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..!