Lollygagging

I have been procrastinating.
I reached a sort of milestone with the start of the BWAC Big show (bwac.org). My New work is up and I can take a break and agonize about it...which I didn't have time to do before.
I've also started this new locust painting. It's a slightly different style and I'm very insecure about it. The other colors, I think. will bring the painting together.
In the meantime, as part of the lollygagging (or is it lollAgagging?) I took a long walk in the city with my sister. We passed this colorful bus.

I need a new name!

NO, I don't need a new name, but this painting does. It sort of developed on it's own, spawned, you might say, by the crazy talk of Linder and Mai-Liis.(See comments for July 15th). Linder also sent me this photo below of....of....well, you decide. She is definately being plagued by giant black bugs.
So yesterday, I added keys to the tiny green paws of the green things in the painting and then, what are keys without a keyhole, I made a tiny doorway in that blank spot at the bottom. I have that 'horror vacua' syndrome.
One thing I haven't mentioned are the borders of the paintings. I really enjoy doing these. They are my versions of the intricate, patterning and colors that are in the manuscripts.

Eat Your Greens

Eat Your Greens may or may not be the title, but here's how the painting is coming along. I had to put many layers of color on the horse like animal but he is finally the way I want him. And I still have to work on the border.
The final step is to add the black lines again, which this painting is particular really needs to bring out the shapes. That's because some of them are in the same value as the red. Yes, I did that on purpose.

Frittering my time away

Today is my brother's birthday so I frittered away a few hours making a card for him. I wanted to give the impression of tiles since he's working on tile tables right now, but I think it looks more like the cracked earth of the desert.

The Right Red

I put 3 layers of red before I liked the result. Quin Magenta, which is a beautiful red, Napthol Red light to warm it up and then a mixture of the Naphtol red and cad yellow light, glazed on to brighten it up. I wish I could have saved more of the quin magenta spots but I could not 'recreate' them by mixing white into the quin magenta. That produced a sort of light purple.
Question of the day that I have been mulling over. How true to stay to the original images? I'd like to remove the Very Very Christian iconography in some of the images. I feel it limits the audience and also does not represent who I am. Thoughts?
Mai-Liis says the paintings are funny to her. Are they funny to you?

New work and little guy abandoned

Sadly, I have put Little Guy aside, once I realized, didn't you? that he looked like a Simpson character. I'll have to rethink that whole image.
But I have started a new piece with LOTS of Red in it. To get the red I want, I have first laid down a layer of Quin magenta. Then I'll glaze or scumble over it with a more orangey red: Napthol light with a touch of Cad yellow medium.
The image is 3 creatures eating what look like locusts frogs. Any ideas for a title?
The whole thing is reminding me of something that happened to my sister Linda last week. It seems she is having her own personal Apocalypse out in the desert. Huge insects, the size of pigeons, have been invading her home. She had them exterminated and a huge black BEAST emerged from her fountain and flew off. Now it is loosed upon the earth!

The Gospel according to Little Guy

This one is definately in the ugly stage. My colors are all over the place. This is the first piece I'm doing from my head so watch the colors change as I work. It's 12X24.
As for Locusts Pocus, it's almost finished. I just want to add some wording. You'll see it in the next few days.

Locusts pocus, 2

This painting definately went thru an ugly stage. The colors looked too discordant and silly to me. But I stuck with the program and it's coming together. The "program" is to use 3 colors and black and mix my colors from the 3 to make orange and green. In this case I wanted an unusual blue. I had to use prussian blue and bright blue together. The colors definately don't match the original. Anyway, I really don't know what the original looks like, since I'm working from books and interent stuff.
OH, by the way, this is a BROOKLYN blog. I mention it because there was a story in today's paper about how many blogs are from Brooklyn. On the Brooklyn theme, I delievered my paintings to Red Hook yesterday for the BWAC Big Show. 3Against1, and the Losing Team are on the wall, and my auction piece is Blow. You can see them all here on the blog.

locusts pocus

It took a LOOOOONg time to think of a name for this one. Locusts that turn into horse like animals and have tails like tarantulas...that's a little long, don't you think?
This is from the one of the Beatus commentary's on the Apocalypse. I'm in the process of reading up on Beatus. It seems the Bishop of Toledo called him the Antichrist so Beatus said, "NO, YOU'RE the Antichrist". And it went back and forth like that, in those wild and crazy 700's. Meanwhile, Beatus wrote his Commentary's, which I have yet to read a word of.
By the way, Beatus won.

Locusts and Little Guy

The Locust painting is drawn in. Here's the canvas with the black lines. I usually end up painting over the lines and I redo most of them.
I like to have a second painting in the works too. This is one of my Little Guy paintings. It's the first one done in this style that is totally from my own little brain. Little guy sits on top of the world and speaks. Faithful dog listens. Serpent attacks. The Angel and devil are obvious symbols. I'm in two places: the little figure that the angel holds and the figure at the lower right. Of course I'm planning to make changes as I go along.