So part of me — luckily a very small part of me that doesn’t listen to instructions very well — is saying that I shouldn’t post any more of my paintings, because their content (along with the content of other artwork) is being used against me in legal proceedings to make the case that I’m [insert inaccurate crazy/violent person term here]… I really found the idea of using someone’s art to demonize them extremely disquieting and frankly offensive. What’s next? My goofy little kid’s limericks are going to be used as evidence as something more dastardly than the fact that I have little sense for rhythm in a rhyme scheme?

On that note, work’s moving ahead nicely on the potentially damning Death Comforts You… It looks better in the picture to be honest than in real life, which I’ll remedy soon with a few minor touch ups, after which I’ll do a topcoat and build a frame… I’m motivated to get this one done quickly because it’s already spoken for and I need to make some money to go Christmas shopping! The frame is going to be a deep red frame covered with little cartoon skulls. I actually have a few frames to build right now (Tikikaiju and Rookaiju are both unframed).

Continued work…

I can’t actually take credit for this painting, as it’s done by my daughter (age 4 1/2). It’s called “First Snowfall”, done with marker and tempera paint on a 24″x36″ canvas (I helped with the finish painting part but other than that it’s totally her creation from concept to execution). It’s a duck, a spider, a muscular bird-beaked man with bat-wing hands about to sit down on a chair, a “bat cat” sitting on his knee, and a couple of butterflies all caught up in a snowstorm.

We’d actually planned to go to Riverdale Farm today (which we did do), but on the walk back to the car we passed the necropolis and read the gravestones, and actually took about a two hour detour through the graveyard (and insists on returning tomorrow — future zombie hunter?). She’s at a wonderful age where rambling storytelling that’s 75% fact and 25% fantasy is what it’s all about. Because PlanetSpace is talking about building the first Canadian spaceport near our homestead on Cape Breton Island — which I’m very excited about — we spent some of our after-supper time drawing rockets and watching videos on YouTube of shuttle launches, space walks, and moon missions… The funny thing is that all of the space things that I was convinced I’d experience as an adult are now the things I’m convinced she’ll experience… I hope my predictions are more accurate now than when I was a child.

Since it looks like this painting is already sold I put a little time into laying down basecoats on it today. Depending on how much time I can dedicate I figure I’ll finish it this week, although I anticipate it being a rough week… Dealing with the despicable things being attempted is extremely draining. Hopefully I fare better than my lizard friend here. His week got the better of him.

I have a bunch of old paintings that I don’t really know what to do with because they’re low quality work and I just don’t have space for them all. I’ve been making assessments of what’s worth keeping and what’s not… Some of the canvasses I can reclaim, but unfortunately most of the canvasses are too small to bother keeping, and because I don’t think it’s good work, I’d rather scrap the paintings than see them hanging somewhere else. I use them to do experiments first though — seeing how different media combine and so on — so it’s not a total waste at least.

I posted the sketch a few days ago, but I had a chance to sketch this out on the canvas today and it’ll be the next painting that I tackle…

I like the paintings I’m doing a lot these days, and I’m building up a nice portfolio of work in this series. My friends say nice stuff to me about them, but I really wonder if I’m kidding myself that I can actually pull off a successful gallery show let alone sell enough art to maybe live off it one day. I mean, it’s not like the stuff I paint isn’t something that anyone could paint… All it takes is the motivation to do it — but maybe that’s the big scam in art… That anyone can do it, and anyone can do it well?

But I guess that’s true of most things, and one of the realities of success in all things is that it’s as simple as just going to the effort of doing it.

Ever since I first saw it, I’ve been completely enamored with the drawing below of a very dejected looking family about to enter a DIY shelter that can’t possibly be very useful, which comes from “Protect and Survive,” a 1976 leaflet from the British government on surviving a nuclear strike. The guide advises,

All at home must go to the fall-out room and stay inside the inner refuge, keeping the radio tuned for Government advice and instructions.

Stay in your refuge

The dangers will be so intense that you may all need to stay inside your inner refuge in the fall-out room for at least forty-eight hours. If you need to go to the lavatory, or to replenish food or water supplies, do not stay outside your refuge for a second longer than is necessary. After forty-eight hours the danger from fall-out will lessen -but you could still be risking your life by exposure to it. The longer you spend in your refuge the better. Listen to your radio.

DO NOT GO OUTSIDE until the radio tells you it is safe to do so.

Unfortunately in the time between building this shelter and huddling inside it for a few days in the glow of the bombs on the horizon, pigs have taken over the shelter (in my version anyway)… I first painted this a few years ago but wasn’t very happy with it so I’m doing a new version. I prepped the canvas in a primer mix of gesso, crushed tortilla chips, oats, and stale crackers.

I have a 54″x48″ canvas primed that I might paint this sketch on. Russian Roulette sucks when you’re not using a revolver. It doesn’t matter that you only put one bullet in the magazine. Death will hold your hand though to make it less lonely, and a crowd — who do nothing for the loneliness — will watch on gleefully.

Lest you worry about my mood, a few other sketches from the last 24 hours (admittedly not all drawn, inked, and/or colored by me).

Since people have been asking about the picture on the left, I thought I ought to introduce Caitlin that’s coblogging here with me on this project, for those of you reading this that don’t already know her. I think most people reading this are aware of my history, so I won’t mention that, but briefly, Caitlin’s background professionally is first in theatre, having worked extensively in opera costuming. She’s a creative and gifted artist and toymaker, and provides a lot of the technical skills we need on our projects as she’s also a welder.

I met Caitlin in 1994 when we were both working at Stainless Studios (I painted the portrait above not long afterwards) — I worked in the back of the shop as a jeweler and she worked at the front. She’d actually been working there a bit longer than me and I started the job with a crush on her. For the next few years I was kind of like a cat bringing her dead animals, except in our case it was various items of custom jewelry. We also worked together with Tom Brazda developing new piercings and piercing technologies and she’s credited with naming two types of piercing. She helped on BME from its inception in various capacities (and was BME’s first employee), and was later involved in the start of BME’s community site, initiating and hosting all of the first events.

We started dating in the late 90’s and spent much of our time fantasizing about building a homestead — we had stacks of paper covered in drawings of Quonset huts, domes, and earthships, and looking through the latest Dignam catalog (she’s who introduced me to them) wondering where we’d end up. For a variety of reasons, some good, some bad, we spent some time apart, and now for many of the same reasons, we’ve ended up on our original course again and are in the process of following those dreams, too long put aside, on a beautiful homestead on Cape Breton Island’s Mira River, which along with documenting our art is the main purpose of this particular blog.

Anyway… If you see posts from her in the future, now you know who she is!

I feel that I am much more of an illustrator than a writer… if anyone reading this feels the opposite about themselves and thinks they can write the story for a children’s book, drop me a line with your ideas! I wrote a couple of outlines but I haven’t been that happy with the specifics.

Pardon the redeye… Work on Tikikaiju: Godzilla Creates Himself is progressing nicely with the primary basecoat being in place. I worked on it quite a bit and am in enormous pain from it, both physically and mentally. My personal theory on that is that to create something of beauty, you have to tear that beauty from yourself, which is one of the most excruciating things a person can do to themselves. Speaking realistically though, I think the phenomena is akin to Korean gamers that drop dead after intense sessions — that is, combat fatigue from extended and highly focussed concentration and exertion.