This blarg is moving.  The new address is-

thewoundedcur.wordpress.com

Anticipate more art and more pointless rambling.  There's nothing there now.  Fantastic.

ARISE, YE BLOG POST!

So once again, this has been ages dormant  I've been working at a fairly steady clip, improving things while forgetting others.  It's been a time of great stasis, where nothing has changed.  Things continue, you couldn't call it stagnation, but nothing ever seems to really change in this city.  Anyway, onward.

A friend from the frozen north asked me to design a tattoo.  This is what I did.


And this is how it turned out.

Mighty fine, if I don't say so myself.  It was cover-up work, so the tattoo artist had to add things on the fly, but I'm mighty pleased all the same.  Capital work, all around.






I did this sketch some time ago, and my friend Anthony Jones used it to promote an upcoming album-

It was turned into something professional looking in photoshop by another friend, Daniel Foerste, proving that if you know what you're doing, even my chicken scratch can be polished sometimes.

Then I continued working on large scale stuff.

This one went through two attempts.  The first one was ruined midway through, and ended up torn to shreds in a garbage can.  I drank myself stupid for a month before picking up a brush again.  It turned out retty well, and that candle effect is going to see use again very soon.


The Hand of Glory.  The script around the thing is Theban, and recites the old rhyming couplet that activates the hand's somniferous magic.
"Let those at rest more deeply sleep
Let those awake their vigil keep
O Hand of Glory shed thy light
Direct us to our spoil tonight"
Turned out alright.  Some complaints.  Always some complaints.


I went halo crazy for a time.  I need to revise this because the composition of the circle is poorly done.  Has potential.


I wanted this to be the end of the halo business for a time.  That time turned out to be short.  But first I did this for a bit.

O, blind watchers of the sky.

 The first half of these require revision.  But this is an idea I've been ruminating on for some time.  I love old constellation maps so I made some new ones.  I intend on doing a large number of these, more than thirty in all likelihood.  Individually they are nice, but the impact will be when there when a whole shitload of them are up on a wall.  I also intend on doing a large-scale vault of heaven thing with a bunch of them.  We'll see.  I took a break from this and had an art show-











I looks like an ogre.  Great.




Experiments with a new method for doing wings which worked out well.  I don't care for the two crowded ones over all, but it was good practice.


And my most recent thing.  I actually like this one quite a bit.  In this larger scale, I don't feel like I've done much that I actually like until this.  I'm working on a second portion of this thing, and maybe a third is down the line.  Time will tell.

Next up is an experiment in gold leaf.  I'm also doing a couple of commissions.  Keeping myself busy.  As ever, the more I'm distracted the less I notice that I have absolutely nothing else going on and I might better serve as something useful, like a cautionary tale for children about why you should go outside during the day sometimes.

A time of great activity and otherwise

I haven't updated this thing in a couple months.  The former half of that was active indeed, the latter not so much.  I haven't painted anything in almost a month now.  I remember a time when I didn't draw anything for over a year.  I hope that doesn't happen again.





For the above three, I'd run out of red ink so I decided to see how I could stretch my black out.  I have a love/hate relationship with architecture., but these turned out.


Inspired by The Four Evangelists from Codex Amiantinus, I tried to expand on the vignette idea a bit with mixed success.  I need to work on this idea a little further.


Alright, I actually hate this one.  It turned out as I expected, and I still like certain things in it, but something's wrong here.  It was done as a run-up to the next things I planned, which would be huge.


With a short diversion into a weird line sketch.  I have no idea why I like this one, but I do.


With art show money, I bought a giant watercolor block.  18x24", this is the largest I've ever worked with any consistency.  Ink doesn't fare well on canvas panels, so paper of this size is great.  I really enjoy how this one turned out especially.  It was downhill from here.


Second giant thing.  More slain gods.  I got a really good idea for this one after the fact, but it's done now so to hell with it.  I used human blood for some of the coloring here, so this painting might be haunted.


Giant thing the third!  I decided to experiment with boarders on a giant scale, and I'm glad I did.  I'm still working on scaling up some of my old techniques, but doing trees on large scale is fun.


I really wanted to get 13 horses into this, but it wasn't to be.  I also caught some kind of heraldry fever, because those seals and sigils are showing up everywhere.  You'll also note that the light in some of these is terrible.  This is because I'm just using a shitty digital camera to take pictures of them and I have no idea what I'm doing.


A picture of me at my art show in February.  I've got another show in June.  I hope I get my shit together before then.  Fuck.

And there we have it.  I've finally got more in the works, after a month of not doing a damn thing.  The longer I go without painting something the closer I get to just walking into the ocean.  My life is a pretty depressing thing, painting is all I've really got going for me these days.  If that stops, I swear to the hoary gods I'm feeding myself to a bear.

the saints come marching in

 So I've been busy as hell.  I had an art opening in a gallery outside of work for the first time.  That was quite an experience.  I did a t-shirt design commission for an Irish Thrash/Death band, and I've been painting at a constant clip.  There's something about soul-crushing depression that makes me incredibly productive.  If it wasn't so absolutely certain to end in suicide I might take steps to keep myself feeling like a piece of shit for the duration.  Anyway, I did a bunch of this-


 After Saint Tree-Goblin, I went on a bit of a tear.  These changed slowly as I went this one and the previous have a lot of landscape to them.  I'm a fan of those dogs in front.


 This one is my least favorite.  I see a couple of key errors in composition that hit my eye all wrong.  This fact didn't prevent it from selling at the show, proving that I am absolutely no judge of quality.  Everything I like probably sucks.


 I love this guy.  The figure itself at least, or the idea of a form armed dog beast gnashing his fangs with unremitting murder-lust.  The painting didn't quite carry.  I might do this guy again.  Maybe a whole series about the martyrdom of st. skull-taker.  Could work.


Started going completely mad for scroll work.  This took forever, and no matter how much the detail distracts from the places that it's fucked up, I can't help but see how terrible parts of it are.  Bad job, me.


I incorporated a pedantic joke into this one.  Luckily it looks mysterious and gnomic.  If you can spot it, I will send you a treasure map.


I really wanted this guy to look more like a knight.  Silhouetted armor is hard.  Shut up.


The halo-within-halo trick is something I wish I would have considered earlier.  I didn't.  I like his ax.


I like the idea of two or three disparate figures making up one total creature.  Two birds being the saint of something is cool, but it must be a terrible chore to flap around the place so close together.

I've done more than that, but my illustration project has to be shown all in one go to make sense.  Currently working on some things with no red in them, largely because I've nearly run out of red ink and am loath to leave the house.  Being a indolent hermit has its drawbacks.  I have to assume the benefits outweigh these, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

From out the clutches of vulturous time

Once again, it has been quite a while.  Many things have happened since my last update; I turned 30, the world turned 2012... that's about it.  Nothing proceeds.  Stagnation reigns.  Pernicious lifehate drives me from one alcoholic stupor to the next,  Sometimes I paint.






A series of 5 that sucks in parts.  I like some of it.



A brief experiment with painting ink on wood, and a misguided exercise in wishful thinking.  I need to try painting on different wood surfaces, I like the background.


This one is weird.  The sketch was better.




At this point I got addicted to vignettes.  I'm still working with this circle thing,  Also arches.  These altars turned out alright.




Also I've been looking at a lot of old christian iconography.  I had another one of these but I ruined it.


More circles, plus the first time I've ever painted conifers.  It was fun, and I need to try this more.


Circles circles circles.


This is going to be used as album art this year, I believe.  At this point I got addicted to doing halos like this, and I expect to see many more in the near future.


Yep.


This is actually my favorite thing in a long time.  Radical direction change about half way through turned out quite well.  It impelled me to rekindle my old illustration project idea, which I am slowly working on now.

Yeah, so that's it.  Scant on description, sorry.  Life has a funny was of perpetually falling apart.  Walking into the sea looks more and more appealing every day.