Reading from the Book of Night

In the twilight of the underworld,
The sun within waxes and wanes.
Days stacked like logs in the wood pile
kindle and burn on the mount of knowing.
Harlequin wall totem reads from the great book. 

The mother day sprays light to inoculate the reading
and fertilize the thoughts for growth.
Father predator spits darkness into her.
A deception that by her nature she converts into light.
His light within reads the necessity and
sees the voice and light needed for the reading.
Between them all, a darkness gestates
the darkness of absence, of emptiness,
of the void.
A darkness through which all things pass
to reach the light of the coming day.

In the desert of ignorance,
the scarab rolls its children into a sphere of darkness
tucking them safely into that fecund enclosure
knowing that at their birth,
they will eat their way to the light.

Recommended LIstening:
Subheim
Hollow
Approach

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

It Lives in Flames

This makes me think of the giant pig at the end of Clive Barker's Pig Blood Blues.  Or perhaps the pig version of the Red Bull from The Last Unicorn.  There is a bit more than pig in there though - maybe some horse.  Perhaps we're just seeing pig from multiple points in time.  Schrodinger's Pig?  Regardless, I don't want to be trapped in any kind of enclosed space with it.  eep.  I'm afraid there would be some hard feelings for all that bacon I ate.

I apologize for all the comedy with such a fierce image, it's just that the clouds have parted here and I'm seeing the first sunlight I have in days and it is making me a little giddy.  :-P  I usually hate super sunny days, but we have had nothing but cloud cover for over a week.  :-(  So - Hooray Sunlight!

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

You know...as big as he is, sometimes Cthulhu just sneaks up on you. I really had no intention of doing a Cthulhu piece, but there he was, and when Cthulhu shows up, you can't really say, "Well, I don't have time right now."  LOL.  You have to at least see what it is he wants.  I mean hey, It's friggin Cthulhu!

I am a little disappointed in the color.  It seems to have a dropped a bit in intensity from Photoshop to here.  I may need to adjust my monitor.  It was very late at night when I created this piece and my eyes were getting to that liquid rolling down my face point.  I may have to revisit this one in the daylight hours with a good nights rest under my belt.  I'm not sure that is allowed with this kind of piece.  :-P

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

Return of the Lord of the Forest

The Kingdom of the Blind

Darkness within and Darkness without. 

From the Darkness they come. 

They are of the darkness

and the holy land of Darkness. 

The House that Fear Built

Anger.  Wrath.  Rage.  I've been trying to create an image that exactly matches my feeling, but halfway through every piece, it changes.  It never stays anger.  In this case, I realize that the anger was built on a foundation of fear and dread.

I think this might be a message to myself.  The Rune Sowelu is mirrored in the piece as indication of damage from a negative solar experience.  Now that the light of the true sun is arriving the fear of that past damage is rising like a ghost pain, inspiring me to retreat from love and light.

In actuality, the true sun would heal the pain, but the previous negative encounter was so great as to cause a powerful panic driven fear of this type of encounter.  So the fear went to ground...underground.  From its seed has grown anger, rage, denial, and despair.

My Anger and Rage are defense mechanisms attempting to protect the part of me that was damaged in the previous incident.  Being only damage control, they were never meant to last and have begun to break down as the expenditure of energy required to maintain them is becoming greater than the energy needed to heal.  The current set of experiences in my life have pushed me further and further out of every comfort zone I have.  All my defense mechanisms are eroding and collapsing out of the necessity of energy conservation. All my issues are springing forth anew.  All my dead are returning to life.

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

The Burning

This is me trying to sort out my fiery emotions.  Kind of hard when they gang up.  My original intent was to find a release for my emotional intensity.  I was creating this piece at the time the London riots were beginning, but I had no idea they were occurring until 3 days later. 

I'm having a lot of trouble figuring this one out.  I was actually intensely angry when I was working on this piece.  Now it is almost like looking at a firepit after it has been put out.  You remember the warmth and the smoke and maybe you burned your finger or something, but now there is just a black spot and some ashes and the acrid smell that something burned here.

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

The Heat

Bit of an homage here to another of my favorite artists, Bill Sienkiewicz.  His and Chris Claremont's run on New Mutants is one of my all time favorites.  It was during my formative years as a comic book collector and to say Sienkiewicz's style had an influence on my own would be a vast understatement.

This is either sfter the fire or pre fire.  Maybe both.  It looks as though there has been a fire already, like smouldering embers, but also it seems like a blaze could ignite soon.  My original thought for this was a devilish type character, but as I continued to work on the piece it became something more.  Originally is was just a portrait, but now he is wearing some kind of elaborate head piece.  I think perhaps he may be royalty in some dark dimension.  Or it could simply be that this summer's heat has finally fried my brain completely and I can't see past it.  The heat is all there is.

{Created in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop}

EGO

Ah, the pride of ego. It can get us into many a tight spot. There may be more than ego involved here, but my first thought when I was finished was EGO. My original idea headed into it was Rage, but in the middle of that explosive flame, I found this little blue faced guy. A cool center to the radius of flame and destruction.

If I could have fire instead of hair I would. As long as I could turn it off and be invulnerable to its affects. LOL.  I'm sure I would have to buy shirts and hats more often, but you have to admit, it would look cool.  :-)  No such luck there.  Burned my finger yesterday with hot glue gun.  Now I have an ugly alien looking blister on my thumb.  Hooray...and ouch.

{Digital Images manipulated in Photoshop}

The Arch Duke Grahtennas

Grahtennas is the daemon of negative expansion. He governs all inflammatory diseases including cancer, eczema, hemorrhoids, genital warts, and cirrhosis of the liver. Hemorrhoids being one of his favorites: as they often become a gateway for a variety of expansive discontents. Alcoholics often fall under the sway of Grahtennas, becoming the berserker foot soldiers of his army with their quick and arbitrary tempers. Grahtennas governs all disorders of the Liver.

Grahtennas is the governor of making matters worse. He governs all explosive forms of violence from domestic to riot and his presence causes lost tempers, violently fatal misunderstandings, car accidents, and miscarriages. Murphy’s law is merely one of the entrances to his realm. Grahtennas enjoys the slow death of an inflammatory disease equally with death from explosive violence. He particularly relishes religious dogma and intolerance and the power brought to him by such areas of the world as the Middle Eastern countries and the southern United States.

His symbol of office is a huge rusty spiked mace covered in fresh blood, his favorite offering, especially if taken by bludgeoning. Grahtennas is very serious about himself and his goals and laughter is forbidden in his kingdom. Those guilty of this crime are crushed into bloody smears at the foot of his throne. However there is a story of a shaman once banishing him with incessant laughter. He is often found on his throne, drunk from a chaliceful of fresh blood, his immense girth overflowing the edges of his seat.

His vast kingdom ranges from the Plains of Rage, The Rancid Caverns, The Seas of Distemper. His realm is riddled with perpetual volcanoes, explosive rivers of lava, and constant heat lightning storms. However it is characterized by a specific lack of any rain. He continuously patrols his regions in his mobile Castle, a burning Siege. He paints its walls red with the fresh blood of violent religious fanatics, suicide bombers, and murderers.  Grahtennas is ambitious and militant, constantly seeking new ways to expand his region.

He has a violent disdain for pure water. If confronted with pure water he will seek immediately to corrupt it in some fashion. Thus he has become the patron daemon saint of industrial waste, Oil Companies, and muddied emotional scenarios.

Arch Nemesis' : Pan, Jupiter, Posedion, Any Laughing God, Natural water. The Ocean.

{Created in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop}

From the Archives: Portfolio 2001 Back Cover

This is my favorite of the three 2001 portfolio pieces.  The aura of mystery alone sustains it.

The front cover initiates the portfolio.   It is very presentation oriented and uncomfortably intimate.  The table of contents, still presentational, is focused on organized content.  This is the end of the portfolio, or even further after the end.  The portfolio is finished and these are the last visual echoes of its passing.

The fire of inspiration has been extinguished and the plumes of smoke evaporate into the night sky.  Here the hand of the artist is retreating, fading into the night of clouds.  The portfolio has been presented and the hand now moves away, leaving you to think on what you have observed.  The image block of the moon has lost its glow and become transparent, its contrast and intensity diminished.  It is being absorbed now by the sky. 

This piece is best observed while listening to Cocteau Twins or Dead Can Dance.  I recommend Victorialand or Within the Realm of a Dying Sun, respectively.  I know this is all pretentious and silly, but once in awhile there are those images that move beyond mere representation and step into the mythic, the symbolic.  I am very grateful to have had this image move through me.  Pretentious or not, the mystery within this piece moves me.

Like the preceding pieces from my 2001 portfolio, this was scanned from a physical copy.  This one had many touches up as well and also was sadly lost to The Hunger of the Zip Disks.

{digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

From the Archives: Portfolio 2001 TOC

Here is the Table of Contents to my 2001 portfolio.  This piece was also another victim of The Hunger of the Zip Disks.  This was scanned from a physical copy and touched up a lot due to dust and scratches.

This one had a lot more touch up to do than the front cover or the back.  The xerox copy does not stand the test of time well...especially if it is a full density copy like this - lots of scratches.  Also the scanner I had access to for these scans was a little weird and crappy.  I'm not sure how or why, but there was a huge finger print on the INSIDE of the scanner glass.  Impossible to reach and clean.  Sigh.  I was was pushed for time and had no opportunity to search out another scanner, so I made do and hoped that my Photoshop skills would be mad enough to fix the problem.  I'll let you be the judge of that one.

A majority of the interior of this portfolio was done in black and white to conserve cash.  If the pieces being displayed needed color, those pages would be in color, but otherwise the interiors were black and white xerox copies.  It helps that at the time I was working at Kinko's (Fedex Office to you young'uns)...and yes I paid for all my copies!

Creepy-too-many-fingered-hand just waiting there in the darkness.  Something very arachnid about it despite there being 10 phalanges. It does give me the spider vibe.  No wonder this portfolio never got me a job...LOL...I was showing it to the wrong people.  I bet all the comic book guys were like - what the hell?!?!  AAAAAAAA  Go away creepy artist boy!  I should have been cruising Fangoria or something with this.  Go fig.  My hands again.  Text added in Photoshop.

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

From the Archives: Portfolio 2001 Front Cover

In 2001, I took all of my current artwork and created my portfolio for the year.  Sadly, this and most of the digital pieces from that portfolio were lost to the Hunger of the Zip Disks.  I finally figured out that the zip disk scramble must have happened around the last quarter of 2001 or at some time in 2002 because I made this portfolio to show at Dragoncon in August of 2001. 

I was very lucky recently to discover I still had a physical copy of this portfolio.  I was able to scan several images from it.  After scanning, I had to touch it up a bit due to dust and scratches, but the most of the image integrity is still intact.  It is a bit dark, but so was the original Photoshop file.  Those are my hands in the background.  If I remember correctly, everything else was created in Photoshop.  The Moon image/card in the center is from my business card at the time, but here it is inverted from its original values.  I wanted to create an artificial space that would give a feeling of Mystery and Magick in its artificiality.  I hoped to add to that by confronting the viewer with something that is at first glance seems mostly normal, but upon closer inspection is challenging to understand. 

There is always such a strange relationship between my business cards and my portfolios.  They trade off themes very readily and sometimes dominate each other.  My two favorite portfolios so far have taken their themes from my preexisting business cards.   This portfolio and my current one both followed themes that I had used on the business cards prior to making the portfolio.  I don't currently have a copy of my business card from this time frame but I will find it and post.  :-)  My current card is here.

{Digital Images manipulated in Photoshop}

UPDATE: Green Ghoul - Black & White

I guess all is not lost after all...I took the original scan of the Green Ghoul from my post earlier this week and ran it through Photoshop a few times to get the color out and then cleaned up the black and white.  Also, as a bonus, while I was in Photoshop I added some grayscale to the Black and White image.  I'm reposting the original color for reference.

I'm still feel the black and white image is stronger on its own.  I feel the dramatic contrast makes the Ghoul jumping much more frightening.  The Grayscale is just okay.  The black and white is my favorite.  As before...it is all about the teeth.  That is the part that is trying to get me.  Teeth by their very nature want to bite.  :-O

{Pen & Ink original scanned and manipulated in Photoshop}

From the Archives: The Collapse

I wonder if this what a snake's skin looks like to the snake after it has been shed?  That is kind of how this feels to me now.  I recall an overwhelming feeling of dismay and despair upon drawing this originally, but now it seems more like a discarded skin, an empty mask that I once wore.  I am also getting a strong Grey Alien vibe here...or maybe a one of their corpses. 

A bit of a nod here to the Munch's The Scream.  Also an intentional attempt at duplication of woodgrain or linoleum cut print within Photoshop. In the end, just a sketch, but an interesting exploration nonetheless.

{Created in Photoshop}

UPDATE 022614:

This piece was Exhumed and reinvestigated with color in January 2014.  Check out the Exhumed image here.

Murder in the Maze Part IV: The Website

In 2001, My friend Don and I decided we needed something to celebrate the fun of The Maze.  Secretly, while no one was watching, we built a website for The Maze. Don was proficient at code and I was up to my eyeballs in Photoshop, so away we went.

We gave each year its own page and placed photos from the parties and descriptions on each.  I designed a header for each one of the pages.  We created a page to do profiles on everyone who helped construct the Maze and make the party such a success.  We also had a page for all the strange things we had created - like the skull keystone from last post and the "Carrie" trophy for best costume - a trophy with an idol of a prom queen covered in blood!  We threw a huge party on my friend Carol's birthday (Cinqo De Mayo) and premiered nexuscentral.net.

I suppose that is where things went a little crazy.  The party that year was beyond huge.   We had more people than we'd every had at any of the other parties combined.  I believe the cops showed up three times that year.  There wasn't any violence or anything...with that many people, we were just a bit too loud.  I have to claim some responsibility for the tension and recriminations that followed.  That party was TOO big and many boundaries were crossed during and after the party.  That was where things changed.

After the 2001, the luster of the maze fell away and we were left with the stark reality of the effects the parties were having.  After that year, the Maze moved to another location and the parties lost some of their sparkle.  They were still fun mind you, but the honeymoon was definitely over.  The price of the maze had become painfully clear: too much money, too much cleanup, too much arguing, and too little respect.

So the maze parties moved to another location and we all had to grow up a little.  The parties continued, but some people backed out of the preparation phase and all of our efforts were a bit halfhearted now that we knew and understood the price of the maze.  Ahhhhh, but we have the memories of rushing through the darkness, anticipating and fearing the strange touch of our friends and wondering if the trembling hand that reaches towards us is shaking out of communal fear or in preparation for the kill.  Oh the Murder!  The Murder in the Maze!

There are still a couple of pieces left to post from the website and a flyer or two I've missed.  OH, and did I forget to mention the LEGEND OF THE MAZE!  Alas, that is for another post...BWA HA HA HA HA HA!

The website doesn't exist anymore, but I couldn't post about the maze and overlook this essential part of its history. The Carrie trophy was created and photographed by my friend Don and the Skull Keystone was created by my friend Mike and also photographed by Don.

{All the headers were created within Photoshop} 

More Maze History and Art:

Murder in the Maze Part III: The Second Murderer

During third and fourth years of the Maze parties, so many people were playing the Murder in the Maze game that we developed an alternate set of rules for a second murderer within the game.  This was to help the game last a little longer with a large crowd so that everyone would have the opportunity to be "killed".  Also, sometimes the games would run long and people would have to head home to bed and had not had a chance yet to be the murderer.  So we inserted a second murderer to up the ante across the board!  There were several variations on how the second murderer was activated and came into play.  I don't remember them all, but following is the rule we used most often.

During the game, if the first murderer tapped the second murderer on the shoulder, then the second murderer was activated and tapped the first on the shoulder letting him know that he had become a murder victim and was dead.

Once this unknown murder had occurred, it would throw off any theory anyone had developed so far on the identity of the murderer and turn the game intrigue up to 11!  There was always lots of chatting after we were finished playing about who was where when and who secretly or not so secretly was watching or overheard when the murders were committed.  Lots of fun moments in the dark scaring the crap out of each other!  Good Times!  :-P

The first piece of art here is the flyer for the 2000 Maze party.  The flyer was printed on neon green and neon orange paper.  I apologize for my crappy scythe.  The image of Jack here has a MUCH better scythe!  :-)  Over time, Jack kind of became the official mascot for the maze parties.

{Pen & Ink, Text created in Photoshop}

The second piece of art here is the box I created for the deck of cards I created in Photoshop for the game.  During that time I had backed up many of my art files to zip disks and did not realize my error until too late.  I don't remember the exact year it occurred, but rapidly over several months time, all of my zip disks began to scramble and become unreadable.  I found out far too late that this is something that happens with zip disks over time.  I lost two years of artwork due to the scrambling.  The Murder in the Maze deck artwork was on those disks.  I've looked through all my old files to see if I had a hidden copy, but have not found any trace of the cards.

The person on the front of the box is my friend Don.  He let me xerox his face and use it as the cover.  The image from the back of the box is a skull painted by my dearly departed friend Ratboy aka Mike.  It was attached and used as the keystone in a fearsome archway we built for the entrance to the maze.  I'll see if I can find a picture of the archway and post it at some point.  The background is from several photos Don took of the black plastic that we used to construct the maze.  Those photos were used in the website we created to celebrate and advertise the Maze.  The website only ran for a couple of years but is no longer present on the web.  In my next post I will post some of the work I did for the site and give some more background info on it.

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

More Maze History and Art:

Depths

Bones are always buried.  During our lives, they are buried in our flesh, and when we die we place them under the soil. 

{created in Photoshop.}

From The Darkness

My favorite kind of Monster next to Zombies - Werewolves.  I'm not necessarily saying what this is, although it does look that way.  I discovered this image while working on some thing else, so who knows.  Enjoi!  :-)

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop.}


UPDATE 011515:

A variation of this this piece is now available on a tshirt or other cool paraphernalia at my Neatoshop!  Drop by and check it out! 

Man in the Moon

This was going to be a business card design, but it never got to that.  I like my current design much more but this image still has a good bit of Magick to it.

{Digital Images manipulated in Photoshop.}

UPDATE 091014:  This piece now available on a tshirt design and other cool paraphernalia at my Neatoshop!  Drop by and check it out!