A Familiar Face"

I've been working on this one since January. It has been sitting around for over a month now while I've been deciding whether or not to declare it as finished work. Finally, yes, I can say for certain that it is finished.

There's nothing too profound to say about the concept. The idea just kind of came to me one night:

Disappointment

This image is from a dream of mine from all the way back in 2007 or 2008.

Here's what happened:
The moon floated down from the sky and hovered in front of me. The moon was really crazy looking in this dream. It was full of weird crystals and patterns and it was glowing in a really odd way. I tried to make a grab at it while it was near, but it floated away as soon as I began to show any interest in it. I chased that moon all over dreamland and was eventually able to catch it, but as soon as the moon touched my hands, it began to melt. I felt incredibly sad that I had ruined the moon; I really wished that I had never even tried to pursue it in the first place.

Since dreaming this up, I've always interpreted the moon (this dream only) to be a metaphor for failure, or at very least it represented something similar to a goal that was never achieved.

 On the brighter side, the painting itself is no disappointment. Finally, after seven or eight years, I can cross this off my list of things I've been meaning to paint.

Liquid Light Show 1

I started doing liquid light show experiments a few months ago, and last night performed my first show. Here are some photos:

It was unfortunate that the walls of the venue were black. The projected colors did not show up all that well unless the color blobs fell over the band members, or on the random light colored things behind them. What is pictured here is my clock-face mixture over the projector, not the actual projected image.

This was a real traditional 60's light show with the basic ingredients: water, oil, alcohol, and dye. I have been hearing complaints online that mineral oil is sometimes hard to find. At first I couldn't find it either, but I eventually found it at a food co-op.

TSA 3000 - Final Draft

With many big projects on the horizon, I really wanted to wrap up my work on the TSA drawing, which has been an ongoing struggle for the last year.

When I first set out to color this picture, I had in mind a dramatic/limited nighttime color pallet of dark blueish gray with a yellow or chartreuse highlight. Things didn't quite pan out the way I expected (they usually don't), and suddenly deep red became the only background color that made sense.

This design will eventually be printed on American Apparel t-shirts and sold through our website ThoughtLion.com. A few high-quality art prints will also be made from this design during the next few months.

TSA 3000

In the distant future, it's up to the Transportation Security Administration to exterminate any alien monster-beasts that sneak onboard aircrafts! As always, passenger safety is top priority.

This scene was directly inspired from a dream of mine several years ago, right around the time when the TSA started installing the full-body scanners in airports. I would've begun drawing this picture immediately after I had the dream, but did not feel quite ready to tackle such a technically difficult and absorbing project until just a few months ago. Note the honest try at near 4-point linear perspective, cast shadows, and absurd attention to detail.

(Click image for a larger view.)

I am waffling between using this image as a t-shirt design or a large art print, or maybe it will be both.   

Art Contests, 2013-2014

Part of the fun of an art contest is the thought of winning. Another part is being inspired to make something that I normally would not think to create. Below are entries from the two art contests I've entered in the past year:

Print Radio Contest w/Capital Public Radio:

This one surprised me by actually winning! There were over 100 entries for the Capital Public Radio print/radio contest in Sacramento, and mine landed one of the top three prizes. The drawing was inspired by the word information.

 

 

 Atlas Tone-Lord Showdown:

Above is a picture of the titan Atlas holding up sound equipment instead of the earth or heavens. The artwork is meant to communicate the idea of sound worship, as well as say something about the brand that hosted the artistic competition (Atlas Cabinets). This nice drawing made it as a finalist, but was not chosen as the winner. The good news is that my husband 'Archradish' won!

Medusa Drawing & Print, 2008

Here is another favorite of mine. I made this in 2008 after taking a long break from drawing... about 2 years! This work was strongly influenced by the time I spent at UCSB, and particularly recalls to my mind a certain Italian art history class I took, where we briefly studied Medusa as she appears in artwork.

My favorite aspects of this drawing are her forked tongue and the many different types of snakes in her hair. If you look closely, there are also a few snakes that have been severed and are falling away in mid-air. This was the moment immediately following her beheading!
 
I consider this drawing to be one of my best ever, right after "Et In Arcadia Ego." The only failure in it is that I think it is a bit too similar to Caravaggio's Medusa. Both are very similar in their poses, and both are meant to be worn in some way -- mine was printed on a t-shirt, his was painted on a shield. The shirt can be purchased at our website thoughtlion.com.