Sacred Space Star

"Go and catch a falling star,
    Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
    Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
            And find
            What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind...."  (John Donne)

"Sacred Space" was a Pagan and New Age convention that ran for about 10 years in the Washington-Baltimore area. I did a lot of work for it including the T- shirt design and program book cover (same art used for both). This was the last one that I did for them, in 2003. The theme that year was "Mysteries of the Night" and I was inspired by John Donne's poem for my falling star motif. The magical language of the poem seemed appropriate to the convention. The lady in the drawing is inspired by my friend Julianne, who attended some of the conventions.  She is surrounded by the signs of the zodiac in an archway above her. "Sacred Space" is no longer being held, though every so often there is a vague attempt to revive it. Most of the people who ran it and attended it have moved on to other interests.

Ink and computer graphics on Bristol board, 11" x 14", April 2003.

Somewhere in Cambridge

This handsome orange house (authentic Victorian color scheme) is somewhere in Cambridge, and I sat for quite a while drawing it. The picture was finished in the studio as I did not usually take my watercolors with me on site. I would indicate what the colors were using watercolor pencils and then go over them with paint when I got home. This picture was a commission from the same collector friend in Texas who asked for the lilacs painting. I wonder whether this house still exists. 

Ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 15" x 15",  July 1985.

Titan Fort

In the Warhammer universe, everything is supersized, immense, titanic, overblown. The aesthetic is the dream of young men everywhere who secretly see themselves as muscled megaheroes rather than pallid basement gamers. The armor is multiplied to such an extent that the structure of the original figure is hidden in tank-like shielding layers. You can barely tell where the arms, legs, or feet of a Warhammer Space Marine are. In the same way, scenery, buildings, structures, spaceships are all impossibly grandiose. Fortresses are carved out of entire mountains, whether on the surface or in vast caverns underground so large they have their own weather systems. This is a study for one of these forts, carved out of an underground mountainside. Of course, this structure, like every other Warhammer structure, is eventually destroyed in a titanic battle. In Warhammer stories, everything that is built, no matter how strong or beautiful or heroic, is brought down and crushed. If you think about it from a worldbuilding perspective rather than a gaming perspective, this civilization is madly self-destructive, wasting its resources in endless war. Ultimately there would be nothing left to sustain life. And indeed that is what is happening in the current storylines of the Warhammer game; the human empire is quickly succumbing to the invasions of various alien races or "space locusts" who take advantage of the exhaustion of the old Empire's resources. Yes, just like real Earth history.

Markers on sketchbook page, 4 1/2" x 5", January 10-11, 2013.

Reconstructed Lilacs

An old college roommate of the artist commissioned a painting of lilacs blooming by a Cambridge house, to give her consolation in her desolate west Texas home. I incorporated more of my favorite woodwork porches in the image. This photo was seriously deteriorated, all the green from the plants had faded, so this is really a reconstruction rather than a mere digital transcription. I admit to multiplying the number of lilac blossom clusters in the painting. There weren't that many on the original lilac bush. 

Ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 9" x 12", May-June 1982.

Coffeehouse Shadows

A new coffeehouse has opened next to my workplace, "Caribou Coffee." This chain dares to rival Starbucks and it has certainly gotten my break-time business since the nearest Starbucks is only accessible by crossing a very busy, traffic-filled major highway. Caribou has got a lifelike imitation fireplace and some very nice comfy chairs to sip in. On Wednesday I took my iPad in there and did a sketch of the young lady across from me. She was mostly in shadow except for the blue-ish light from her cellphone illuminating her face. This "soft" sketch style is not my usual style but I only had ten minutes to make my drawing, while drinking coffee and eating a fudge brownie at the same time. Must have more drawings, fewer brownies. 

"Art Studio" on iPad, January 9, 2013.

Protoplasmic Flesh Monster

The Space Marines of the Warhammer universe, along with many other human and humanoid characters, are produced or enhanced by genetic engineering. Gene-technology can make superhumanly heroic soldiers out of ordinary boys, and create godlike beings from advanced genetic manipulations. But sometimes, more often than they would like to admit, this technology goes wrong and what was supposed to be a super-soldier turns into a monster. This is sometimes called euphemistically the "flesh change" in which a subject's body degenerates into a chaotic mass of jumbled tissue and monstrous growths, or animalistic chimera features such as twisted horns or claws or scales or spines. The worst part of this sudden explosion of degeneration is that the subject retains his consciousness throughout the change and knows what is happening to him. Sometimes the change can be reversed, or at least contained, but other times, euthanasia is the only recourse. The Warhammer universe is not a pleasant place and things like peace, faith, beauty, and serenity are always presented only to be destroyed as the grim story unfolds.

Ink and marker on sketchbook page, 4" x 3 1/2", January 8-9, 2013.

Mansard Roof

Cambridge is full of old wooden houses, as I have explained in earlier posts. These edifices gave me endless opportunities to draw my favorite architectural features: porches with ornate woodworking. This house also has another favorite of mine, a mansard roof. These were built in America in the middle to later 19th century. You can find them in all older New England towns and cities. I may have drawn this black and white ink drawing entirely on site,  but I suspect I may have added to it and colorized it with watercolor when I got back to the studio. I had a lot of time to draw all those details back then. The slide film is dated 1980. The slide is poorly preserved and it is the only record I have of this piece. My neighborhoods in urban Northern Virginia don't have too many old houses like this one. Most of them were torn down and replaced with boring housing developments. 

Ink on thick paper, about 8" x 11", 1980.