Transformer

Totemical Stop-Motion Drawing

     This is a stop motion drawing I did in 2006  for the One-Take Super-8 event held in Winnipeg in conjunction with the WNDX film festival. It was recorded on a Super-* film camera then shown sight unseen before a live audience with all the other participatory films. This year I transfered the film onto digital video and edited it for some reverse and slowed down motion. Other than that it appears as it was with no other editing. This work is part of an ongoing series of drawings, paintings and films that visualizes the spiritual and energy fields that surround, permeate and communicate with the human body.  

                                             

Terracelestial

     This is a digital art piece that I started in 2001, picked it up again in March this year and finished it last week. Usually a digital work such as this is done in day or two but sometimes you get to a point where you either just don't know what to do with it or you have run out of time for the day and it gets put on the back burner because you have to do some 'real' work. 

    This is a real interesting piece for me because it comes at a time in my life that helps me confirm my place in the world and allows me to know and be who I am. I really think of this piece as a self portrait and in a generalized way also a portrait of most other human beings. We are all terrestrial beings living within a higher celestial self.       

Pranic Journey

     Its been a pranic journey in getting this painting to you all. I thought I was near completion a couple weeks ago but now many hours later, I've also added a lot more thinking time. Thinking about what this painting is telling me about myself. Because my paintings are self reflective and come from a well deep within me, there are always things I learn as a result of painting them that were not part of the original plan or thought process of the painting. 

     The artist/obsever/recorder in this painting is seeing something different in the atmosphere. Its is not different in form but in the heightened sense of color. Everything in this artists world seems to be curvulinear and in limited color tones. But here exists a structure more startling. Can everyone see it or just the artist? Through something within the heart of this being, it is able to touch upon it and see even further within the structure and is drawing it on the table surface. This structure is a Star Tetrahedron and is a major elementary particle of light and energy fields and is a component of pranic energy- the life force of all heart breathing entities.       

     Before I was aware of Pranic energy I often meditated and one of the things I did as I concentrated on my breathing, was to notice color formations in the blackness of the space through within my closed eyelids. But before seeing any real color swooshes there was always a period of these sparkles of light twinkling like stars in the sky. Sometimes I would look at one and focus on it. I called each of these lights a globule. As soon as I focussed on one I was able to zoom in to this light and draw it nearer to me. Then it exploded in a ring of rainbow light. It was a portal with a voice accepting me to join in on a journey.

    

Globule

     I am on the verge of finishing a new painting and thought I would share the process with you. Here is the almost finished work above in my studio. I thought it was finished at one point, but after giving it a few days, I see a number of things that don't quite jive with me. These are a few things that seem out of place such as areas of color, tone and balance of light and dark areas. I will post the finished piece when it is done so that you may compare the two.

     Here is where it all started, with this little sketch idea I did a few years ago in the kitchen. There are a number of paintings that I want to do that illustrate different lines of communication which take place during our interaction with one another. These are unspoken forms of dialogue such as body language and the exchange of energy information or what I would term the 'higher self dialogues'.

     This drawing done last year is an interpretation of the first drawing, done not necessarily as a preliminary for a painting but just as a drawing. But it was after this that I really wanted  to do a painting with this image. 

     I had a board that I had already primed that I thought would be a good size fro this painting and as it was sitting on my easel, I saw an interpretation of one of the figures in the brushwork of my gessoed ground. I was now torn between this new perspective or to keep to my original drawing layout. I decided to do some small sketches with this new figure and various combinations of placements to help me decide. It was not an easy decision.

 

     You can see here that I decided upon the new perspective. I thought that there was a reason why this figure showed up, so why fight with it and I knew that I could always go and paint another picture with the original drawing. So, with brush and paint, I sketched out the figure I saw in the gesso. You can see it on the left. Then after sketching out the other figure, on the right,  I started to paint with color.

  

Being There

     This is one of my newest paintings.

Well see if the title stands the test of time. I'm pretty excited about this one as it seems to be a hybrid of my surreal and metafigure paintings.

Up to now, the meta figure works stayed in their own time and place or setting, that being the figures setting. But this one is into our known world.

 

     The idea is of this person sitting in a chair, or rather he was sitting in this chair and possibly staring into space or just thinking or meditating when he was then able to shift his perspective consciousness and now exists 90 degrees to our known reality. When you tilt your head sideways you will be able to see the figure within the bubble.

     Originally there was to be a person sitting in the chair, but then the chair itself was enough to represent the person. But then when the painting was done, except for the chair , I really wanted to leave the chair out because of the ambiguity of scale and of what was actually happening. Also the painting worked in any direction without the chair. The chair acts as a anchor quite literally. 

Happy Birthday

It's my son's birthday tomorrow. He's 14 now! Man how time flies. Those times when I was his age was pretty tough for me all through school. Annachie though is well adjusted and will coast along pretty good. He has his humour to loosten him up. I think I was pretty stiff and serious all the time which allows for the stresses of the day to stay inside you. You have to make sure you laugh and shake things off.

Later this year in early December I will be celebrating my 30th anniversary as an artist. Yes it was after this drawing (a copy of a Frazetta poster I had in my room) that I decided at age 14 that this is what I wanted to do, create fantastic worlds and experience new visions.