The Dream Hunters

Limited edition prints of my entry are available for $20 and all proceeds go to the American Red Cross Japanese Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief fund.

Please support Japan and get a piece of art in the process!

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This illustration is based on Neil Gaiman's "The Dream Hunters" in which a clever Fox and a sly Badger make a wager to steal a Buddhist Monk's temple home from him. Which ever one chases the Monk away gets to keep his home as their own. In the process of this wager, the Fox takes human form and falls in love with the Monk. If you want to know the rest, you'll need to read the story ^^

I decided to set my illustration in the dream world where the Monk and the Fox spend some time together and consummate their love for each other. I also attempted to incorporate some classic Japanese-esque elements into my composition such as the symmetrical layout of the clouds and figures. The graphic swirls in the clouds and the color palette were inspired from many Ukiyo-E prints from ancient Japan, specifically Hokusai and Hiroshige. Although these elements are taken from the Japanese masters, the illustrative style remains my own.

The Dream Hunters - WIP - Finished Line Art

The final lines are completed. I added another layer of clouds in the background as it felt a bit undefined. Though it is a dreamscape and space has no meaning, I did want to further develop the idea and felt that this really helped to solidify my initial idea. The next phase is the painting. I probably won't take any photos during this phase. My next upload will most likely be the finished painting.

The Dream Hunters - WIP

This is my initial layout and concept for my entry in an art exhibition for Japan relief being held on June 11th in Chicago. The show is themed around Japan's influence on us as individual artists and how it has played a roll in shaping us.

My concept is based upon Neil Gaiman's "The Dream Hunters" which is a tale steeped in Japanese folklore. I don't want to give too much about the image away at this juncture, but suffice it to say I will be posting at least one more stage before the final painting is don. I'll give you a bit more in the next installment....

Caffeinated Distortion

Painting 12/20 for my series "The Devil's Cup". The ellipses in this image are a bit pinched and out of concentric alignment to symbolize my desperate need for caffeine to re-align my head, vision and mind each morning.

I'm such an addict....

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse

This painting was done from a detailed plein air sketch and painting at Pemaquid Point Lighthouse in Bristol, Maine. After getting all essential information down in my sketchbook I did this painting on a piece of Clayboard back at "Bold Colorful Life" which was the gigantic farmhouse where I was staying with my fellow painters, the Sons of Turner.

Sons of Turner 2011: Booth Bay, Maine - Day 5

Day 5: Rockland, ME

We took a trip to Rockland which is another port town. This place was a more middle of the road town in terms of population and class of people. The sky was gloomy but the rain held off the entire time we were there.

The Strand is a theatre where they offer HD operas and fine art performances via projection screens. Basically it's a movie theatre for people into the fine arts. MBK sat in Rock Town Coffee and Books and drew the building. He's got an incredible way of free hand drawing object in perspective and nailing it. So jealous...

This sign is not for a diner... it's for the Freeport Museum of Art. This piece is an installation at the top of the museum. It fooled me...

While wandering around Rockland I wandered down near the docks and noticed this at shrine at the bottom of a tree. It was not only creepy, but obviously the home of a worshiper of Dagon, the Philistine fish god.

After Rockland, MBK and a few others went out to procure lobsters for our dinner. Gabriella texted me with "The lobsters are staring at me from the back seat with puppy-dog eyes..." If the lobsters only knew what we had in mind for them back at the house...

Bob went to town on the little guys. At first he was a bit sad to throw the little guys into a boiling pot but he quickly grew accustomed to his role and killed the remaining 8 lobsters.

We did have an opportunity to paint one of our lobster friends before we sent him to his death. We named him "Nom-Nom" since we knew he was gonna be yummy... Morbid?

Little Nom-Nom never stood a chance...

Sons of Turner 2011: Booth Bay, Maine - Day 4

Day 4: Pemaquid Point Lighthouse

The south eastern coast of Maine is divided into little finger-like peninsulas. Boothbay Harbor is at the southern tip of the peninsula that we are staying on, Pemaquid Point Lighthouse is on the tip of the next peninsula to the north-east.

After paying the $2 admission for the day, we wandered the premises and looked inside a few of the buildings available to the public. Inside the first one we saw this winch-like mechanism and an old anchor. This building had an awesome view of the immense, rocky shore.

The winch and the anchor...

Bob sat and worked on a really nice painting. You should see it...

The rocky outcropping looked like a titan had clawed it's way up to the surface and this shore was what remained of it's efforts. No matter how hard I tried to capture the immensity of the area and the long drops off the side of the cliff, these images do not evoke the immensity of the shore.

We had an awesome lunch at the little shop next door and I even got to see a gigantic moose come out of the woods and cross the road in front of my car... alas... no pictures...

Sons of Turner 2011: Booth Bay, Maine - Day 3

Day 3: Popham Beach, Maine

Popham beach is an hour or so drive south of Boothbay Harbor. It was here that we noticed that just about everything we wanted to is an hour or so away.

We arrived at the beach and noted that we would not be able to do what we intended to do until low tide.... We left the beach in search of food and found the oddest/coolest little farm that was basically a hippie compound. they served organic sandwiches and were in the process of making an earthen kiln for baking bread. Did I mention the loose chickens running amok...?

After our luncheon adventure we headed back out to the beach. At low tide (approx. 1pm) the beach forms a land bridge to an island a short walk off the coast. We walked out to the island and even had to carry a few SoTs across the water - specifically MBK and Diana Terry...

We had the island to ourselves and went to work painting and sketching in the most majestic display of the might of the ocean I've ever seen.

The waves were breaking against the edge of the island shooting foam and spray into the air...

Andrew Day was inspired to paint a lovely view of the ocean and a lighthouse on a distant island...

Diana kicking back on a piece of driftwood...

MBK working hard on capturing each and every wave...

We got so swept up in the moment that we nearly lost our land bridge back to the main land. We did have to walk through waist high ocean water as it came back in. Frigid....

We made it back, but we made MBK and Diana cross the water themselves. We had a glorious day. Probably my favorite day of the week.

Sons of Turner 2011: Booth Bay, Maine - Day 2

Hello friends! I am writing this from the cafe inside Rock City Books and Coffee in Rockport, Maine. The place we're staying that I mentioned in my past email "Bold Colorful Life" (yes, that is actually it's name...) boasts a wi-fi signal throughout the home, but the reality is that it is completely unreliable at best. That said, I have not been able to do daily updates as I was hoping, so these next few entries are all being done at once and will serve as truncated versions of the last four or so days...

Day 2: Camden, Maine

Camden is about an hour or so drive north up Highway 1 from Boothbay where we are staying. the town is very affluent and has a beautiful harbor area. I was able to get a nice painting out of the afternoon spent there on the waterfront as well as a nice sunburn... boo for me ><

Sons of Turner 2011: Booth Bay, Maine - Day One

Hey guys - coming to you from the dining room of Booth Bay, Maine where the SoT are spending the week. Things are cold and grey here so hopefully it'll brighten up a bit, but so far the experience is quite unlike the previous trips to Santa Fe or Savannah. Maine is totally unique in that regard.

The Dining Room. This is the main area we're hanging around in. The table top is a repurposed barn door that is over 200 years old. Wow....

The kitchen is an open room that is part of the dining room. It's a great place to prep the food for the evening meals since there are two sinks and a gigantic island in the middle of the room.

The Great Room. It contains not only the telescope and the baby grand piano, but also an entire wall of books varying from Stephen King to Voltaire and Neruda - a completely eclectic collection.

It also has this lovely double-bass. It needs tuning, but perhaps I could figure out how to play it a bit...

The town is very touristy and thus the shops are open at odd times. Since it's not summer yet, the shops are sparsely populated. There is a lovely dock to walk along which offers a great view of this section of the bay.

The town is built on a ridge that slouches out to the bay and thus curves and twists in unexpected ways. The roads do not always lead you where you'd think they would and so you end up walking over and around buildings that seemingly pop up out of nowhere at the end of a small road.

The dock area was brutally windy today. Every time I attempted to find a place to sit and draw or paint the wind would make it impossible to do so. I was able to take a few photos of some things I'd like to work on in the future so it was not a total loss for today.

The tide here can rise and fall dramatically. As you can see in this photo taken at low tide that the water level can rise nearly as high as the walkway above.

This is basically day one out and about in Booth Bay. Tomorrow may take us to another location around the area. I'll keep you posted...

Caleb

Hollow

"Hollow" by Daniel's Window

www.danielswindow.com

www.thehollowproject.com

I'm finally finished with this project. It's been sitting here on my hard drive waiting for the final few song mixes to be finished before I bothered finishing up the artwork. The duplication company Disc Makers requires both the audio and the artwork to be submitted simultaneously, so I had to sit on it for a while. Suffice it to say I am really pleased with the final product.

Each of the images is a single panel out of the complete booklet for the project. Since most people are buying .MP3's these days, the CD booklet is streamlined to show only the most important info and the rest is available online. This is also designed to be an eco friendly Digi-Pack which is packaging that has no plastic tray or booklet sleeve and instead is an all in one type package. It's pretty cool.

This artwork will also be published in the upcoming Hollow Project art book (title yet unknown) to be released in September/October. Details to come...

The CD will be available on iTunes, the band's website, amazon and more.

Wither

*6"x18"

*Watercolor, Gouache, Ink

*Rives BFK paper

This is the completed version of my earlier WIP (several posts ago). I started this image nearly a year ago and set it aside after about 2 hours of work. It wasn't until recently I decided to finish it. I was struggling with completely conceptualizing it when I began and wanted to sit with it before jumping full force into it. Suffice it to say that after many more paintings and drawings I was inspired to complete this one and I am very glad I did. It is one of my favorite paintings I've ever done and am thrilled with how it turned out.

Conceptually, my purpose for painting this one was to show that physical beauty is temporary at best. Our culture is constantly telling us how to look and often at the expense of our character. We are so focused on looking "right" that we begin to judge others based on our own insecurities. This painting is all about the eventual death of our physical beauty. We all grow old. We all get wrinkly. We all sag and most of us will get fat.

And that is perfectly ok.

If we spend all of our time obsessing about our physical appearance and forsake our inner being, the one we will never lose no matter how old we get, we are truly and unavoidably ugly. Hopefully you can see that in this work of mine.

Bill the Dog

A dog named Bill.

This is a commission for a friend's fiance of her dog Bill. I used a limited palette of Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre and Payne's Grey. I wanted to retain a painterly feel for this one so I kept the lines light (2h pencil) and put the ink away.

Desire Sketch Card

My finished version of the WIP from yesterday's entry.

WIP - "Desire" Sketch Card

My newest sketch card - Desire. "She" is the embodiment of anything we desire, and as such appears differently to each and every one of us, including being either male or female. Here's a depiction of her in the female form with a large tattoo of a heart on her back, symbolic of one's heart's desire....

Haydenari of the Sin'Dorei

A World of Warcraft fan image. I wanted to do something "Mucha-esque" but without all the Nouveaux borders and what-not. I was also interested in using Naples Yellow for the hair as I had never used the paint before. I was pleased with the hair which I wanted to be a flat wash and only need the single application of the color to get the saturation I wanted. I also learned that it is an opaque watercolor (I'm glad I tested it on a scrap first....)

This image was also done on Arches new landscape watercolor block - a 4"x10" horizontal block designed with the outdoor painter in mind. Since I don't typically paint landscapes, I did my own thing with it.

Delirium and the Violet Fishy

Delirium has found a new friend... or perhaps a new pest...

Watercolor done on what I originally thought was watercolor paper, but turned out to be pastel paper. I really need to start paying closer attention to my materials...

WIP - 3.24.11

This is my current work in progress. The concept is about fading beauty and how no matter what we do to our outsides they will always wither and fade... unless you're Joan Rivers and pay for plastic surgery after plastic surgery. What is true beauty if it is not found on the inside?

Goddess

Colored pencil on Bee bogus recycled rough sketch paper.

Palette and Chisel Life Drawing - 3.18.11

A compilation of some of the more interesting sketches done at a life drawing session at the Palette and Chisel, Chicago.

Razored Hair

Quick sketch on Bee rough recycled paper. Fun to work on, but a bit thin... erasers don't like this paper.

Hollow

This is the cover for the band Daniel's Window's newest CD titled "Hollow". The image of the girl is an acrylic painting on gesso board I did back in 2009. The type is hand scratched on bristol board with a quill pen. There is a bit of spatter surrounding the type. but it's barely visible.

This is the original painting I titled "Cecilia". 5"x7" Acrylic on gessoboard.

Reborn

This image is more of a sketch of an idea, but I worked it up properly nonetheless. All elements here are intentional (white BG, expression, hair color and design, etc.). I am severely disappointed in the ear - why didn't I just use a friggin' reference. D'oh! Anyhow - it's not all that bad. I am excited to get cracking on some more traditional paintings. Hopefully they're ears are better executed than this one...