The Kick is Good

...And the disparate imagery comes to a close for this week.

Piloting the Underground

Of late I've been particularly inspired by the draughtsmanship of the late 19th/early 20th Century illustrators, and have been making an effort to incorporate their since of line into my own work. Funny how some it adds some weight to the silly sh!t I come up with to draw sometimes.

Play Ball

This week's series of sketches feature some of the playful interplay of disparate imagery. Enjoy.

The Fall of Nessus

This piece was just returned to me after having show in two consecutive shows, one in Los Angeles and the next in Seattle, as part of two group shows. 

The Seattle Show was themed around mythology, and the first idea that popped into my head was the abduction of Hercules' wife Dejanira by the centaur, Nessus. The tale has been covered by a number of painters of the past, but I felt there was a dynamism missing from some of these earlier depictions.  So I decided to take a stab at it, and I'm proud to say that this was the result. 

Possibly my best forearm...

A Ride Through the Garden

It's been a longer hiatus from the blog here than I thought. Alas. 

Well, I'm back today with this piece that I finished a short while back. A bit of fun, a trifle. I had never considered really pursuing this watercolor over ink drawings, but after my trainwreck piece became such a hit, I've given it a few more shots. So far, the response has been quite positive. 

I certainly hope you, the viewer, enjoy this one. We'll see what else I can whip up for your eyes soon enough.

"If I Only Had a Heart..."

I must have Oz on the brain. It is in the air...and in the theaters apparently.

Anyhow, this week's only post is my second random depiction of the Tin Man.

"Bring in that Floating Fat Man...The Baron."

It was in high school that Dune, the movie made a return to my attention when me and a friend popped it into the VCR late one night. This touched off a run of collecting Dune paraphernalia, starting with one of my high school girlfriends picking me up a Rabban action figure, in bubblepack, from a local comic shoppe for my birthday. From there, I ended up with the comics (amazingly illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz), the kid's storybook, the movie poster, the other two Harkonnen action figures, the movie cards, and other trifles...and the movie magazine that I had seen in the grocery years before.

In any event, anyone who's been following the posts this week had to know who was coming last...The Big Man...Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. I would put Vladimir up there with the best in terms of villains based in excess.  Though there is no mention of his disfiguring skin disease in the book, it is hard for me to see him otherwise, and was a coup for corruption shorthand by David Lynch in the film. Also, though it is perhaps one of the biggest over-the-top, sumptuous scenery chewing performances of all time, it is damn near impossible for me to imagine anyone but long-time character actor Kenneth McMillan in the role. (For something a little more low-key, I always liked McMillan as the aging safecracker in The Pope of Greenwich Village with Mickey Rourke.) The title for this entry refers to a line by legendary actor José Ferrer as the Padishah Emperor who calls for the Baron as if requesting someone deliver a three-week old piece of roadkill.