Spirals In Love Show: Monster Art & Clothing

Starting this Saturday, I will be having a show at Monster Art & Clothing (http://www.monsterartandclothing.com/). The opening is during the Ballard Art Walk from 6-9 pm on Saturday, November 12. I'll have original paintings, prints, and assorted art trinkets available for looking and buying. Even if you hate my art (it's OK, I understand), you should still come to the store because it's AMAZING and they have lots of great monster-related items.

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Better Every Day

This painting was a donation for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network's Purple Stride event this Sunday. This is my second year contributing a painting. This will probably be my last painting for a while, but I do have a handful of other paintings I need to get around to scanning or finishing that I will post as they are completed.




I also finished the painting I did as a Halloween gift for my son and uploaded a few versions because I was having fun playing with Photoshop.

Happy Halloween!

A Halloween gift for my son based on a drawing of his.

Reduced To Scribbling

I haven't drawn or painted in a while (or answered e-mail...), but I desperately needed five minutes today to draw some monsters. If you haven't played with Scribbler, I highly recommend it:

http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/scribblertoo/

The original (http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler) is fun too, but I prefer Scribbler Too.

Have Yourself, And Eat It Too

I'm A Beautiful Butterfly

Because Life Needs More Monsters

A friend sent me a link to some of Ben Heine's work (See one below and more here - http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.394490703615.169415.45292293615) and I couldn't wait to try it myself once I saw it.


It's difficult enough to match up drawing, paper, and real life, but it turns out it's even harder to work a camera into that mix and have everything line up. It was still a fun exercise, and despite getting really frustrated by the end I think I would like to try it again. I also need to find out if Heine cheats and just adds the hand holding the paper in Photoshop later, because that would be WAY easier.

Drawing water and being around water and listening to nothing but The Talking Heads for the last few days made me focus on Talking Heads' "Once In A Lifetime" which is about the meaning of life, so I'm including it here. I was going to complain about the linked video for Men Without Hats' "Safety Dance" having twice as many views and being about little more than moshing, then I watched it and smiled the whole time.

Eye Love You

I like to think of this new drawing of two cyclops each seeing something special in the other's eye as the spiritual successor to this very old drawing:
http://spiralsinlove.blogspot.com/2010/09/kiss.html

Call Us In Our Tiny Boats

My art was mentioned today on www.allthingscupcake.com because I am so beautiful. Or because I painted another cupcake. Right now the post is on the front page, but if you're slow you should be able to always find it at

http://www.allthingscupcake.com/2011/09/27/cupcake-dragon-art/.

Funny thing about this piece...it's one of the few I've done that ended up on paper exactly the way I saw it in my head. That almost never happens.

More Christmas Monsters Or Something Like That

Cupcakes Are So Passé

I've been pretty terrible about updating www.spiralsinlove.com or posting links to finished pieces on my art blog, but here are a few that I'm pretty sure I haven't posted yet. Prints can currently be ordered through these links (and any of the ones that are posted on imagekind or www.spiralsinlove.com), but I'm slowly working toward a process of fulfilling my own orders. This should be a minimal time commitment, since my 2011 online print order total is 0.

Sparklingly Christmas

I absolutely love Christmas. I am also pretty fond of monsters, so combining the two always sounds fun to me. This piece is essentially what I usually doodle in the margins of meeting minutes at work, but since I'm working on it in colored ink on colored paper I get to eventually hang it up and call it art.
This drawing has a rare quality in that my kids actually like it and it made them laugh when they saw it. Tonight I will be adding glowing colored lights which, as my daughter pointed out this morning, "will have spirals, OF COURSE."

I used a lot of adverbs in relatively few sentences here...

Start Wearing Purple

Even with an ink drawing, I still enjoy going over my own lines. This is an art walk doodle that started in black ink and ended with blue ink (my options were limited).

I've been approached by PanCan Puget Sound to donate another painting for their Purple Stride auction this year, so I've started to brainstorm relatively uplifting images that might look good in purple. I don't know if this one will make the cut, but I'm really taken with the idea of wings forming a heart. I like wings and hearts.

Final Art Walk Of The Season!

I'll be at the Columbia City Art Walk tomorrow from 5-9pm (or at least until it gets too dark to see art). This is my last art walk of the season and it couldn't be at a better place. Columbia City was by far my favorite art walk this year, and I'm excited for this final one. The Gloria Darlings should be there performing and there are a few new activities. Check it out here:

http://communityartscreate.org/Community_Arts_Create/ArtWalk_%26_Street_Fair.html

My next appearance after this will be a show opening in November at Monster Art & Clothing in Ballard.

We'll All Float On

Things are pretty wretched for me right now in a few areas of life, which makes it extremely tempting to draw pictures of droopy bat-monsters growing out of but also devouring a larger, much more docile and sadly smiling bat-monster. But I am loved and in relative good health so I’m soldiering on with more training doodles. This one was kicking around in my head for a while anyway, but then I saw a reference to it in a book I am reading and out came the rat in the head.

I’ve included some of my original doodles. The early ones are in black ink and I REALLY hated them. But they were a necessary part of the process. I don’t usually do that many rough thumbnails, but I was in a funny mood that night.

We Could Steal Time

Day job-style work has been keeping me down, but I was able to do a self-portrait of me in an endless training class. I'm fascinated by the type of person drawn to adult education. He started the day (week!) all chipper and full of hope but by the end of the first day he was just as beaten and brain-dead as the rest of us. At least I get to walk away at the end of the week...

Mind The Spray

While working on this, I forgot to move some in-progress paintings out of the way and spattered them with orange paint. It worked out though, as it added textures and contrast that I really like.

I wasn't kidding...

...about the decapitated drawings. Come on down. You can listen to this woman TIGER ZANE sing. Her name is TIGER ZANE. I like to imagine that Billy Zane had something to do with that, but I think the true story is that she rose from the ashes of an AWESOME BOMB.

Off With My Head

Today is National Beheading Day! (Thanks to Underneath The Juniper Tree for the heads up...or down...)

To celebrate, I'll be at the Issaquah Art Walk tonight from 5-9pm. Well...probably not all the way to 9pm because last year by 9pm it was totally dark and people were politely squinting at my art but not able to really see anything so I will likely start packing up when the sun-god gets beheaded and the sun plops below the tree line. Come by and mention this and I will draw you a picture of a beheaded monster.

I should be here:


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If you just want to celebrate the holiday in the peace and quiet of sitting in your underwear in front of the computer, you can do so with the new issue of Underneath The Juniper Tree here:

http://issuu.com/underneaththejunipertree/docs/utjt_sept2011

And by listening to The Offspring song "Beheaded", which is probably not OK for kids depending on how you feel about recreational dismemberment:

In Your Face

I feel rusty. Hand cramping, arm tensing, action figure with unfinished metal joints left out in the rain rusty. In theory, I'll cast off the crust of oxidation soon enough. In the meantime, I'm going over and finishing up old drawings and paintings.

I wish I could say come see me at tomorrow's Issaquah art walk (it's the final one of the year!), but I have heard zero peeps from the people in charge. Last time they called me the day of the event, so there's still hope. Even if they don't, if you live in the area I highly recommend swinging by downtown Issaquah for art, music, and good food. And maybe my pretty face.

Welcome Back, Spirals In Love

If I was any good at the Internet, I would have remembered to say something about this BEFORE disappearing for a few weeks. I was on vacation from everything, which is why there have been no new posts or art from Spirals In Love.

I'm hoping to jump back into painting in the next day or two, and I'm waiting for confirmation from the Issaquah Art Walk about whether or not I'll be allowed back within city limits for Friday's Art Walk. If that happens, you'll be the first to know. Because that's how much I love you.

Last-Minute Art Walk - Shoofly Pie

Tonight, Shoofly Pie, 6-9 pm.

I was asked at the last minute to fill an art walk vacancy at the West Seattle Art Walk tonight. I'll have a table with prints and trinkets for sale outside and my art (including a few new pieces) will be hanging inside Shoofly Pie for tonight only. Come on by for some art and pie!

http://www.shooflypiecompany.com/

Shoofly Pie Company 4444 California Ave. SW, Seattle, WA 98116

Mythology Is Fun

I started this minotaur giving up on the maze a long time ago and hated it. But I just got a book on Greek mythology from a yard sale and decided to finish it. I also started a painting of Icarus, which looks exactly like every painting of Icarus ever.

The Source Of All Our Power

I'm pretty sure that quoting Monty Python lyrics causes my art blogging license to be revoked. This means that I will need everyone to donate at least $1,000 because it costs about $100,000 to get a blogging license. This Justin Beeber thing just isn't paying the bills.

"The Galaxy Song" by Monty Python

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough,



Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour.
That's orbiting at ninety miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.


Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.



The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!

Beeber Bieber, The Beastly Beater

Because I apparently have nothing better to do, I was searching facebook and found this fan page for Justin Bieber. It looks like they spelled his name wrong, but other than that it seems to be off to a pretty good start. Granted, I haven't seen that many pictures of the guy, but I think it's pretty remarkable how much like my art he looks. I'm wondering if perhaps I am the architect of this entire sub-universe and maybe just forgot about the fact that I drew international music and film superstar Justin Bieber into existence.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Justin-Beeber/155859677822248?sk=wall

Lonely Little Robots

Despite the fact that the bulk of my art blog/site traffic is coming from spam URLs in Russia, I continue to post new work. I like to think that the little SpamBots get bored with their work (it’s so repetitive!) and appreciate a little distraction in the form of a monster eating a cookie or something.

Anyway, I finished a few things and it turns out I had even more things finished a while ago that I forgot to scan and upload so that’s done now too. Prints can be ordered from the following links or by contacting me directly at spiralsinlove@gmail.com.

You can also order prints and a few other items from my profile there (http://www.redbubble.com/people/spiralsinlove). I mention it because even though I'm not very active in the community there a couple of the new pieces that I uploaded got featured in groups. If you hurry on over you might still be able to see my paintings in the very small “Featured” section. That’s practically the same as being a celebrity!

http://www.redbubble.com/groups/the-pen-and-ink-corner

http://www.redbubble.com/groups/artist-on-facebook

Come On, Paint Something Already

I do have a few paintings going right now, but since I'm posting from my phone post-board game all you get are doodles right now.

Something Is Happening

I'm not really sure what's happening here, but something sure is happening.

Day Of The Bunnies

Pretty obviously inspired by John Wyndham's "Day Of The Triffids"...

Cyborg Kitty Needs Hot Sauce

I think cats are ideal cybernetic soldiers. When the robot uprising happens next year, they will be the perfect bridge between technology and biology, possibly even fighting on the side of the humans. I will probably never paint this cyborg kitty or any of the doodles like it, but I always enjoy adding extra parts to drawings of people or animals. This is not exclusive to robot parts - one of my other favorite things to draw is a fusion of plants and people. For a while everyone I drew had flowers or leaves growing out of them and half the time was bound to the ground by a root system.


I didn't have time to get too far on it, but I worked on my cake zombie a little bit more the other night. I'm especially interested right now in getting sharp lines and contrast using only watercolor paint instead of partially relying on my acrylic inks for definition. The two zombies below are a pretty good example of what that looks like, but I think that I can still do more with the paint.

I plan to still apply ink to a lot of my paintings, but I want to give myself the option not to if it fits the painting. In addition to liking the way the ink looks most of the time, I absolutely love the process of applying it and corralling the paint like a reverse coloring book. More and more though there are times when I want to let the paint roam like free-range watercolor.

The Hug Gnome

I'll be at the Columbia City Art Walk once again on Thursday, July 21 from 4-8pm. Tell everyone you know to empty their bank accounts and buy some stickers, prints, and fancy art boxes from me and then get a hug. The hug isn't from me though - you have to find the secret "hug gnome" who lives in the alleys of Columbia City.

http://communityartscreate.org/Community_Arts_Create/ArtWalk_%26_Street_Fair.html

I might also be a gallery artist this month, but since the event is in two days and I haven't heard anything I wouldn't count on it.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=215220059461156030924.0004a1ddda17d1a2a04a3&msa=0


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