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?

Dark Hollow and Dark Holler

As September draws nearer, things are getting pretty serious with the Halloween stuff popping up. Here are a few more entries in the Dark Hollow art theme by Halloween Artist Bazaar members, as well as a couple of new prints that I have up on Etsy -- which are not Dark Hollow prints, but hey, they are still Halloween.

But another item worth mentioning right now is that over on Dark Holler (see how I did that?) record label, there is a new album available from the band I have been involved with for the past 15 years, Stone Breath. This time around the album is all Timothy and Prydwyn, the pairing that initially drew me to the band when their "A Silver Thread to Weave the Seasons" album was released in the late 1990s. I'm on a bonus track here, but by all means please check out the full album for the most heartfelt, perfect acoustic music you can expect to hear this year. You can also investigate the entire catalog at Bandcamp if digital versions are your thing.

Over in the art department...here once again are my new Halloween works but this time I am talking about the prints that I now have available. You can choose the in 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 inch sizes, and all are in stock as of this writing.

 "Lost in the Dark Hollow" print in 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 by Art by Sarada

 "Cauldron in the Dark Hollow" print in 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 by Art by Sarada

As a side note, I have a few other prints now available of older Halloween art and I will be adding more as the weeks move along their merry way.

"Witch Twins" print by Art by Sarada

"Twilight Tree" print by Art by Sarada

And as promised, here are three more items from other Halloween Artist Bazaar artists. That link right there is to the full HAB shop, but you can also find our stuff on Etsy and other locations...check for the tag HAB, to find a nice assortment!

"Tiny Witch Shrine Box" by Wicked Alterations

"Spooky Tree with Headstone Coffin Box" by Odd Origins

"Will of the Wisp" by Twilight Faerie

Dark Hollow art at the Halloween Artist Bazaar

It's August! That means it's as good as autumn (even though it won't feel like it, for awhile) and I can get back to drinking hot tea in earnest. It also means there should be some serious pumpkinage going on in your local craft stores, to take the edge off of the remains of the summer.

The Dark Hollow concept we're exploring this year at the Halloween Artist Bazaar is close to my heart since I am involved with a record label called Dark Holler, and the entire aesthetic of haunted, out-of-the-way places, overgrown nature, and the depths of night, is kind of my thing.

I have two paintings so far up and running as part of this event, and I expect to add a third...storybook illustration-style images of rabbits and toads (and after a while, there will be a fox). Images for a Halloween story that hasn't been written quite yet.

"Cauldron in the Dark Hollow"

"Lost in the Dark Hollow"

Here are some works by other artists in the group!

Dark Hollow charm bracelet by Jynxx

Peste Corvino by twistedpixelstudio

"Light at the end of the Dark Hollow" by Twilight Faerie

Please visit us often though the season for more works of art! And visit the year-round Halloween Artist Bazaar shop!

Rabbits I have known

"Carrot Cottage" 8 x 10 acrylic on canvas board.

I realized recently when my friend who maintains the blog Painted Lady Fingers got a little pet bunny, that I haven't painted rabbits in a long time.  I used to do quite a few paintings with rabbits in them though they were usually focused around spring time, as I posted earlier this year at Easter time.

Most of us have a lot of bunnies in life early on if we ever came across Peter Rabbit, Brer Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, the Velveteen Rabbit, uh...the Trix Bunny...it goes on and on!  But they also have been wonderful silent mysterious moon creatures to me, inspiring things like Kenneth Anger's Rabbit Moon:



Or haunted the book that delighted my childhood with the promise of gold and jeweled riches, "Masquerade" by Kit Williams (I still have positively no idea how anyone ever solved that puzzle). (...and here is a nice blog post about rabbits, below, I found in my search for an image for that book).

Or, perhaps most significantly, in "Watership Down" by Richard Adams, the unforgettable novel that introduced us to Fiver, Hazel and the other rabbits who spoke their own language (yes, I memorized snippets of it in sixth grade) and had epic struggles and battles in the English countryside. 

This book was so emotional for me around the age of 10-14 that although I read it at least three times then, I haven't been able to go back and read it again because I know I'd cry too much.  The same thing happened with the Duncton Woods books about moles.  I drew pictures of each of the rabbits for a little project in school around sixth grade, but of course they all pretty much looked the same...still, I think that is where my basic idea of how to draw a rabbit came about.

So in realized that I have been gravely short on rabbits in my art lately, I'm going to start trying to incorporate more of them, as evidenced by my little Halloween rabbit painting up above, "Carrot Cottage."  Some will be naturalistic like thee little bunny you see above and some will be anthropomorphic and cartoonish but I will try to include them more often than Easter time as I remember how important they have been to me throughout my life.