on. They are probably better in the long term in conjunction with more sobre media, but when you have something new, you gotta make a mess with it.

Many Tiny Lines

I've been arting... I got a book about Durer's drawings with my book token so I have done some studying Durer and his lines, but also thinking about kitties and kitty breeds.

Here is a Pixie Bob and a turban.





Here's a Havana Brown cat that looks like an otter and Durer's Oriental King.

Strutting Chickens

One of my preoccupations seems to be puffed up cockerel bullies who may or may not intend to kick sand in your face in order to steal your girl.






Perhaps this wonderful Crumb fragment can help shed some light (You can click to enlarge):











These boys may suffer from a very rare type of homosexuality in which one is only sexually attracted to oneself.





nostril flowers:





Now let's spend some time relaxing at home with master race manboys Randy and Arnold. Dig the lamp.









When I tried to capture these two rapidly with my pencil, they became the same person. Their essence was the same.





It's nice to draw people I think are beautiful and also don't mind gently mocking. I don't know how vicious I'm capable of being in my drawings... Sometimes people say they seem raw or fearless, but they're always done with some measure of love... perhaps that makes them more fearless. I don't know.

I have a very particular tendency to want to shout insults at my favourite people. Spirited ones. Spirited insults.

Everybody loves me! I'm freakin' adorable

This week I have been intent on capturing the wrestlery thumb-like pink cuteness of Kurt Angle the wrestler.... with varying degrees of success. (The title of this post is something he once said.) I think I’m building to something. I like doing at least two people on a page. Peoples’ faces are so gorgeous and so ridiculous. It’s nice to have two in order to milk the comedic and miscellaneous chemistry that occurs between a pair of mushes.

I’m also still a beginner at this caricature business, and I haven’t quite figured out what I ultimately want from it, apart from the obvious cheap thrills. Now let’s see….




The above page was my breakthrough page. I think a key factor is the regrowth of Kurt’s eyebrows (in real life) after several months of overzealous silly plucking. They add a lot to the expressiveness of his face, and it was his distinct expressions that helped my Kurtify my Kurts in this instance.

The big one on the top left ended up looking more than somewhat like Slimer from the Real Ghostbusters. I regret this a bit because Kurt is cute. But he does have a big rounded intense manface.

The demonic gargoyle biro one in the middle at the bottom looks nothing like him really, but I liked the way the process was taking on its own momentum and getting towards some way out places.






Then I noticed that the problem is a cartoony Kurt gets a little bit Disney. Like a cute Disney goblin sidekick. That didn’t interest me.






Nope, still in loveable babyman territory…

I felt I almost had to go wilfully nuts at this point, or try to see him anew. To get a bit bad at drawing or a bit very good. I got a little somewhere.







I wanted to try to get across some of the startling bigness of his eyes without them getting too… obvious.

It helps to include the bod.








Kurt’s big pink wide eyed neckhead has even found its way into pre-existing oil paintings. He looks like he’s just fallen in love! (This isn’t finished.)






Next time: Stuff that’s not Kurt!

Here’s a bit of a preview of something else. It’s a very poor blurry photograph of a hermaphrodite Ric Flair Britney Janus Wind God detail from a nearly finished epic landscape painting.






I love all your comments and interest and stuff.