Calyptix - Node in the Genetic Desert Mesh

Hiking through the desert, the dull ring of silence may only be broken by the gravel crunching under your boots. Even if nothing seems to move you will undoubtedly encounter a hummingbird. You'll undoubtedly hear their high-pitched tweets.

In this piece I was thinking of a couple things. One, the bird's constant role as pollinator. Two, the maneuverability and miracle of it's hovering flight. Not to mention the iridescent ruby pink throat of Anna's Hummingbird. Wings flapping at twice the speed of any other bird with 360 degrees of vision  and energy enough to stay in flight for 50 minutes at a time. Imagine the invisible swirls of air currents churned up around it. The tiny squeaky chirp is the actual frame of the piece represented by the graphic sound waves you might find in an audio program.

Gilax M - The Formidable Desert Dragon

11x17, inked with Crow Quill and digitally colored

The last few inks were landscapes and I wanted to zoom into some more close up subject matter. There isn't any creature more desert classic than the Gila Monster, so, it was decided. There's a lot of ways to abbreviate the round scales of the lizard and the lichen pocked rock beneath but I opted for visual complexity. I'm starting to think that visual complexity adds to the life of a piece. More for the brain to chew on. More for the brain to find and connect with. I've really pumped it up a notch with this one.

I was taken by the plotting of the scales on it's skin which arrange in a hexagonal pattern. Something out of a sci-fi artificial life-form design. So I started thinking about geometries and how it might relate with the landscape patrolling cell by cell through it's hive of rock, thus the hexagon matrix overlay. When you move so close to the ground, there must be some sense of direction more than searching the horizon. I overlaid a futuristic compass at it's side for easy reference. Caution barred warning triangle in the upper right noting the subjects dangerous bite. Truly the dragon of the desert.

Obelix Havasupai

Obelix Havasupai Closeup

I've been working with some graphic symbols that came out of a vector-based automatic writing set of sessions.  Thinking about letters, sigils, symbols and am exploring their meaning more specifically now. Maybe they are part of a larger symbology.  Maybe part of a mandelic pantheon of universal balance.  Maybe part of a personal psychological system like tarot.  The world-building continues...

The symbols used in this one are geologic, stone, earth-like.  A cube shape has been haunting me so I built one from the symbols themselves.  Could be a 3-dimensional sentence.  Could be a set of dice.  Could be keys turned to access another realm.  I want to explore this concept further.  I keep tuning into an "Ancient Future" feeling that has a lot of juice and I'm scurrying down the rabbit hole after it.

I worked from a photo I took while riding a helicopter out of Havasu Falls, a tributary of the Grand Canyon.  All the inking is done with a Crow Quill and india ink.  I listened to "Kafkaesque", an hour-long ambient drone piece of music by Australian artist "Soul in limbo" over and over again while working on it.  So, I guess that might be the soundtrack.

Obelix Havasupai

Canix

Doing a sketch for a new drawing, halfway through a slow-going landscape painting (needing 4 hour blocks of time at a shot) and 5 other inks that need coloring, I decided to finish up coloring on Canix tonight.  Based on a oil painting of the coyote-headed man, but this time in a landscape.  I don't get a huge amount of feedback on my inks, but I draw what I want to see.  I've come to accept my scratchy technique and like it a lot.  Maybe this will develop.

Therianthropy

Timidix

I was offered a show at Art House Centro in Tucson and had a little over a month to get some work together.  I decided to extend the one painting series I had started two years ago that started with "Cervidex," an image of a man with a deer head.  Continuing on the therianthropic path with Ardeidix, Timidix, Canix, and Astutix.  My pantheon of deities all end in "X."  These are my first attempts at figure painting, which is hard for me, which is why I think I avoided it for so long, or until I had the skills.  Always had the ideas, but not the skills.  Turned out to be kind of a mental trick along the lines of "you can paint realistic rocks, the figure is just a weird rock."

So a human with an animal head is a common theme throughout history and presently for that matter.  I am thinking more about variations on the Green Man than Egyptian gods like Osiris, Horus and Anubis.  Spirits of the natural world.  Although I have so much interest recently in mythology, arcane magic, psionics and ancient texts etc., I see these characters appearing in real life now, not in historic situations.  I see a naked, hyper intelligent God with a deer head materializing in front of me with beams of energy washing out of them.  Now.  The embodiment of natures' power and personality, warning, or simply stating their existence in the parking lot, in an abandoned gravel lot, on a path in the desert, on a mountain top.  I see them now, in 2014 while my iPhone notifies me of a text message.

I still feel like all of my artistic efforts are moving towards a publication, and I'm afraid of straying from that subject.  The Sutra of Tranquility.  This book appears to those ready to study out of thin air when summoned.  Filled with abstract patterns, complex diagrams, strange characters, and indecipherable text, the reader comes away with a sense of calm they can call upon the rest of their life.  A fantasy object I can't tear my mind away from but I feel like I'm the one to author it.

Cervidex

Ardeidix

Canix

Astutix

Astralcryptix

Head filled with Byzantine monks, ancient texts, mysterious codex and objects of supernatural power. This resembles a dorje or vajra but is more of a portal key to other planes.  I'm still working inside of this idea of The Sutra of Tranquil Thought:

"Apparently this book appears to those ready to study out of thin air when summoned.  Filled with abstract patterns, complex diagrams, strange characters, and indecipherable text, the reader comes away with a sense of calm they can call upon the rest of their life."

I'm really liking ink and am further in the development of my personal glyphs.  The symbols in the upper left are actually plain English!

Astrolabe - Compass

Had to create an actual object of magical origin.  Direction is important.  Part of my image alchemy process includes mixing tracings of differing disciplines.  Case in point: the corner shapes of the frame are component shapes from the control dashboard of the space shuttle.  I re-drew a compass face from a 19th century ships compass.  The corner symbols are augmented American Indian designs.  Ruby filled clock workings surround.  An ambiguous device of unknown origin, giving meaningless directional advice under the guise of pseudo-scientific markings and construction.  Is it ancient?  Is it futuristic?

Recent discussions have me thinking I'll revisit the Future Primitive Guide using new tablet software options and the possibility of sequels.  Never finished the original, went on to the sequel, maybe I should go start from the beginning and make a complete pass of it.