It is Saturday again, and it is time to share some more artwork. I am trying to come up with a theme. But I guess I am basically going through my gallery and picking stuff at random.
I am just guessing here, but maybe I can find pictures here of daily life at home, no matter how weird that home might be.
Maybe I don’t have a clear artistical idea of what a home life really looks like, but, after all, home is where the heart lives.
Filed under artwork, fairies, gingerbread, Hidden Kingdom, humor, illustrations, Paffooney
Today is a day I normally take it easy, relax a bit, and do some thinking and reflecting. On Simple Saturdays I simply post old artworks that I hadn’t thought of in a while. Now that I am going blind, losing the ability to travel, and possibly facing the last days of my life, it is important to pace myself and not rush anything. The finish line is near. And this race isn’t won by crossing the final line first.
Not all works of art are done with pen and ink, or colored pencil. Some require dolls and camera.
Some require camera and colored pencil.
Some pictures require a little Chopin in the background.
Is this both funny and creepy at the same time?
Sometimes the individual pictures I select seem somehow strange and off-kilter.
But mostly, I think, it’s just about the weird way my stupid old mind works.
Illustrations for fiction often work best with two characters together in the same picture. Then you not only have the two individuals. You also have a relationship. Valerie and Kyle are father and daughter.
But what’s the relationship between Leopard Girl and Dilsey Murphy (#81- Carl Eller’s Jersey)? Possibly Dungeons and Dragons character and player?
Brother and sister… the children of the superhero Muck Man (whose super power is his criminal-paralyzing body odor.) Muck Woman (NOT Muck Girl!) on the left, and Muck Lad (You can call him Muck Boy if you like. He doesn’t care.) on the right.
Two ghosts on the coast at night… not to boast.
Blueberry Bates and her devoted boyfriend Mike Murphy.
Francois and Mr. Disney, the dream-clown from Zoomboogadoo.
Farbick and Davalon with Mars in the background.
Filed under artwork, characters, humor, Paffooney
My boyhood in the 1960’s was complicated. There was fear and depression and growing awareness of violence and unfairness and evil in the world, starting in 1963 with the death of John F Kennedy.
There was magic and wonder in my childhood. I found comic-book heroes like Spiderman, fantasy movies like Captain Sinbad starring Guy Williams, and Science fiction movies like 2001; A Space Odyssey.
A sense of adventure and the wonders of the past came through reading. I read and loved Treasure Island and Kidnapped, both by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Of course boyhood is also the time in which we have to come to terms with sexuality and sexual identity. My battle was complicated by being sexually assaulted by an older boy. It took me a long time to sort out the fact that I was not a homosexual and being a victim does not make a boy into one. I was an untouchable child, but that didn’t stop me from obsessing about love and affection constantly.
What you learn to be in boyhood is what you end up being in adulthood.
Nurture is more important to development than nature.
Education is what makes a boy into a man. Your genetic makeup has its effects, but is only the blueprint, not the building.
Boyhood behavior might not go exactly as parents plan, but it has to happen anyway.
There is no such thing as a perfect boy.
Boyhood always was and still is an adventure. I should know. I’ve been a boy for 64 years.
As a boy, drawing girls was always important to me. I didn’t understand them. I couldn’t control them other than to make them dislike me. I couldn’t get away from them… but I could draw them. I could completely control what the picture looked like. And I could make them be whatever I wanted.
Mysterious… inscrutable… attractive… weird….
Infuriating… beautiful… sassy… and rude.
Sugar and spice, they say…
With everything nice, they say…
Yet still with the power to kill and to eat me.
Cute girls and sweet girls…
The proper and neat girls….
Girls with no clothes on…
And girls I’m afraid of.
I have to draw girls just to understand me.
Filed under artwork, drawing, humor, illustrations, imagination, Paffooney
There is a life of Adventure out there, beyond the castle gate.
And you must seek and find it, my young, impatient son.
And you must seek to find it, in order to be great.
And maybe slay some dragons, to prove just what you’ve done.
Or maybe take a fatal risk, to shine light upon your fate.
And travel down life’s highways, to prove the honors that you’ve won.
But show some caution, and patience, don’t be late,
For the Spirit of Adventure is not a ghost, my son.
But, it may be a mummy when you meet upon that date,
So take some good advice, my boy, and speedy you must run!
I tend to draw and photograph and make artistic images about the things that I love.
Swashbuckling adventure.
Magic.
Scantily dressed young girls.
Iowa landscapes.
Forgotten dreams that came back to me in the night.
Spaceheart and Mai Ling.
Stories with amazing features and paintings with soft sable brushwork.
Revealing who I used to be…
And who I still am.
Songs sung with paintbrushes.
And colored pencils.
Drawings done with syncopated tunes.
And full-color half-notes.
The people and places and faces…
Of who I am and who I love…
For life is a poem sung out loud.
And to live is an artform.
So we must make art to live.
These images were created by me by doing a number of things I learned to do as a kid who loved model trains. Some of the buildings are made from HO railroad model kits. Some are knickknacks found at Goodwill and repaired or repainted or altered by me. Most of the people are plastic and lead figures bought unpainted and painted by me. All of it is put together by me, and it tends to take over the house to the point it makes my wife complain.
Filed under artwork, homely art, photo paffoonies, toystore quests, Trains
Catch a Falling Star 