I'm still exploring dark colors in my newest work.  But this time, the artwork is not digital!  This was created with acrylic paint and soft pastels, on paper.  I call it  "Memories of a Burning House", and basically it's an exploration of color on a black and blue background.  

I tried a different approach to my artwork here, in this newly completed image.  This scene kind of resembles the old style CRT screen resolution, as seen in classic video games.  The inspiration for the content of the scene, was the Atari VCS game "Adventure", as well as the original package art from Electronic Arts' "Adventure Construction Set" (two of my favorite games as a youngster).  The software used to create this was Blender, Painter, and Photoshop.  You can click the image for a larger view.  

I finished the haunted house painting some days ago, but am just now posting it!  

Below is an additional digital painting, which I completed today.  I call it "Bicycling", and it's done in an Expressionist style, inspired by Paul Klee.  It doesn't have a very wide range of values (darks are noticeably missing) but I liked the image being more of a celebration of color.  Every time I tried adding darker shapes or lines, I felt like it was a "dead" area on the canvas.  So it ended as you see it here.  :)

Scary Update #3

Progress on the haunted house painting!  Sorry for the delay, I've been doing more reading than painting lately.  I've been studying the creative process, including reading a neat book called "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci", by Michael J. Gelb, and also "Cracking Creativity" by Michael Michalko.  Plus, going back to the usual stuff such as "Bruce Lee - Artist of Life" and Paul Davies' "The Mind of God".  It does a person good to set before his eyes the inspiration of others!


My favorite point from Gelb's book was that da Vinci's greatest asset was his ability to tolerate the enigma.  Da Vinci believed that all things are connected in some way, and that all forms and colors that we see in the larger world are also embedded in the smallest discernible speck.  He thus would fearlessly combine dissimilar objects in his mind, in order to hunt down a similarity, or to find a way to combine the objects, to reveal a new idea.  For example, he created the idea of a spiral staircase by contemplating conch shells that he found on the beach.   Da Vinci urged that we stay steadfast in the creative process, saying, "Constancy may be symbolized by the Phoenix which, knowing that by nature it must be resuscitated, has the constancy to endure the burning flames which consume it, and then it rises anew."  I would recommend Gelb's book to anyone who likes a good and thoughtful read.  


Anyway, in the tradition of Leonardo da Vinci, who was notorious for never finishing anything, here's the haunted house painting again, still not finished!  :)  

Scary update #2

The latest progress on the haunted house picture....
This might appear too dark on a lot of peoples' screens.  My monitor is pretty bright, so I tend to make things pretty dark initially.  I'll likely brighten it as it becomes more complete. 


Lots more work to do still!

Trick or treat already

This is my current project, in a very early stage still!  It's an interior of a haunted house.  The software in use is Corel Painter.  I would like for the finished painting to have a considerable bit of texture to it, but I find that using texture in the early stages of the painting is very imprecise, and makes it very difficult to pull  the elements of the painting together (in my opinion).  So I'm switching to the rather flat airbrush tool and will worry about texture in the later stages of the project!  Anyway, Halloween is coming up, so I can't resist creating a suitably themed painting.  :-)  As usual, please click the image for a bigger view!

My own fish magic

I finished this piece of artwork this morning!  I like to think of it as my version of "Fish Magic", after the painting of the same name by the artist Paul Klee (please see my previous post dated March 13, 2011).  I created this digitally, using Blender, LuxRender, Painter, Photoshop and Illustrator.  

I remember my family having neon tetras when I was a kid (what kid doesn't love neon tetras?).  Also I think we had a red tailed shark (seen in the lower right).  The large fish is a tiger barb, and the reclusive orange fish is a female swordtail.  Something important must be happening beneath the waves, what with every fish gathering around the clock.  :) 

Sizzling hot

Well, I think I'm going to have to move even farther north.  The temperature here today was 105 degrees F., with a heat index of about 115.  That makes today the hottest day I've probably seen, since I moved to Pennsylvania from Texas in 1984.  


I'm going to turn off my computer now, so that I can go fan myself while lying under the air conditioning vent.  

Leonora Carrington

In my haste to start my temp job, I neglected to note that the Surrealist Leonora Carrington passed away, this last May 25, at 94 years of age. To me, Carrington's work seemed to offer color and a level of detail which might easily appeal to today's graphic artists.  She was particularly celebrated in Mexico.   A woman devoted to her passions, she was once the lover of artist Max Ernst (husband to Dorothea Tanning), but unfortunately that relationship ended rather tragically.  The romance did however bring her into the circle of the great Surrealist artists, and for that we can all be appreciative.  


An article on Carrington, by one of her family members, can be found here.

Something to enjoy, at last!

Hey, is anyone still writing on this blog?  Oh, I guess that would be up to me.  Well, my temp job has been slightly extended, but it's just about over..!


Here is a YouTube video featuring artwork by Dorothea Tanning, set to some moody but sweet music.  The video was created by the user "DistantMirrors", who has a number of art related slideshows on YouTube.  In particular I recommend the videos on Katherine Linn (Kay) Sage, and Giorgio de Chirico.  Watching these videos makes me want to get back to painting.

A bit late

Ok, for anyone tired of my slacking on this blog, here is a new comic!  :)

Life is certainly different now that I am working in an office again.  It's a reminder of how difficult it was to get artwork done, before I left the corporate world.  Ah well, I shall be back to the art full time, in July.  I have an art request from a friend to work on, so between that and the comics, I'll have enough to keep me busy.  


Currently I am reading a book about the history of the Bauhaus. That was the famous art school in Germany, which was only around for 14 years, before the Nazis closed its doors.  That didn't prevent it from having a great influence on Modern art and architecture, however.  Its founder, Walter Gropius, had a number of harrowing experiences while fighting during World War I.  It's a good book, and it's one of the things that I'll write more about when I am back to writing consistently on this blog!   

A comic and some astronomy

Voilà!  A comic newly created!

The "photo" on the wall, in the first panel, is a quick painting of the Pleiades open star cluster.  The stars in the Pleiades are relatively young, being born around the time that the dinosaurs became extinct.  Well, extinct except for the two specimens shown in this comic (Thorny in yellow and Bronty in green).   :)

Small update

So I'll do a little mini-post today anyway.  :)  Just an update:  I should have a new comic finished by tomorrow!  I've got it all drawn out, so I just need to digitally ink it, and color it.  Woo hoo!


I made it through my first day back at work!  Just some office duties, to help pay the bills.  I suppose that I was satisfied with my performance today.  Walking up to the building this morning, I noticed that my pants were unzipped.  Then, after lunch, I guzzled a bunch of water, to make sure that I'd need to pee while at the doctor's office (required for the drug test).  That backfired on me, because I ended up sitting in the doctor's waiting room for far too long, about to pee in my pants.  They kept calling other people to come on back, people who had arrived after I did. I had a stomachache by the time they called me.  That's the way it goes.   


Long day!  Off to bed shortly... in preparation for drawing and coloring tomorrow...!

Off into the sunset?

Hi Gang-


I'm going to have to take a break from this blog for a while...!  Oh no!!!


My old company called me up today, and offered me a temporary job for a few weeks, which I've accepted (though it'll be official only after all the paper work is done.  I've been working on that all evening).  But I do start work tomorrow, and so I will be preoccupied with that job for maybe seven weeks or so.  In my spare time I will concentrate on drawing more comic strips.... and I will write on this blog, as time permits!    


Thanks in advance for your patience!  And thanks for reading, it makes this worthwhile..!  I'll do this temp job, and then I'll be back to the artwork full time again!    


Best regards,
Michael

Interconnectedness

Today I finished reading Fiorella Terenzi's book, "Heavenly Knowledge".  I much enjoyed it, and will write more about it later.  But tonight I'll note a conversation that she had with Timothy Leary, near the end of the book, in which they compared the estimated number of galaxies thought to exist in the universe (100 billion), to the number of neurons in the human brain, also at 100 billion.  Analogies between astronomy and human existence seems to be one of Fiorella's favorite topics, which was meaningful to me in reading her book, because I also love to make connections between my interests.  Art, martial arts, astronomy, cosmology, etc. bring extra meaning when connections and similarities are made between them.  Indeed, it's the goal of physics to eventually connect all laws together into one idea which explains everything (the Grand Unified Theory).  Anyway,  it was kind of coincidental and "interconnected" to read of Terenzi's brain discussion with her friend, as just two days ago I had been reading separately a book regarding the brain, specifically about there being 100 billion neurons and possibly over 1,000 trillion synapses in the human mind (the most complex object known).  I much enjoy it when concepts overlap and merge, as it helps to make sense of a complex universe, and lets me believe that maybe I am moving closer to truth.

A new comic, playing hard to get

I drew another comic today!  But I'm afraid that you'll have to go to my main website to see it.  The Blogger website is not permitting me to upload any images right now, for reasons unknown!


The new comic can be reached here:   www.michaelricketson.com


The three previous comics are also now appearing on the main website. For convenient accessibility from one place!  :)


Hopefully tomorrow, Blogger will be working a little better..!

Another new comic

Here we go again with another new comic strip!  :-)  Freshly drawn and colored today.
(You can click it to enlarge)...!

By tomorrow, I will likely have this, and the other two recent comics, posted to my main website:


www.michaelricketson.com


As always, thanks for taking a look!

Yves Tanguy

Yves Tanguy was a Surrealist painter, born in Paris, France on January 5, 1900.  He was persuaded to become an artist after viewing paintings by Giorgio de Chirico (in particular, "The Child's Brain", which he had viewed from the street in the window of a gallery).  His associations with the French poet Jacques Prévert and writer Marcel Duhamel were his inspiration to join the Surrealist group headed by André Breton.


This is one of Tanguy's best known paintings, "Indefinite Divisibility", from the year 1942:

The clear, bright air lends a disturbing quality in illuminating this bizarre arrangement of colorful forms.  The horizon disappears into an infinite mist.  Such landscapes resembling beaches may have been partly inspired from Tanguy's time spent in the Merchant Navy.  Tanguy eagerly practiced "automatism", a favored Surrealist technique of painting and creating without conscious interference of any kind.  For me, "Indefinite Divisibility" was one of the first paintings to open up the larger world of Surrealism, outside of my initial sole interest in Salvador Dali.


Tanguy, like many Modern artists, left Europe during World War II, settling in the United States.


I know Reno, Nevada for two things.  One is the sleepless night that I spent there, after arriving early one morning for a business trip.  The other is that it's the place where Yves Tanguy married the artist Kay Sage.  Not that I was there for that occasion, or even in existence, in 1940.  (See post dated 4-6-2011 for more about Sage, also one of my favorite Surrealists).  Eventually Tanguy and Sage moved to Woodbury, Connecticut, where they continued to paint and embrace the American life, declining to return to France even after World War II ended.


Tanguy died of a stroke on Jan. 15, 1955, at only 55 years of age.  Sage spent the subsequent years promoting and cataloguing her husband's works (in spite of failing eyesight) before taking her own life in 1963.  


You can see Tanguy's really cool hairstyle and more, at www.yvestanguy.org/en/
(This website includes an interesting biography on Tanguy, broken up into different years.  There's also a photo of a very young Kay Sage, a picture which Tanguy apparently carried with him constantly).

Another mistake, colored nicely

At the risk of dwindling my readership, here is another comic, which I just completed!

And, just for Mom, who appreciates the classic look, here's the same comic in a no-color version..!   :)

The guy with black hair is a new version of the character Willy (who was last seen here, in the older comic posted on 5-17-2011).


Oh, stop!  This is NOT torture.

Brou-ha-ha in the kitchen

Here is a new comic strip for you to enjoy, that I finished drawing today.  
Clicking on it will enlarge it..!   :)

I'll wait before offering any apologies, as there may be another comic coming up soon.  :)

Just drawing and coloring

Today I've been working on drawing my first comic strip for some time.  I'm drawing it on the computer, in Corel Painter 11, and have yet to decide if I prefer that to drawing directly on paper!  The pen and tablet technology these days, while vastly improved over what was available a decade ago, are still not as precise as a real pencil and dip pen.  


Also I need to decide if coloring the strip is a good idea.  I'm so used to reading the old fashioned comic strips in black and white, that I wonder if the color is just a secondary consideration.  It's the characters and the idea that count, and if the color in strips is not going to be done in a beautifully detailed manner, then maybe it's best left out.  On the other hand, even flat colors can add a type of 3d depth, so I do lean in favor of it overall.  Plus it's more current with the contemporary style of comic strips.  


I have a cast of characters which I invented a long time ago, which always appear in my writing and comic strips.  I feel there's a story to be told with these characters, but I always debate if that should be in the form of a novel, or through comic strips.  There was a day when I couldn't imagine writing 4-panel comic strips, because I always considered my ideas to be lacking in brevity.  I drew cartoons as a youngster, but they were typically long, drawn out affairs, covering dozens of pages.  I think it was something of an accomplishment when I decided that I was able to write the short comic strips!


Enough for today.  I'll do more doodling and pondering tomorrow...

A storm at sea

I was writing to an artist associate of mine today, when I brought up the subject of Rene Magritte's depiction of balusters in his paintings (a baluster being a decorative column, seen in architecture or furniture). This made me think of a couple of Surrealist paintings of Magritte's which I have long admired, but lately hadn't seen, and for which I couldn't remember the names!  But a little bit of searching on the internet helped me to recall.  The two paintings are pretty similar, and both are from the year 1926.


One of the paintings is Magritte's "The Birth of the Idol":

The other painting is Magritte's "The Difficult Crossing":

Both paintings reveal a nightmarish domestic setting, seemingly on the verge of upset by a raging storm. The balusters, with their ornate designs, take on a gesture of futility in the midst of such upheaval (it reminds me of the lament of utter pointlessness, "The ship is sinking, and I'm polishing the handrail")!  These paintings are easily enjoyed by anyone, who, like me, loves thunderstorms, and that teetering feeling that one experiences in dreams while flying through the air or flailing in an angry sea.


I wonder if "The Difficult Crossing" might have been the inspiration for Paul Nash's painting, "Harbour and Room", from 1932-1936:

I shouldn't have

For this, my 100th post to this blog, I decided to color an old comic strip that I drew!

I keep planning to start work on this comic strip again, and I thought that this quick color effort might inspire me to get going on it finally.   The simplicity of the comic didn't make for an elaborate coloring opportunity.  :)  


The characters shown are Willy (in the red shirt), a man of refined taste in horticulture and victimhood, and also Nuisance (in yellow) shown in a rare mood of environmental appreciation, and about to get bird poop in his hair. 


The original comic is drawn in India ink on paper.  By scanning the comic into the computer, and setting the ink lines to "Multiply" mode in the Corel Painter 11 program, I am able to paint color "behind" the lines in an easy fashion (without accidentally painting over the lines).  Here, I've eliminated the original hand written text, and added a computer font instead. 

Aim for the higher purpose!

In the book "Bruce Lee- The Art of Expressing the Human Body" (Tuttle Publishing), editor John Little writes, "... Lee's muscles were not built simply for the purpose of show, as were many bodybuilders'", and also "Muscles ...that comprised the physique of Bruce Lee are the result of training for a functional purpose".  This clarity and striving for the goal by Lee, is something that inspires me regarding being a graphic artist.  


As I've written earlier, in the world of today's digital art there is the tendency to strive for realism primarily, something which clearly demonstrates the technical skill of the artist, and also highlights the powerful capabilities of today's computers and software.  All too often I have experienced other artists geeking out over some technically brilliant artwork which says something more about the artist than the art (or its content) itself.  I suppose it happens, because for so long, computer generated art was hampered by limited memory and inadequate tools. But as Lee recognized the goal in combat, and streamlined himself to meet that goal via a comprehensive set of attributes (particularly strength, speed, endurance and flexibility), so too should we ask ourselves what is the meaning of art, and are we aiming for that.  Or are we just flexing our muscles?  (Actually Lee was fond of showing his physique per onlooker request, but obviously he subordinated a shallow showmanship to achieve a well rounded athleticism, and to become so effective at his art).  


I think that there are two goals in graphical art, one being the expressing of oneself (which requires little technical skill, as children are some of the most prolific artists around) and secondly, moving the viewer to some kind of emotion.  None of this requires eye-popping special effects. As artists we should condition ourselves, our mind and technique, to achieve these real goals.  We can do it with virtual stick figures and cartoons, as Jeff Kinney did so well in his "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books. 


I guess this topic interests me because I personally tend to paint in a more realistic manner, not feeling comfortable doing non-representational art, even though much of my favorite work from other artists is abstract and is less than a mirror of reality.  


Recently, someone that I didn't know, told me that he liked my art and that he wished he had just a sliver of artistic talent, so I told him to just express himself, and that he can do that today.  Pretty big words I guess, coming from a guy with still so far to go.  :) 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

I enjoyed this series a lot... the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books by author Jeff Kinney (Amulet Books).

My mom bought me my first volume, the "Dog Days" edition, because she said that the main character, Greg Heffley, reminded her of me (we have the same lack of suntan).  The books revolve around the misadventures of the young boy Greg, a kid who is forever despising a school full of morons but who ultimately manages to be his own worst enemy each day.  The books are wonderfully illustrated on each page, and remind me of something I would have been proud to produce, ever since I started writing stories at the age of nine.


I think that the funniest moments in the series are when Greg, with his friend Rowley, embark on some grand endeavor without doing any of the preparation required in advance.  For example, at one point they proudly advertise their new lawn care business, and are hired to do a job, before realizing that they have no equipment with which to complete the task. Greg then has to do some last minute improvising, and is humorously shocked when others give him little help and no sympathy.  It's a perfect example of the naive thinking that I know that I, for one, must have demonstrated often enough as a kid!  I also laughed out loud when Greg went to the hospital with a Barbie doll shoe stuck up his nose.  So now you know what makes me laugh!


Ooh, I think we're about to get a bad thunderstorm.  How can I best respond in a naive manner..?  

Heavenly Knowledge

I received this book today in the mail, and much look forward to reading it:

"Heavenly Knowledge" by Dr. Fiorella Terenzi is an artistic and romantic look at the science and existence of the stars, planets and galaxies.  This is in contrast to the cold, objective approach which dominates Western science.  Terenzi is an astrophysicist who earned her doctorate degree at the University of Milan in Italy.  She is also a singer, and is known for her work in translating radio waves, emitted by galaxies, into sound and musical compositions.  Included in her extensive teaching experiences is her position as a physics and astronomy professor at Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Florida.


This book was published in 1998, but I'm glad that I waited until now to read it, as I think I will have a deeper appreciation for it (or will be able to put it in a better perspective).  


It seems that some theoretical physicists believe that there is a limit to what science can tell us, and that the deepest questions on why and how we exist go beyond empirical data.  One of the weaknesses of science is that "facts" are always based on certain premises first being accepted as "true", and often these reliable premises turn out to have flaws in them. For example, quantum mechanics revealed that Newton's Laws of Motion are not the sole, pervasive governing force they were once believed to be, and Einstein's General Theory of Relativity cast a once unthinkable doubt on an aspect of Euclidian geometry, which had not considered that space is curved by gravity (the totality of Euclidian geometry now being considered effectively "true" only when utilized by the human senses, but not in absolute terms).  


Also in science, we see that every "answer" leads to only more questions, and I suppose that this trend won't end soon, if ever.  I know, Stephen Hawking has declared that perhaps the "end" of theoretical physics is in sight, that perhaps every question that can be asked will be answered. He also proposed that thanks to quantum mechanics, the universe was indeed capable of creating itself out of nothing, that no intelligent creator was required.  But surely even these theories are based simply on our current understanding of quantum mechanics, and our understanding, as always, is ripe to be challenged!  Do we know everything that there is to know regarding the Uncertainty Principle, one of the pillars of quantum mechanics?  I doubt it.  Just the name "Uncertainty Principle" gives me a very queasy feeling.  As the physicist Paul Davies pointed out,  any change to our understanding of this principle could shake quantum theory to the core.  We never are totally sure about anything, and this could be a flaw in human science.  


This is not to say that science is useless, only that it has its limits (although perhaps these limits are simply of human understanding).   Anyway, Terenzi's book could I suppose, provide either supplementary information, or an altogether different take on how we should perceive the cosmos.   Should be interesting!  I'll write more later regarding this.    

Rue Morgue

It appears that Blogger is back to "normal" now, which means that I am now free again to act abnormal online.  That was quite an outage (although read-only mode still functioned for the most part)... I hadn't seen anything like it since I started using the service back in early February.  All I know is that the problem revolved around an "update gone awry", with the trouble beginning around 1:00 am Thursday, EDT. At any rate, the post on Wilfredo Lam has returned (although minus the comments unfortunately)... so it's time to move on.


I shall celebrate this rediscovered literary privilege with a spotlight on bloody terror, namely the cool horror review magazine and website, Rue Morgue.  This is the cover of the Jan / Feb 2011 magazine which I had purchased:

The girl reminds me of Regan from "The Exorcist", but it's not.


Rue Morgue is an informative romp through horror happenings in movies, books, video games, film festivals, conventions, etc.  Interesting subjects in this issue included a spotlight on Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Masque of the Red Death" (in addition to the review on Christopher Smith's movie "Black Death"), and also a look at an opportunity hosted by the Austrian art collective Monochrom, to have a romantic interlude with your significant someone while trapped in a coffin for 15 minutes. And being filmed.  Ummm... someone just pass me Poe's book for now...  


The website includes other goodies such as a store, a horror themed radio station, contests, and lots of links of course.  I wish my family had had an information source such as Rue Morgue back in the 1970's.  A little forewarning before we decided to go see "The Exorcist" would have been helpful.

Er.... hello?

Is it safe to post again?  Blogger had been down for maintenance since yesterday.  Unfortunately, Wednesday's entry regarding Wilfredo Lam had to be "temporarily" removed for the occasion, and has yet to reappear.  Hoping it shows back up here.


I'll try to post a new entry later today.

Wilfredo Lam

This tempera and pastel painting (property of the Art Institute of Chicago) by the Surrealist artist Wilfredo Lam, is a study for his major work, "The Jungle": 

Lam was born in Cuba in 1902, and as a young man traveled to Spain, where he developed his artistic skills, and began to readily absorb the European culture.  He then fled to France, after being injured while fighting in the Spanish Civil War in 1938.  In Paris, his art became strongly inspired by his meeting and friendship with Pablo Picasso, and he readily fell in with the Surrealist group under André Breton.  As with many other abstract and Surrealist artists, the German occupation of Paris sent him scrambling abroad in 1941.  Lam returned home to Cuba, where he was ready to bask and mature as an artist in the tropical Afro-Cuban culture. Lam eventually returned to live in Paris, in 1952. 


Lam was determined to portray the Negro traditions in a way that was raw and honest, not as something beautified or romanticized for Western consumption.  His sharp, angular forms, depicting people in close contact (and morphing) with plants and animals, have a jarring impact to them. Lam was known for his skillful compositional skills, with "The Jungle" in particular being a tightly concocted masterpiece (the finished work which can be viewed here on Wikipedia).   

National Gallery of Art

Probably about a decade ago, I made my (so far) only visit to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.  It must be a pretty large facility, as I recall seeing only a small fraction of the art there! Although, I arrived there later in the day than I had planned (after getting lost on the D.C. streets), and also wound up spending too much time looking for a good place to eat dinner.  The Modern Art section was the only part of the museum that I explored, which all in all made it a worthwhile day!


My favorite part of the National Gallery (that I actually saw) was this one room dedicated solely to mobiles and sculptures by the American artist Alexander Calder.   The lighthearted whimsy and youthful joy which this room emanated was surely palpable to even the least artistically interested person.  While spending considerable time basking in this room, an elderly woman approached and said "This room is magic!", to which both my traveling companion and I responded, "Yes, it is!"


One of Calder's pieces at the gallery was "Finny Fish" from the year 1948.


Large structures built by Calder were also prominently on display at the Storm King Art Center (see post dated 4-27-2011).

Art as a weapon

Yesterday on the radio, I was listening to AC/DC's song, "Thunderstruck" (the video for which can be seen here on YouTube). That song always reminds me of the war against Al-Qaeda, because I remember a U.S. Navy sailor saying that the song was blasted across the deck of one of the aircraft carriers, the night that the U.S. first launched fighter jets against terrorists in Afghanistan.  No one knew back then that it'd be about ten years before Osama Bin Laden's skull was cracked by a bullet, but there would be plenty of other action and successes in the meantime.   In particular I remember Mohammed Atef, Al-Qaeda's military leader, being killed by an airstrike in the early stages of the war.  


I've also read that the U.S. military, as a passive form of persuasion, will sometimes play Western music at extremely loud decibels at terrorist hideouts, in an attempt to force them to give themselves up (or at least to annoy them greatly during a stand-off).  It's interesting to see art being used as a weapon.  Surely there have been enough instances where war has been waged against art, such as Hitler's persecution of "degenerate" European modern artists, and the incalculable damage and looting done at museums in war zones around the world..!

The Gate to the Mind's Eye

When I was attending the Art Institute of Philadelphia, one of the other students in a computer animation course, introduced the class (or me, at least) to a video compilation called "The Gate to the Mind's Eye" series. The video consisted of segments of some of the latest examples of computer generated animation from around the world, set to music, and it quickly became my favorite indulgence in the world of animation.


One of my favorite scenes from the video, was the opening of a segment called "Valley of the Mind's Eye", which can be viewed here (at the DailyMotion video website.  Sorry, there will be a short commercial first). The scene depicts curtains and a table cloth blowing in the wind, set to terrific music by Thomas Dolby.  I thought that this moment of animated bliss was exceptionally romantic, and that it gave a legitimacy to animation that, for me, had been missing for some time (I was never as enamored of Walt Disney stories as everyone else was).  The window view is followed by a flower petal floating on the wind.


On the same page at DailyMotion, are of course other segments of animations (with Thomas Dolby's music), which are parts of the "Gate to the Mind's Eye" compilation.  In particular I like "Moon Base"...  There's a scene near the end, where the camera zooms out on two people standing with a tiger...  The blue and white sky turns into the blackness of space.  This split between the Earthly sky and deep space was the inspiration for the half sky / half space setting of my "Lighthouse" digital painting.


The N.E.O. segment features the voice of Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, an astrophysicist, singer, and fairly interesting person in her own right (I'll post again about her probably at a later date...!).


The "Gate to the Mind's Eye" was followed by another compilation called "Odyssey Into the Mind's Eye", which featured excellent music by Kerry Livgren (from the group Kansas) and more animation made with feeling!  

Walk the line

Another image that I have hanging in my bedroom, is a poster of Paul Klee's "The Tightrope Walker".  The original is a lithograph, created in 1923, which hangs at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

There's an enlargeable photograph of the Scottish National Gallery, at the Wikipedia website (per the link above).  To me, the building looks like it was set on fire, and then dressed up with some banners and a manicured lawn, to spruce it up.  It looks awful!  But the art inside is surely priceless, so who cares what it looks like.  Just another place that I have to make sure to visit one day.  Anyway, I don't know squat about lithography (a type of printing process), but I can say that Paul Klee's use of it for "The Tightrope Walker" is evidence of his wide use of different media in creating his works.  I wonder if the pinkish background (with the spotlights crisscrossing it) was watercolor on the paper, before the dark print was made.


Klee claimed that he enjoyed "taking a line for a walk" and indeed such artwork as "The Tightrope Walker" are among his most playful images (in a body of work known for its whimsy).  He liked to create drawings in which a single line wanders around the paper, crossing over itself several times, and then he would shade along one side of the line, down the entire length.  Because of curves in the line, sometimes the shading would be on the "inside" of the shape, and sometimes on the "outside". Several of these lines together would create a harmonious "polyphonic" drawing  (a musical reference in which different elements combine to create a composition).  He also might use just a few meandering lines to create a complicated subject, such as the city skyline seen in the painting "Threatening Snowstorm":

This painting was created with pen and ink and watercolor, in 1927 (and housed as well at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art).   Is it not wonderful how Klee recreates the emotion and impact of the blizzard on man's minuscule dwellings, with just a few simple elements?

Laurence Stephen Lowry

L.S. Lowry (born 1887) is an extremely popular artist who specialized in almost idyllic scenes of industry, in his home country of England.   He worked hard as an artist to find his own style, limiting himself to a small palette of colors and often painting on stark white backgrounds.  This is the painting "The Canal Bridge" from the year 1949:

Living away from London, Lowry was considered a melancholy loner. While in his mid-40's, the death of his father brought a crippling depression to his mother, and Lowry spent many an hour taking care of his bed ridden parent.  Unfortunately, his mother also passed away too soon... and just shortly before Lowry could be regarded as a success as an artist.  Lowry was fascinated by the increasing industrialization of his environment, somehow finding comfort in the sad, dirty buildings, or perhaps using them as a way to express his inner turmoil.  


The gentle though high contrast colors, and the forward-leaning gait of the persons (seemingly eager to go where they're going?) makes "The Canal Bridge" a pleasant painting to look at.  A small gathering of apparently youthful people in the lower right gives the work something of an upbeat social aspect to it.  It seems that Lowry accomplished here what I believe should be a purpose of art, which is to make better the scene before you, or, if painting melancholy, to attach a bit of sweet nostalgia to it.  


Lowry died at age 88, in 1976.

An old memory

This painting, "The Soothsayer's Recompense" (year 1913), by Giorgio de Chirico, is something of a favorite of mine:

I've had a postcard of this painting hanging either in my bedroom or at the office, since my college days.  The original painting hangs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to which I practically lived next door while attending the Art Institute of Philadelphia.  So I've seen the original painting quite a number of times.


One of my favorite memories of my time at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, during my school years, was sitting along the Schuylkill River outside the Museum's west entrance  (near the old Waterworks).  I was drawing in a sketchbook, with the assistance of four young children who had taken an interest in what I was doing and had joined me.  Their mother, sitting not far away, had nothing but frowns for me, as she watched us.  But she didn't say anything, she just seemed unhappy about her kids enjoying an art session with me.  I don't know why she was irritated, I suspect that she didn't get out much!  Anyway, the kids had a fabulous time drawing in my sketchbook.  I learned their names, which I remembered for a number of years, but have since forgotten.  I wonder if today maybe they still enjoy visiting the museum, and perhaps even remember the happy afternoon that they spent with me.  Perhaps their memories of the event recall me as some great and well known artist, such as Salvador Dali.  :)  Well, I like to imagine!  

Exquisite Corpse

One of the favorite games played by artists of André Breton's Surrealist group, was that of "Exquisite Corpse".  A means of deriving fresh and startling images from unconscious thought and no premade plans, the game was played by one artist beginning a drawing at the upper portion of a piece of paper, folding the drawing from view, and then having another artist continue the drawing from where the original left off, not knowing what the previous artist had drawn.  Often, three or four artists would be involved in one drawing.  Here is one such drawing (Exquisite Corpse No. 10, year 1928), created by Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Max Morise, and André Breton (image property of the Art Institute of Chicago):

This game likely derived its name from the poet Jacques Prévert...  The game originally consisted of written words, rather than images, thrown together at random to create unexpected phrases... "The exquisite corpse" being one such contribution to a game by Prévert, added to by others to come up with "The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine."


I suppose that the lower portion of the drawing, by Breton, might have been inspired by the statues and pedestals seen in paintings by Giorgio de Chirico.  I would have loved to have participated in one of these drawing sessions with the Surrealists, as I'm sure they took great delight in the finished drawings.  I'll have to find someone willing to play this game with me!  :)

Color vision challenge

A few days ago, I proposed to the fellow artists on the DeviantArt website, that they try the color vision test at the Xrite.com website (see previous post dated 3-27-2011).  The results are still coming in, but here are the score results so far:


14 scores of 0 (perfect color vision)
4 scores of 3   
7 scores of 4   
1 score of 7   
2 scores of 8    
1 score of 10  
1 score of 11
3 scores of 12   
2 scores of 14   
1 score of 15
1 score of 16
1 score of 23
2 scores of 25   
1 score of 27
1 score of 30
1 score of 40
1 score of 42
1 score of 67
1 score of 158


Total number of tests taken:  46
Average score:    13.39
Average score without the 158 score included:  10.18


While many people found the test to be fun and / or interesting, the most frequent complaint was that the exam gave them headaches!  One person reported seeing floating triangles, and another one complained of seeing extra squares.  Another problem was having to work on low quality computer monitors / laptops.