Painting is a quirky artform. Sometimes they take a day or two, sometimes they take years. You never know when the inspiration will strike, when it will be that you next look at the canvas and can see the image you want to make. One thing is for certain, if I look at the canvas and can’t see the ultimate vision I set it aside until I do. Here’s a look at some of the current collection of in progress works.

  • Oct
    2021
    13
    2021 / Oct / 13

    Halloween Horror Fest

    It’s October once again, and all the streaming services are rapidly filling with a full range of Halloween/horror/syfy/monster movies. To say I love it would be an understatement. I do go into it fully knowing that 1 in 5 I actually watch will be legit good, another 2 will be ridiculously campy or poking fun at the genre, and the other 2 will just be bad. That’s not including the equal amount of movies I immediately abandon 5 minutes in because the quality is just that bad. However, it does set the mood perfectly to get out all the creepy devilish ghostly paintings I have and work on them some more while the horror fest movies all play. I might even get out the devil in the lake of fire Ghost painting and work on that, especially since Ghost just released the first single off their new album as part of the Halloween Kills movie soundtrack. I have a 6th sense a new motivation is coming…

  • Mar
    2021
    06
    2021 / Mar / 06

    The Dancers

    Update: Finished at last! 

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  • Feb
    2021
    09
    2021 / Feb / 09

    My Compass Points to Tra’li

    Once again there’s a collection of thoughts, all conjoined yet somehow separate. It’s definitely pandemic related, focusing on the places that make you feel welcome at home, which is odd since I’ve never been to Ireland, but my home away from home is a local Irish pub that’s taken care of me throughout the pandemic. If you get a chance stop by Tra’li, they’re as genuine as they come. To hear them talk about where they’re from and how they try to bring that feeling of home here is somehow centering when a lot of people feel lost. It has become a mythical entity, an Oz or Narnia of bliss in these weird times. My compass doesn’t point north, it points to Ireland. Or at least to Tra’li.

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  • Mar
    2020
    30
    2020 / Mar / 30

    Laissez les COVID temps rouler

    In February 2020 I went to Mardi Gras. COVID wasn’t really a thing yet. It was, but it was still a mythical unicorn, something happening somewhere else that would never make its way here. Little did we know then Mardi Gras was a gateway for it into the US, in retrospect the parade routes were an absolute cesspool, and ground zero for far more than the typical “party juice”. I’m still glad I went, the experience in the future will never quite be the same. It’s hard to see crowds of people now and not think of the airborne pathogens.

  • Mar
    2020
    27
    2020 / Mar / 27

    A Lake of Fire

    The original concept was inspired by a conversation about fire and brimstone and the depths of hell. Is there a lake of lava? Does the Devil have a tail? He’s a fallen angel, not a lizard, but he’s also been a serpent.

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  • Feb
    2020
    06
    2020 / Feb / 06

    Skull Crossed Lovers

    A fleeting mage from a thought in a conversation while listening to Ghost. Something about ripping open the space-time continuum.

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  • Sep
    2019
    02
    2019 / Sep / 02

    La Roja

    Where to even start with this one. There’s a brewery in Detroit that I hear is amazing, I’ve never been but a good friend who is a connoisseur of both whiskey and beer says it’s excellent. It’s called Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, and if you get a chance you should stop by one of their several locations. The part that piqued my interest was when I learned they had teamed up with a local tattoo artist, Adam Forman, to design their labels. Things got really fun once I realized he had created an entire set of characters that you could follow their stories across the labels, which is it’s own internet clickhole of amazingness.

    My friend was obsessed with a painting someone had done of the La Roja cat from one of the series of labels, which hangs on the wall in their Detroit location, and always said he was going to get it somehow one day until he remembered I was an artist and commissioned his own painting. The part of the story he loves is the part where the La Roja cat is an old Spanish sea captain who has fallen on hard times, and has been turned out in the streets with a bum sack over his shoulder holding a mouse for his dinner, wearing a bicorn cap. Hence the origins of this painting, which took more than a year to complete and several iterations with hidden characters from other labels and one very special mermaid if you know exactly where to look.

    Moral of the story: Go to the brewery. Admire their original painting. Maybe get a tattoo from Adam Foreman in Ann Arbor. Tell me how the beer is, it’s been a while since I’ve made it up to Detroit.

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  • May
    2018
    20
    2018 / May / 20

    40% More Awesome

    I love Futurama. So does my brother. For his 30th birthday I decided to do a (typical art student project) van Gogh style/Futurama mashup painting. Plus he’d just bought a house and his walls were desperately bare. His turned out so well I decided I wanted one of my own, but all of a sudden without a solid deadline of someone’s birthday it has ended up sitting in a closet a lot. Somehow I still don’t prioritize myself, despite paintings being my outlet. Here’s to hoping I’ll finish it someday.

     

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  • Apr
    2018
    28
    2018 / Apr / 28

    Untitled, 2018

    “One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels” – Gustave Flaubert

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  • Oct
    2013
    04
    2013 / Oct / 04

    White Wolf II

    Back in my NC State days I painted a lot of wolves for people. And I mean a LOT. This one has been hanging around for a few years, half textured but still unfinished.