Spring Break

Sometimes nothing is better than long days filled with uninterrupted hours in the studio.  Newly completed work below.

Acrylic on Yupo paper, 26" x 40"

Details of the work, below:

Spring by Gerald Manley Hopkins

    Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         

   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         

   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         

   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy?         

   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         

   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         

   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.         

Mickey Puke

The third Mickey Mouse looks as though he is throwing himself up, or rather out.  Painting is a form of survival, right?  Or at least the best way to cope with a mouse problem.  Our house is now over run by many, many Minnie Mice!  I blame the character placement on Huggies diapers.  It has primed our little one to be a consumer of all things Minnie.

We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.

- Terence McKenna

Finally Finished! Blue Cerberus, details and the completed work.

4/26/2015:  Since I am linking Blue Cerberus to this post from my personal web site, I am going to included some links below that show the evolution of the painting at various stages during its development.  Even though the work was completed during March of 2014, most of the paintings progression occurred during July of 2013.  With that said, the links that look back on the evolution of this work will begin with a link to the month of July from this blog.  To view the past posts, please link on through the dates listed below.

Many thanks, Dawn

• Blue Cerberus evolving, posted throughout July 2013.
• Drawing study for Blue Cerberus, posted 9/16/2014.
• Blue Cerberus at a middle stage, posted 12/17/2013.
• Blue Cerberus details at a late stage,  posted 1/20/2013.

Blue Cerberus completed, posted 3/4/2014:
I am finally finished, at least for a while.  I am please with the results.  I think the physicality of the paint throughout the image is working together:  the parts of this busy work are working together as a whole.  I would say the same for color.  It feels like, as in all my work, that there is more I can do.  The more will have to transpire in another work.  Sometimes doing more means moving on to other works...Setting sail tonight!

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complete work, acrylic and ink on paper, 36" x 48" - title forthcoming

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It takes a long time to grow an old friend.

- John Leonard

Drawing: Sketchbook Highlights

While for me, as an artist, a painting will reveal itself gradually over time, however, my drawings develop very rapidly.  My studio practice is balanced with both.  During the past six months I have filled three sketchbooks with over a hundred drawings.  Below are thirty "highlights" from my sketchbooks.  The drawings are all marker and ink on paper.  The size range from 9" x 12" to 11" x 14."  Some of the drawings are studies for long term works and others are complete works in and of themselves.  The works have been completed through direct observation working plein air when outdoors, or from a still life or live model in the studio.  Most of the works are straight forward perceptual recordings, and some of the drawings are developed into a more imaginative and conceptual direction.

Many More Minnie

It might be February and cold, but Persephone is ready for spring.  Minnie Mouse as Persephone, that is.

Persephone is Minnie, sketchbook drawing, marker on Bristol paper, 11" x 14"

All dreams come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

- Walt Disney