The Beni Elohim of Hod

This image from my Kabbalistic Angels series had to be restored. The photo was poor and the metallic decorations did not show up. They turned black in the photo, reflecting light in the wrong direction. And even back then I could see that the coated paper I used for the figure was fraying. But Photoshop came to the rescue, or rather I came to my own rescue using something which hardly even existed in that era. I cleaned up the frayed areas, removed dust and specks, and then re-created the gold foil stars and swooshes as if they were shiny metal again. Now, even though the original probably doesn't exist any more, (or is buried in my own collection), Beni Elohim can look better than he did when I created him from A. C. Highfield's Kabbalistic visualizations.

"Beni Elohim of Hod" is cut Color-Aid paper and gold foil paper on an acrylic airbrushed background, 7" x 10", January 1987.

Virtual Life Drawing

In a recent post I lamented that the photo CD for "Art Models 5" didn't work. When I went to their site, I found that they were well aware of the problem and were ready to send me another copy that was functional. I asked for it, giving proof that I had indeed bought the book (serial number) and they sent me the new CD. It works fine now. "Art Models 5" is the best of the lot so far. The female and male models take interesting poses, the CD pictures are clear and nicely photographed, and it's easy to put the images up on the screen for "virtual life drawing." Yes, I know that nothing beats having a live model in front of you but I just can't get there right now. So I depend on these photos and pretend I am drawing a live model, giving myself a time limit and keeping the drawing sketchy. It's done on the Wacom tablet which does not have the resistance of a pencil on paper, so it is a different feel. But you can erase instantaneously, no eraser leavings all over your paper. I am not sure whether you are supposed to erase a life drawing anyway, so I left some of my initial placement lines in. I hope to continue doing these sketches in my virtual art studio which is just a 2-D screen and Photoshop and the plastic tablet.

A Lady of the Khemaru

The Khemaru are one of the ethnicities in my Noantri world. They are a socially conservative group, suspicious of innovation and resistant to change. They are technologically sophisticated, but sometimes they will reject a technology that they consider "disruptive." Their society is stratified into a caste system that divides them into academicians, warriors, artisans, businesspeople, laborers, and agriculturalists. Culturally they tend to puritanism, especially among the higher castes. Interestingly, the Khemaru have one of the most gender-egalitarian societies among the Noantri of New Earth, with women holding positions of influence and power in all sectors of their society. This portrait is of a young lady of rank, whose future will certainly be among the elite.

Photoshop, 4 hours, January 5, 2011.

The model for this face was (believe it or not) socialite and fashion model Kim Kardashian.

The Great Interdimensional Lens

I love visionary narratives. The occult and New Age world is filled with them. Human creativity is limitless, and it doesn't take much to visit other worlds and bring back wonderful stories of life in Heaven or Hell. People have been doing this as long as there has been consciousness. I collect these stories and love to illustrate them. The more detail the seer recounts, the better it is for me the illustrator. This one is from the California UFO-contact sect, "Unarius." Unlike many of these groups, it continues, though on a modest level, after the passing of its founder. Ruth Norman, also called "Uriel," was the inspired lady who was the source of most of the material I illustrated. Her visions are collected in books published by the Unarius group and were the source of many of my New Age illustrations in 1987 and 1988. During those years I also worked in a New Age bookstore where I came into contact with lots of rainbow diamond visions. If you have enough imagination, you don't need drugs to visit other worlds. It's interesting though, how similar much of the New Age art from the late 20th century is, including mine.

"The Great Interdimensional Lens" is acrylic on illustration board, 8" x 10", June 1988. My records show that it was bought at "Ecumenicon," a New Age convention, for the visionary price of $10.

From Elf-land To Your Table

I did this for Trader Joe's in November 2003, when I had been working there for only one month. In those days I was encouraged to do fanciful and amusing signs advertising various products, including vegetables, since TJ was expanding its offering of fresh produce. I did these in markers, laminated them, and mounted them near the item it was advertising. Some of them lasted quite a while. But in later years the style changed and our signs are less "illustrative" and more in the conventional "headline and text" format. Fortunately I was able to scan and save all the signs I did, since the originals faded or got destroyed in the store environment. Trader Joe's still sells plenty of Portobello mushrooms.

"Portobello Mushrooms" was markers on Bristol board, about 9" x 6", November 2003.

The Annunciation

This picture took a lot of rescuing and restoring to get it to a presentable quality. It's yet another of my "religious" abstractions, representing Catholic concepts in symbolic form. This one is my version of the "Annunciation," where the Archangel Gabriel visits the Virgin Mary to announce to her that she will bear the Christ Child. I represented the message of Gabriel as flames coming down to Earth, the light blue circle. After all, Christian doctrine says that Christ would redeem the whole world, so it was a planetary event. Many imaginative Christians have wondered whether Christ was incarnated on other worlds, too.

This was done the same way as the other abstractions, color-coated paper cut and glued together on a piece of illustration board. The shiny copper flame shape did not come out on the photograph, it just looked black. So I did a bit of photoshop simulation to make it appear as shiny metallic foil.

"The Annunciation" is colored paper collage on illustration board, 12" x 9", March 1987.

Pour a Happy New Year

This image describes what I intend to do this year, which is continue my visits to wineries, drawing scenery and tasting wine. I am also continuing my graphic novel, which I referred to in a recent posting. 2010 wasn't so bad, but I'm hoping for more notable work and achievements this year. My daily journal is once more in a sketchbook format, and this is the first drawing in it.

Thanks to all my regular readers, such as Tristan and Mary and Sally and Amanda and Mike and "Meowhair," and new readers too. May the By-Product not disappoint!