The contemptible Cockalorum is back in the studio after strutting around in the Visual Art Exchange Hearsay show for the past month, so I am finally able to list the original on Etsy! Perhaps you’re in need of some outhouse decor? Or a very expensive dartboard? Prints are available too if you’d prefer a cheaper target.
Edit: By request of an anonymous source, I’m now offering mugs with this ugly mug in my Zazzle shop.
I’m delighted to announce that these two paintings (Odd Fellowship & Advice From a Bunnipillar) will be a part of Sweet n Low, a group show at the Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek CA, June 22 – August 27, 2017. If you’re in the area, please drop by & see them in person! I’m sorry to say I won’t be able to make the opening, but it sure sounds like a fun show!
From the Gallery’s Website:
Sweet n Low features artwork from over 130 local, national, and international artists who extend the genre of cute from cuddly and precious to creepy and ironic. From kitsch and Margaret Keane’s Big Eyes, to Japanese anime and contemporary Pop Art, we’re unleashing the roly-poly, goofily-gamboling, saccharine-honeyed creatures on this earth and beyond! Sweet n Low is part invitational and part juried exhibition, juried by Evan Pricco of Juxtapoz magazine and Antler Gallery, Portland, OR.
The Gallery is closed Tuesday July 4th
This pink kitty may be dressed in classical garb, but she’s a punk at heart! It’s been quite a while since I posted anything here! But I’ve been busy. Mostly I’ve been posting work in progress, sketches, selections from my obsessive collections, & other such things on Instagram (you can follow me over there if you’d like to see more).
Lately I’ve been doing more political stuff than usual. It’s a form of therapy, more than anything else.
Appropriately enough for the grand finale of my week on A.Word.A.Day, here’s an ostentatious feline showing off her most opulent finery as she slinks down the red carpet to the opera. If her over-the-top style looks a bit familiar, maybe it’s because of a certain bird with a similar fondness for white furs & flamboyant feathers. Birds (& cats) of a feather flock together, & it tickles me that the two side by side spell out “NO!”
Thanks once again to Anu for another year of wonderful words. I’m already looking forward to 2017!
Original & prints in my Etsy shop.
With a peculiar predilection to pack up & perambulate, this peregrine has picked an impractical path perhaps, but peregrination needn’t be practical to be pleasurable.
As someone who often chooses curious & circuitous pathways over direct routes (both literally & figuratively) I can attest that getting there really is half the fun! Painting the meadow in this piece for instance… possibly a slightly mad pursuit considering its tiny size & peripheral importance, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. And if you look closely at the finished piece, you may find an appropriate message from Tolkien amidst the foliage! (There’s also a bit of a nod to one of his aptly-named characters on the suitcase… can you spot it?)
Thanks once again to Anu of A.Word.A.Day for the inspiration!
Original & prints available in my Etsy shop.
I didn’t know this word until Anu suggested it for A.Word.A.Day, but once I looked it up I knew it would be great fun to illustrate! There’s something delightfully Shakespearean about the definition of “afflatus” in the old dictionary I used for the background text– any word that could evoke both “an exaltation of soul” & “belching” would appeal to the bard, don’t you think? Still, I hope his expression conveys that it’s divine inspiration he’s receiving here & not digestive vapors, however angelic. It was a technical challenge even to get a likeness since his face is barely the size of my fingernail!
Here’s a work-in-progress shot showing the scale of the painting. (If you’d like to see more of this sort of thing please follow me on Instagram.)
Original & prints available in my Etsy shop, Curious Art Lab!
Nothing is more delicious than a good, juicy word, & A.Word.A.Day provides one every morning. I’m honored to be illustrating for Anu Garg’s succulent site again this week, & especially delighted to be given this word this year. In June we visited The Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, & saw the most astonishing collection of succulents there in the Desert Garden. My East-Coast eyes couldn’t get enough of their curious shapes & colors. There were a number of lizards enjoying the landscape as well, & I would not have been very surprised if an aloe-esque creature like this “S”-shaped fellow had appeared in one of the beds. Even an alien or a dinosaur would have seemed right at home!
(By the way, the Desert Garden is just one of many, & we were so entranced by all of them that we barely had time to pop into the Library at the end of the day before it closed– which was a pity, because their collection of rare books & manuscripts is as spectacular as the collection of plants.)
Original sold but prints still available in my Etsy shop, Curious Art Lab.
Working on a new painting based on the Odd Fellows, a masonic group. I found this book on the subject at the Raleigh Flea Market, & it sparked some fairly odd ideas! Stay tuned for more!
I thought I’d posted this painting when I finished it last summer, but it appears I never did! I’m glad Illustration Friday’s topic this week was “smoke” because it made me think of this hookah “smoking” white rabbit/caterpillar chimera. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is one of my all-time favorite books, so much so that “Curiouser & curiouser!” is the motto I’ve painted on my studio door.
p.s. Above are a few in-process shots from my Instagram account. The last photo shows the cover of Enchanted, published by Out of Step Books, which includes this painting as part of a large collection of folk, fairy tale & Wonderland illustrations (& tattoo art!)
