Happy Halloween!

 

A quick sketch of Mr. Voorhees for Halloween. I didn't have the right "blood color" red but still liked how it came out.

The Blue Girl

 An older acrylic painting - can't even remember from when, but memory serves to remind me that it's modeled off of an old girlfriend. I've always struggled with color, but found that a monochrome palate makes shading easier than one that's wide open. Of course, that didn't prevent me from going with blocks of color like in the shade, but here I think it works. I tried to get an icy effect on the window with mixed results. Seeing this one again makes me want to give it another go!

Mother and child

I've always liked this picture I drew of Kelly and Hunter, way back when the H-man was a toddler. I was happy with how the background came out - always a struggle for me. I also find drawing kids hard, and feel that I was able to capture the essence of little Hunter's innocent surprise even if I'm not satisfied technically.

Russian Man

I've always been fascinated by Russia - there's something about the image that the word evokes - the open wind-swept steppe, the gruff men with amazing beards and fantastic hats, the questing philosophical literature, the onion domed architecture. My impression is that it's a land of contradictions, especially now when it's led by a fascist strongman that you can't get a true sense of what it's people are like. I've read a few books and none of them give me a sense of what it's like: from Andrew Meier's Black Earth to Ian Frazer's Siberia or even Orlando Figes' Natasha's Dance they all pain fascinating pictures but nothing that gives me a sense of what it's like to be there. (Of course, with a country that size, it's probably impossible to summarize in the same sense that the United States contains many, many different "countries" within its borders.

Anyways, Russia's interesting and I'm sure i'll continue to capture pictures that I like when I see them. I don't remember when I saw this Russian Man but I like the beard and his world weary eyes.

Flowing Hair

 As a child, I fell in love with Robotech anime, in particular the Macross Saga and the adventures of Rick Hunter. The great art started an obsession with drawing chunky, flowing hair. This one from the early 2000s was a fun and I think successful attempt at keeping the spirit of the style in a realistic manner.

Dogs!

I fell in love with this picture when I drew it years ago - if memory serves it was from an old issue of National Geographic. Dogs can be difficult to capture in line drawings - but I'm happy with how this came out using a mixture of solid blacks with some hashing. 

Dante's Inferno

 Here's an older one I drew when I had the time to take my drawing pad into the MFA. This is Dante from Henri de Triqueti's Dante and Virgil statue. 

Maine Canoeing

 Got inspired a while back to do a drawing of last year's Moose River Bow Trip.

Yesterday's Drawing

Here's a fun picture I drew over ten years ago and inked last week. I love her angular face and the big black blob of a coat.

Julianne Moore

I've always enjoyed Julianne Moore's movies. I was inspired many years back to paint a scene from her work in The Hours. I wanted to capture the translucent curtain and her amazing hair, and didn't quite succeed.  The hand makes me cringe as well. Still, there's something about it I quite like, and am hoping by posting more of these old paintings I'll get inspired to try my hand at something new.

Peter Garrett

"I know that the sunset empire shudders and shakes
I know there's a floodgate and a raging river...
Sometimes you're beaten to the call
Sometimes you're taken to the wall
But you don't give in"
Sometimes, by Midnight Oil, as sung by Peter Garrett, shown above

Happy Anniversary!

A few days late for celebrating their 10th anniversary, but here's my brother and his lovely wife. To many years more!

Miles Drawing

Check out a few pictures I drew for Miles in the last year or so:

Miles' Xmas Present 2018

Miles at 5 years old

Metablogging: I recently realized that I don't have a place where I can show people my drawings. So i'm created a new tag for when I occasionally get inspired to post something i've done: TGMArt.

Why Should I Care... If He Has No Hair?

It's a Who week here at Thought Ambience. I picked up Pete Townshend's Autobiography Who I Am, and am headed into Boston tonight to catch the Who at the Garden, where they'll be playing Quadrophenia in its entirety. Given that this is one of my all-time favorite albums, i'm pretty excited about it!

In celebration, I thought i'd share a pix I drew of the man a few years ago. Really excited to see the old guy tonight and see what he's got left in the tank. I'll let you know how it goes!

Burning Painings

As some of you probably know, I've recently given up painting. There are many reasons for this, but the main one was that I was getting frustrated with my talent level, and in order to get any better I was going to need to put in some significant practice that I just don't have. So I've put my painting on hold until I find more leisure time, which probably won't be until my kids get older and more independent.

Anyways, I was cleaning up my art room the other night and decided to get rid of some of my failed paintings. And what better way to do so but through fire?

I got a kick out of the fact that the middle face burned away first. Must have put more of the flammable paint on that one!