Saturday, May 28, 2011

If you're around--two Great Things




First, if you're around the Cities, that is to say, St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 23rd-26th, come to the Fairy Tale Novel fan gathering! (click for information.) Because (among other awesome things like a movie premiere and a swing dance) there will be t-shirts for sale featuring the above image, an illustration of The Shadow of the Bear (with symbolic elements from Waking Rose) by Regina Doman, which was drawn by me! Hopefully the shirts will sell well enough for them to become available online too. I'll let you know! I should also be there on the 23rd, so maybe we can say hi!

Secondly, if you're around Houston, Texas, from now till July 24th, come to the Glassell School of Art and see the Student Exhibition. It's free and it includes my "Lake House" painting, featured four entries below. You can see how much better it looks in real life! The school is right across the street from the Museum of Fine Arts.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Figure-drawing Saints: The Dark Night of the Soul of St. Hippolytus


Warning! Contains nudity, though not showing everything.
Thus the picture is at the bottom of this post.

In my figure drawing class one day, I was thinking about St. Hippolytus. He was a very unusual saint. He is known for his writings that reveal to us early Church liturgy, but also for being the first antipope. That's right, the first antipope is a saint! He attacked and calumniated the popes and saints Zephyrinus, Callistus I, Urban I, and Pontian, and had himself elected antipope to Urban. It was when the Roman Emperor in a persecution of Christians exiled both Pontian and Hippolytus to the mines of Sardinia that Hippolytus repented and Pontian forgave him. They died of the conditions there, and are thus reckoned martyrs.

So I was thinking about him and started praying to him as I drew. This Spring I've been rather troubled. The scrupulosity that several years ago I thought with joy and relief was gone forever returned. Scrupulosity may seem like a trivial problem, but it means overwhelming guilt and despair. So I meditated on what incredible guilt Hippolytus must have gone through, and tried to express it in my drawing. This is really just a sketch, but I want to make a full painting with more symbolic elements on the same title and theme.

With encouragement of my teacher, drawing the figures in class as specific saints became an ongoing project that was very interesting and fruitful. I'll post more of those coming up!



Monday, May 23, 2011

Snowflake clock brooch

In keeping with the address name of this place, I love to combine clocks and clockwork with snowflakes. This is the motif of Beckyless, and anytime I find little snowflake charms or interesting watch-faces, I want them, and I want to make things out of them. I made a silver and gold brooch out of some. I rather want to keep it, but it's for sale here.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Sweeney Still Life

Sweeney Todd illustration for the Gilbert Magazine film festival issue; it may or may not get used, because someone else has also submitted one for Sweeney Todd. But I had to do Sweeney Todd; it was the only movie in the list that I knew anything about. And the other person also made more than one other submission, so without any kind of ill will towards him, I hope they choose mine!

Monday, May 9, 2011

Lake House

My final project for painting class this semester. Oil on canvas. I'm very, very happy with it.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

My Teacher


I just took the last art class of my undergraduate college career, and for the past three years they have all been from Patrick Palmer. I took from him four semesters of figure drawing and two semesters of painting. For forming my artistic skills, sight, and sense, I cannot say how crucial his instruction has been.

He describes himself as the "dinosaur" of the Glassell School of art, because while almost all the rest of the school is deep into abstract, non-traditional deconstructivism--which would be useless for my goals--he still paints and teaches people to paint the human form. The point of art to him is storytelling, and when he said that I knew I had the right teacher. And all his students will always remember his stories of the oranges and the cake, which contained fundamental artistic principles.


With strong critique, emphasis on composition, texture, edge, value-- on everything important-- he taught me a tremendous amount. I am grateful and feel like I could keep on learning alot more. Who knows, maybe someday I'll be able to go back, and then I will.

Images in this entry copyright Patrick Palmer.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Rocky coast

Another oil painting based on a photo I took in Ireland.

Easter flowers

Sunday, May 1, 2011

daughter's hut wall


Oil doodle to use up leftover paint and practice different brushstrokes.