Psychedelic visions, imaginary album art, and dark memories of dungeons. Necklaces, too.

A big update is underway in my main Etsy shop this July, and one of the big things to know is that I've reduced the cost of prints, at least through the end of the summer, to $6 for 5 x 7 prints and $10 for 8 x 10 prints. I also tried to make sure that first class shipping is available for all prints. If you see it coming up as only priority mail shipping please let me know and I can adjust it down to first class. As always, international quotes are available on request, but require some extra time to pin down the exact cost.

I finally listed an oil painting that I completed late last year, with a gothic/alchemical theme. It's one of my favorites, and I'll be happy to offer prints on request but haven't made them just yet.

I also have a number of 8 x 10 and 11 x 15 paintings on stretched canvas that were done for art shows or just my own amusement...and pendants are now available! I have made 12 designs in total and have four more in my shop. Contact me if you're curious about the others and don't want to wait, but I will list the rest very soon.

Original oil painting

"Black Swan Ritual"

9 x 12 inches

Original acrylic painting

"The Golden Dragon and the Unicorn"

11 x 14 inches

This painting was inspired by a scene in a D&D module that I love, X2 Chateau D'Amberville. In the encounter, there is a woman with golden hair asleep in a grove with a unicorn, guarding a box. She is actually a gold dragon that has shapeshifted. You'd never know this is from a D&D module if you weren't looking for the reference, but just between you and me...that's where the idea came from!

Original acrylic painting

"Subterranean Summoning"

11 x 14 inches

Original acrylic painting

"Beyond the Sea of Cosmic Memory"

8 x 10 inches

These two psychedelic paintings (above and below) were in a recent psychedelic art show at Insomnia Gallery in Houston. They have an art show every month on a variety of themes: gothic, gaming, horror, and plenty of other pop culture and art themes. We've participated in at least a half dozen of them so far, including their annual monster art show, cartoons, video games and other topics. The gallery also houses an incredible record store!

Original acrylic painting

"The Source of the Mushroom Vision"

8 x 10 inches

One other thing about these psychedelic paintings: I did them to resemble album covers I'd love to see. The first one in particular is a bit of a nod to the kind of album art that The Fool did in the 1960s for projects like the Incredible String Band's 5000 Spirits of Layers of the Onion album. Just as colorful as possible, with vague overtures toward cosmic and spiritual themes.

Original acrylic painting

"Luna Crystals"

5 x 7 inches

Original acrylic painting

"Octo Crystals"

5 x 7 inches

Original acrylic painting

"Accidents in the Alchemist's Workshop"

5 x 7 inches

Now available as a photo print

"The Unicorn Constellation"

5 x 7 or 8 x 10 photographic print

"The Crone's Secret"

Glass tile pendant

1-inch square print beneath glass on a chain

I have wanted to make little glass tile necklaces for close to 20 years and finally broke down and did some. It is quite easy to do and they are very charming! Each pendant is made of a nice, sturdy, heavy metal and houses a teeny tiny 1-inch photo print sealed in place with a glass tile. I include a basic 24-inch gunmetal chain so you can wear it right away, but feel free to use your own instead.

"The Owl and the Pussycat Went to Tea"

Glass tile pendant

1-inch square print beneath glass on a chain

"Le Coeur et le Serpent"

Glass tile pendant

1-inch square print beneath glass on a chain

"Song of the Witch Girl"

Glass tile pendant

1-inch square print beneath glass on a chain

 In March, I participated in the Thorn and Moon Magickal Market at Avant Garden in Houston, an event that grows every month, and is held the first Friday of each month. I hope to attend again. Prints and pendants were extremely popular there, and I have all of them available in my shop all the time. If you ever see that I am out of stock of something you want let me know and I'll make sure to make a new one for you!

I have lots more art on the way, it's just a matter of sitting down at a laptop and listing it, but who actually sits down at a computer anymore, right?

Dragons again! Also, surreal and psychedelic prints newly available

I'd like to say that a childhood steeped in museum visits and gifts of lavish art books inspired me to start painting, informed by a classical education, but the truth is that old D&D modules and copies of Dragon magazine were probably what got me interested in art. That probably isn't too surprising though given that my favorite subject matter is fantasy-oriented, albeit on the whimsical side thereof. I'm not a student of the style of art that comes up when I google "fantasy" art images, obviously -- while all expertly done, it's a little glossy for my taste (and, er, my ability, which is nowhere near that of the professionals). I like to see the individual artist's touch and brush strokes. I especially like the look of the D&D art from around 1979-1981, where the figures are not always proportional and muscular, the colors are bright and garish, with oozy shades of green slime, crimson capes and glowing orange eyes. I like the drawings that look like elaborate notebook doodles and paintings with bold, clear strokes of color.

Behold, the formative influences. The colorful mushrooms, otherworldly lighting and details and stiff poses of the classic fantasy figures on "In Search of the Unknown" light up my brain in ways that cannot be articulated.

With that in mind, I'm applying myself to some more of the detailed dungeon work that I liked to do when I was in my teens. Here's my newest offering in that spirit, a 12 x 16 acrylic painting on flat canvas board. Any time I can put a small pile of jewels around a dragon's feet, I'm happy.

"Cave of the Stone Dragon"

I've posted a few examples in the past of my late 1980s paintings, but I don't think I posted this one below before. I'm terribly proud of that dragon; I think my dragon skills peaked around age 16.

Also newly available this week are some prints of paintings I did in the past. First here is a 5 x 7 print of a painting that I sold last month. I can make larger prints of this one on request, up to the original size (12 x 16). Oh yes, and clusters of crystals are even more satisfying than piles of jewels.

"Night of the Amethyst Dragon"

Also, a trio of psychedelic paintings I did in 2009. These first two have some kind of Tarot influence to them, but I can't say exactly what it is. The first was inspired by a dream; the second is just a collection of things that I like. The third piece is one of my lonely ice landscape paintings. Now that I am not living in a place where it gets quite as cold and lonely, I don't do a lot of those any more, but I DO spend a lot of time reading about early 20th century Arctic/Antarctic explorers.

"Vision of the Cosmic Rift"
Available as an 8 x 10 print

"Astral Peacock Empress"
Available as an 8 x 10 print

"The Secret"

Listing is for 5 x 7 print

also available as 8 x 10 on request

Thanks for looking! Coming soon are some perfume reviews and Halloween in June musings, if I get my act together.

Sci fi surrealism, rust monsters, and a few more unicorns.

Aside from working on a lot of oil paintings recently, and waiting for them to dry, I have a sort of unthemed mixed bag of things to share for the moment.

 Earlier this month I contributed a piece, "The Sea Corridor," for a greyscale art contest at Jerry's Artarama in Houston. I got a nice set of oil paints for my efforts, and the painting (18 x 24 inch on a gallery wrapped canvas) is taking up a big chunk of art closet real estate here now, in case anyone within driving distance of Houston is interested in making an offer on it. :) Blurry photo with glare courtesy of my perpetually poor lighting conditions and lack of a professional grade photo studio.

The "fish-owl" was inspired by a couple of lines in the book "Babylon" by Rene Crevel, and there are tiny little fishes budding off of the branches that were inspired by lines in "The Goose of Hermogenes" by Ithell Colquhoun, unless I'm getting my surrealist novels confused. I tried to put some of my favorite elements in this -- woods, corridors full of billowing curtains, gliding down a passageway like the famous scene in Jean Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast"...just some things that I like, blended into a sort of collage.

I also have prints available of a colorful, surrealist-inspired painting I did a few years ago and kept in my personal collection. This is a 5 x 7 print for sale but I can also make 8 x 10 (or 9 x 12, even) on request.

"Beneath the Green Sky"

"The Lair of the Rust Monster"

On a completely different note, I'm slipping an 8 x 10 print of another of my "personal stash" paintings into the mix this week -- I love D&D module covers from the early 80s, which was my formative era. I liked the art more than anything else really, since I rarely got to play with other people. In fact, check back for a post about those soon. 

"The Shadow and the Candle"

Back to surrealism, this oil painting is also in my personal stash, just a stream-of-consciousness piece I did, of whatever came to mind at the moment that I wanted to see. Subconsciously inspired by my love of Leonora Carrington, in ways I can't quite put my finger on. I'm keeping the original of this, but 5 x 7 prints are available at the link above, and 8 x 10 can also be made on request.

Finally, I have prints up now of a couple of the unicorn paintings that I did last week.

"Beneath the Purple Unicorn Tree" 5 x 7 print

"Groovy Unicorn Room" 5 x 7 print

And soomehow when Easter rolled around I think I neglected to post this picture, that I did for the season. But really, aren't moonlit bunnies suitable year-round?

Thanks for looking, and I hope that my next update will be a little more focused, but really, what's so great about focus?

Antarctic travels, and lost paintings

My last post here was Halloween, as the winter holiday season is typically a time that I try to step away from the computer for as much as possible. While it's a brutal winter back home in the Northeast, I've been living my own version of the frozen wasteland, by reading a lot about Antarctica recently.

There's a classic travelogue of Capt. Scott's journey to the South Pole (with special focus on a side trip to gather penguin eggs) by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, written in the 1920s but taking place in 1910-1913. It's available free as a public domain text from all the usual places (I got mine from Manybooks because those are always formatted nicely). The writing style is humorous at times, and at other times gets bogged down in a lot of description of coordinates, numbers of ounces of pemmican consumed at various meals, etc.

One of the most delightful things I learned in this reading was that one of the members of the expedition, Dr. E.A. "Bill" Wilson, did watercolors throughout the journey, some of which have been preserved. These photos from the Terra Nova expedition can be seen at various places online -- I am borrowing a glimpse of them from the Cool Antarctica website. It lists them as courtesy the NOAA. I love the soft colors and the otherworldly quality of these paintings -- they were done under extreme, freezing conditions, with the few materials he had at hand, and that is part of why I love them so much.

by Dr. E.A. Wilson "Scott's Last Expedition" 1913

by Dr. E.A. Wilson "Scott's Last Expedition" 1913

The past few years have been full of "Scott of the Antarctic" related news, in fact....in 2012 they found his ship, the Terra Nova, off the coast of Greenland... and incredibly, one year ago they finished retracing the Scott expedition, a wondrous event I wish I had been following in real time.

At any rate, whatever the reason for my interest in Antarctic (and Arctic, which I also want to read up on) exploration, I like doing paintings of icy world landscapes as well so here is my contribution to the genre for now, "Penguin Peak" --

I made a special trip to the aquarium pyramid at Moody Gardens in Galveston to meet some penguins in honor of my recent interests.Unfortunately, there is not a "swim with the penguins" option.

Here are a few other things new in my Etsy shop. First, a new version of a painting I originally did in 2003, but I wanted to recreate it and eventually make prints from it as well. I don't have hi-res pics of my paintings from that far back, but I also like to repaint, and hopefully improve upon them. "On the Green Moon" is available as an original painting for a mere $50 for a limited time.

I also uncovered some older paintings that I haven't had up for sale anywhere in a long time. I kept them in my personal stash but I'm willing to put them out there, for now....if there are no takers I'll put them back in my personal stash. :)

This butterfly fairy is 9 x 12 and only $60 for the duration of this listing. She is based on a vintage postcard photo but I added all the fairy and butterfly elements.

And finally, a D&D inspired piece showing some classic dungeon monsters taking a coffee or tea break. Also at a special price and for a limited time. I can make prints of any of these on request but I haven't specifically listed prints on their own yet.

We do, however, have some of the most popular prints back in stock right now...including ghosts, banana slugs, cloaked witches and this, possibly my most popular piece...these always sell out quickly when I get a few in stock!

Dragons, and some dungeons

Dragons were kind of where everything started when I began painting in 1986 just before I turned 13. Although they weren't the absolute first thing I ever painted, they were definitely one of the main subjects along with unicorns and would-be D&D characters. Well, after about four years of that, by the end of high school my interest in surrealism and color and more abstract art took over for a long time and I mainly painted surreal alien landscapes.  But one thing I really miss from being 16 or so was the way that I used to do relatively large paintings, and patiently work on them for a long time, getting lots of details in as I figured out exactly how I wanted to paint.  After having a dream last night about a bunch of large-ish paintings that my dream-self forgot that I did, I thought I'd get a few larger canvases and revisit that old style.

"Opal Dragon's Eyrie" is my first dragon painting in many years, though not too big, at 14 x 18 inches. It's too big for a regular scanner so I had to take a photo (above) and a series of scans (example below) but I'm very happy that I was able to snap back to 1989 and indulge in my old subject matter, with a little less clumsiness of brushstroke. I still don't technically know what I'm doing, but I'm glad that I'm still 16 at heart somewhere.

My mom has been kind enough to take some photos of paintings that I still have around her house, so here are a couple from 1989, which I consider my "peak" year for doing 16 x 20 fantasy paintings with intense detail. I don't know that I really named paintings back then (I barely do now...) but I am really terribly fond of this one of cave adventurers. There's something very satisfying about working on the details of a big pile of treasure, or on a dragon's scales.  These were inspired by my childhood loved of first edition D&D (or AD&D) which I almost never played with other people but certainly collected a lot of books and accessories. Poring over them and creating characters and storylines was very satisfying even without actually playing the game.

Here is another dragon that I have a soft spot for! I was very happy with the way I did the crystals, at the time. This might have been 1990 or still 1989.  These frames were all made by my late grandfather...I wish I had learned to make them myself too, it would be incredibly handy! I did do a little woodworking as a young thing, but nothing practical, I'm afraid.

Below is a golden dragon in a snowy landscape that I am also very attached to. I would like to have the patience to do a forest like this again!

Finally, for laughs, here is a much earlier attempt when I was trying to work out exactly how to use a paintbrush.  I think that I came a long way from those early attempts to the ones you see above from around 1989.

More nostalgia on the way, I have dozens more paintings to share - including some that are no longer in my collection...alas, I should have just held onto them all, I'll never be 14 again!