It's Friday, Pirate Girls and Breakfast Tea...

Friday and it is a crisp 23 degrees outside. Tomorrow's my birthday and I will turn 59 years of age. It surprises me I made it this far.  I would like to think that I still have some road left, but in case I don't I try to make the days count in some way.

I will not lie, the past two years have been rough but they have also yielded high rewards. I feel fortunate and grateful.

I have returned to a piece I started some time ago. It is entitled "Dante in Hell"...inspired partly by the "Inferno" and also my journey through my cancer ordeal. It is a catharsis I suppose.

Below is an excerpt from "Dante in Hell"...

I have recently been looking and studying works by contemporary pen and ink artists such as DZO and others. It has taken me back to school in many ways.

I also discovered Jeremy Bastian's "Cursed Pirate Girl".  I really like his sense of whimsy and old school approach as shown below his drawings are a throwback to the days of early illustrators and I feel like I am seeing illustrations from the Looking Glass era of the Victorian Age.

Art by Jeremy Bastian

 Time for breakfast tea...then work.

Anthropomorphism and Whimsy...

Finished this sketch yesterday. Been working on and off on it for the better part of a few weeks. Trying to get myself back into drawing religiously again. It has taken some effort. I have been playing around a lot lately with Anthropomorphism, drawing animals as humans.

The sketch below I dubbed "General Gaston Lupine of the third order of the Lupus Brigade and commander of the Pepperbox Pistol Platoon of Basilica". It was inspired by watching Brotherhood of the Wolf".

It needs a lot of cleanup, but to be honest it is more of a sketch (that is my defense and I am sticking to it.)

This probably won't be the last either. I actually find that I need to do this occasionally to keep from taking myself to seriously and frankly they are fun.

It was done with a combination of Uni-pens, ballpoint, Pilot Maicia Hi-Tech pens and mechanical pencil. And of course a lot of Mars plastic eraser.

It was done in a Piccadilly Sketch book. I find the pen really loves that paper, though it is rather thin.

Below are other examples of my Anthropomorphism drawings.



Often they end up taking a character of their own and I really
don't know where they will lead. It is just letting the whimsical
side of me come out and play.


Most of these are done primarily in ballpoint.
Of course there is an obvious Steampunk
factor.

They also have been good therapy. Creativity such
as art, writing and music have always seemed to
be essential elements with recovering cancer patients.
I am really trying to be a good patient. =)

Below is a picture of my set of tools in case you were wondering.

Before signing off I want to say recreating a presence on the internet isn't easy especially after being absent for sometime. I was working on an online web comic before cancer cut me down. It was called Sanctus Sanatorium. It was a rather elaborate tale set in the town of Obscuro and the collection was going to be entitled Tales of Obscuro. One day I may return to it. If I do, it will probably begin from scratch. I was up to 30 or more pages before I was diagnosed. It was done in a combination of pencil and digital coloring. If I do decide to return to it, think it will be in black and white, done traditionally in pen. Right now though I am not at the stage where I can commit that much of my life to it. With continued Oncologist visits and working full time it has taken me all of the last two years to regain some sort of balance. In time maybe.

It is now time for tea...

Another Attempt

This isn't my first attempt at creating a blog site for my artwork. The last attempt ended rather haphazardly I am afraid, it was hacked. Since the web hosting service was somewhat erratic in the sense of having adequate service and its security was basically full of holes, I let it go.

There were other factors that came into play as well. In September I lost my father to cancer. I too am a cancer survivor being two years now into the five year period of being sanctioned as being in remission. Another three years and I will most likely live to be an old man. I should say older man, since I am old already by most standards.

I choose blogger because I have had a history with it and was pleased with results. Plus it is free. It is in its infancy now. Hopefully I will be diligent in not only continuing my artwork, but keeping the blog updated as well.