Featured Creature: Devil's Head

Another horned headed monster this week for the second installment of Featured Creature, but a few more steps towards a darker demonic tone.  Somewhere between a satyr and a werewolf I think.  Once again, the background tone was added in photoshop post scanning to give give the image a little more punch.


{Sharpie and Uni-ball Vision Elite Pen, tone added in Adobe Photoshop}

The Room that Ate the World

I thought I had no story to tell about this piece, no insight, but my initial reaction to this piece seems a plausible narrative.  I saw a room containing several people, all altered, in this opulent space.  One of the participants within the space has an insight that transforms their consciousness and those around them.  Their mind literally is blown by the change in point of view.  Visually it makes me think of las vegas a little.  Perhaps it is a religious ceremony.  There was also a flash of a court room.  Of course the room that ate the world would be a mystery.

Archaeology of the Light

Surface niceties reveal hidden demons.  Dig deep, double check your sources, learn the smell of a lie.  On a personal level, this reflects my inability to conceal my rage despite many and varied efforts.  Blood always shows through, whether its your own or someone else's.

From The Sketchbook Archives: Blue Boy in the Underworld

For some reason, still not sure exactly as to why, I never filled in the background on this sketch.  When I found this in my notebooks, I didn't want to mar the original with a bland fill-in that wasn't necessarily in line with what I was feeling when I originally drew the piece.  Instead, I played a bit in photoshop and added a background. 

{Sharpie with background added in Adobe Photoshop}

Featured Creature: Satyr's Head

I've been feeling lately that I haven't been spending nearly enough time drawing by hand and I've been fearful of losing my drawing chops (as it were).  Beginning this week and hereafter, I will be posting a new sketch of some dark creature or other.  Satyrs, Ghosts, Zombies, Demons, you name it.  They will all be crawling out of the recesses of my mind to haunt and frighten. All will be hand drawn with pencil, pen, and sharpie.  By the end of it all I hope to post a veritable army of monsters.  Welcome to my first Featured Creature!

He Came to Me

It is only my fear
that keeps me from my happiness.
I have survived many things
and it is the tide of this history
that will carry me into his arms.

Disturbance at the Gate

Things never stay dead.

Just when you think you've buried all the corpses of your issues and marked all the tombstones, you turn to find gnarled decaying fingers breaking the soil.  Sometimes it feels like it would just be easier to let the bastards eat me instead of fighting them back into the dirt again and again.  After rebirth fifteen I really stop seeing the point.

From The Sketchbook Archives: The Gate

This was a sketch done the same time as He Who Bears the Fury.  This became a finished painting as well.  After a botched attempt at changing the main colors of the painting, in frustration I painted over the entire piece.  This sketch is all that remains.

At the Bottom of Everything

Within the vast mucoid detritus of our lives,

lurk the forgotten and the exiled,

the denied and the refuted,

all the wretched furies never given voice or form.

He Gave in to His Demon

There seems to be a demonic theme running through my art this month.  Considering the conjunction of Saturn and Mars in Libra on the 15th, I can understand it.  These two are known respectively as the greater malefic and lesser malefic and they are together now in the sign of balance and relating.  We are all stepping on each others toes and having our personal demons/issues dragged to the surface.

From The Sketchbook Archives: Shadow Struggle

I think at the time I drew this, I was sensing the coming struggles I would undergo with my sarcoidosis.  I felt a great inevitable darkness surrounding me.  Not sure on the exact timeframe, but I know it was before 2003.

{Sharpie}

Discovery in the Hall of Mirrors

We sleep upon the surface of a vast ocean.

Solve et Coagula, the Birththrone of the Self

At the throne of identity,
today wants and tomorrow becomes.
In the heat of today,
the bricks of tomorrow's foundations are kilned.
Endless cycles of becoming,
crest the surface of this ocean of being,
merging and breaking
shattering and melting
arriving and leaving.

From the Sketchbbok Archives: The Heart Reveals Itself

No secret can be kept forever.

{Sharpie}
Apologies to Mike Mignola.

The Bride

Heart echoing intensity,
understanding growing within,
full of the fear of becoming,
the bride steps forward.

He Waits for Me at the Threshold

He waits for me at the threshold of rebirth,
at the cup of the phoenix.
Together, we will shed our skins
to discover the truth between us.
Soon there will be nothing left to separate,
no misgivings,
no deception,
no fear,
Only an endless tunnel
vibrating and shifting,
moving closer and closer
to the threshold.

From the Sketchbook Archives: Identity

The energy of creativity strains to free itself from the blockade of the singular identity, the limiting "I".  The blockage compounds the energy and it stagnates, becoming volatile and negative.  The Identity becomes a brittle frozen mask, almost devoid of any remaining humanity.

Not What He Seems

All things become naked
in the fullness of observation.
The deception of surfaces
is pulled away like stage curtains
and the interior script
plays out the true drama.

Soulsplitter

This summer is relentless. The Pluto / Uranus square has taken no prisoners and this heat is scary.  Untenable situations abound, but the Soulsplitter is unconcerned. It performs its duties with the consistency of the sunrise, and I fear it isn't done with us just yet. 

Recommended Listening:

Rome

Die Brandstifter

from Mass Mensch Material

{Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

NOW AVAILABLE: HBA T-shirts!

For the past month, I've been working with Jeremy over at Horror Blogger Alliance to create a design for the newest HBA T-shirt!  We ended up with the two final designs above that are available now at Neatorama's Neatoshop.  Check out the info on the HBA Tshirts, or order one here.

From the Sketchbook Archives: Demon

More Sharpie play inspired by the artwork of Mike Mignola and the ninth episode of the series The Hakkenden: The Legend of the Ghost Cat.

{Sharpie}

In the Pools of Fevered Disappointment, He Waits

I find this piece a little difficult to write about.  I am observing an exterior structure becoming transparent, revealing a previously hidden intent.  Chaos and Toxicity, that's all I have right now.

The Hare's Tale

his wounds are deep...

what he is running to...

he forgets...

hope is hidden...

and he is tired...

so tired...

and he only wants to rest...

just to rest.

From the Sketchbook Archives: Shadows and Story

The Assassination Machine

The sword and the pen are the merely the fangs of something more insidious.

Recommended Listening:

NIN

Head Like A Hole

from Pretty Hate Machine

{Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

The Strange Case of the Hanged Man

Desire manifests in the strange ways.

Sometimes our approach
is in direct opposition
to very thing we desire,

thus nullifying
all our vaunted efforts.

From the Archives: Winter

I Am Marked By My Truth.

There is a boundary within us all past which we cannot retreat.

May your Truth be with you.

Recommended Listening:
The Prodigy
Omen
from Invaders Must Die!

{Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

Friday the 13th: Vault of Shadow

Here's a little dark nugget to entertain on what promises to be at the very least an interesting Friday the 13th!  Over the next two days we have Uranus going retrograde as well as Mercury going retrograde.  This promises a certain level of intrigue as just a regular Mercury retrograde is usually enough to facilitate a great deal of mischief.  Enjoy the ride and try to hold on to your tempers as this is going to be a bumpy weekend.