Deryke's New Ink Work

untitled 4, originally uploaded by dc9000.

Deryke, who is my internet friend, has been making real nice ink drawings. Some of them have gold leaf, like this one.

They are evocative of landscape, outter space, spills of oil and gasoline, urban decay, the beauty of nature. I get a lot out of looking at these. I especially like the feeling of light pushing through clouds in this one.

Deryke is a thoughtful guy, and I know he puts a ton of work into making these look so flawless. That isn't an easy thing to do. It's sort of like dancing, you see someone who can really dance and they make it look easy and graceful, and then you (I) try to dance and embarass ourselves. These drawings are like the person that can dance.

http://deryke.blogspot.com/

Superego, Psychologial Satire

Psychological satire, Superego. You can get it for free as a Podcast on iTunes.

I am laughing wicked hard.

Basil wolverton. A pic i snapped with my cell phone camera yesterday while looking at the show of his work up at the Gladstone gallery on 24Th Street.

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Dash Snow

Kathy Grayson wrote a touching memorial text about Dash Snow. Click Here.

Fly Mouth

, originally uploaded by opeksei.

"Fly mouth examined with scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A bit of compound eye visible at upper right. " - opeksei

Saw this photo of a Fly Mouth on Flickr. There has been a big fly in my house the last couple of days. I was wondering what he looks like up close, and I guess this answers the question. There appears to be a strange triple tounge emerging from the hole/mouth area. I wonder if the two little circular things above the mouth are his nose?

A pic like this is great fuel for drawing.

Grass Person w/ Worm; 3 of 44

Drawing 3 of 44, Grass Person with Worm, 8 x 10", Faber Castell Perfect Pencil on Strathmore Medium Drawing Paper 80 lbs

Copying a Vincenzo Campi

A watercolor copy of Vincenzo Campi's 1575 masterpiece in Oil Paint, "Christ Being Nailed to the Cross." This composition was really challenging, because there are a lot of relationships I didn't notice until I started copying. For instance, folds next to fingers will be the same size and shape as fingers. Another, loops will form between the landscape and the figures, between the seperate figues, and everything sort of ends up in a complicated Celtic Knot type of composition. I admired it more and more the longer I worked on it.
My palette while working. Gets the job done. The table is a piece of glass duct taped over foam board with a plywood support, and then the whole thing attached to a 50 dollar Ikea Michael desk. It works great. The glass table top is for mixing oil and acrylic paint, and you can see the little plastic palette on the bottom left of the photo, that is my watercolor palette, it cost about 6 dollars at the Pearl Paint on Canal St.

Les Bell

Girl with Spots, Leslie Bell

Les Bell and I have been exchanging emails for a few months, recently Les put some of his thoughts about being an artist into an email, and it was so interesting that I asked if I could post it, here it is:

Artists are by nature strange. It's a requisite of the job—to stand aside from society and look at it from a bit of a distance. Not so far that one disassociates oneself from it but far enough to avoid being either overawed by it or to being suckered into an unquestioning acceptance of "the way things work". I've got to start writing down good quotes more often but I've seen several similar quotes in recent years including one by Frank Zappa that said essentially, "You can't have progress without stepping outside of the status quo and sustaining risk". Artists seem to be those who spend a bit more time stepping out/sustaining risk.

You can see some of Les's paintings, and read about him if you click here.

Bill Donovan, Studio Video, July 2009

Studio Video, Bill Donovan, July 2009

I make a Freudian slip in the beggining of the video and say that I have been "unaccepting" lately... introspective pause... maybe. Maybe I should open up more, and be more accepting.

Recently I was on a Eckhart Tolle kick, and reading his books and watching his videos online, and he has a great quote that goes: "If you are not friendly with the present moment, you are not friendly with life."

I have been trying to live the idea from this quote lately, I wonder if I am not totally open to the moment.

Now I am on a Fritz Perls kick, and I have ordered some of his books. Fritz Perls created Gestalt therapy with his wife Laura. He is a fascinating character/persona, and Gestalt therapy is very interesting as well.

Here is a great Fritz Perls quote I found online:

"Our dependency makes slaves out of us, especially if this dependency is a dependency of our self-esteem. If you need encouragement, praise, pats on the back from everybody, then you make everybody your judge."

Fritz Perls

I just read that Dash Snow died yesterday. Dash Snow was famous for pushing boundaries, and he pushed through the last boundary yesterday at age 27.

Bird Dreaming of a Man & Woman in a Landscape

Bill Donovan, Bird Dreaming of a Man & Woman in Landscape, 4 x 5", ink on acid free paper, 2009

Doodly Doo!

Doodling and regular drawing are approaching each other in quality, and from my experience of making. I am hoping this leads to a wholeness in my studio and craft.

Fritz Perls, Gestalt Therapy, Psychology Video

This is amazing.

Drawing 2 out of the 44

drawing 2 out of the 44.

"Man in a bag" 8x10" on Strathmore 400 series drawing paper medium, 80lbs, which is basically light drawing paper with a little bit of tooth. I am drawing with a Faber Castell "Perfect Pencil" which I received as a gift for my birthday from Laurie.

I am drawing on a little drawing platform purchased from Ikea for maybe 11 dollars. It raises the drawing on an angle so that it is more comfortable to draw, and you won't get the distortion that happens when drawing on a flat surface.

For these drawings I am trusting my unconscious mind, and not planning anything except that they will fit on the paper, and probably be a "head/face." Once the basic head emerges, then I am "polishing" it by creating very gentle gradations by being very careful and gentle when shading.

Oil Painting, Help me I.D. the artist?

old man painting, originally uploaded by Gild Inc..

I saw this painting on Flickr, the photo was taken in 2006 at the SCOPE fair in NYC. Does anyone know who painted it?

Drawings, New Stuff, Bill Donovan

This is a doodle I made last week, and I got sort of excited about the cartoon face on the lower right. So I made this drawing, where I basically was incredibly gentle with a pencil on drawing paper.

This is way more polished than my other cartoons. I am going for "polished" for the next 44 drawings I make.