more swazis

Shane Swift posted these gems on his tumblr today (his tumblr is nice and mostly full of actual paintings he's done - so check it out).

...which reminded me I hadn't yet posted this recent embroidery I did...

This is part of a "sampler" quilt-like-thing that I've been working on VERY SLOWLY for about a year (mostly stalled for many moons but I'm getting back to it...). Anyway, now and then I try out a new technique on this old bed sheet I had around.

I'm not very into doing embroidery because it's really slow and hurts my wrist a bit... but I do like how it looks and it will be neat to work away on this thing for years (or a lifetime) and have a "diary" of images I was interested in at various times...

Below are the previous "entries" in the diary (obviously I've a looooong way to go):

And lastly, these are various swastikas that I found around San Antonio while I was there last month:

(The blurry white jade on black background is actually Chinese jade from the 16 or 1700s. It was in an area of the SA Art Museum that you weren't supposed to take pictures of.)

* Related note, this looks like an interesting book - first published in 1896! Haven't read it yet but thanks to Chris Hold for pointing me in its direction.

* And lastly, here is a post about Pre-WWII roadsigns in Arizona:

http://arizona100.blogspot.com/2010/09/arizona-once-revered-swastika-eighty.html

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nesting

I hope the little bird that made this nest doesn't come back next year to find it GONE. We (Husbo & me) accidentally knocked it over with a van while working at his research site... so I decided to take it home...

I'm not sure what exactly to do with it but I want to make some kind of art...

Sketched it this morning...

Then I put in under a bell jar...

What to do?

What.

to.

do....

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hearts and rope

Here's a cute little flashy flash painting. I opted to not add colour just because I thought it looked cooler on my shelf that way.

And here's a gratuitous cat picture because those little toes sticking out while the cat watched the sunset was irresistible to my camera.

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Ice-fishing Huts

This is a new "in-betweener" painting I did yesterday. It's a bit different than the ones that have come before it in that it is actually a little scene - not just shapes.

I've never been ice-fishing but the little huts seem so cozy despite being situated on and surrounded by ice. How we survive the Canadian winter...

I like the starkness of my painting but I may go back into it and add some shadows/melted water/definition to the ice area.

I stole the image from the dust jacket (below) of a book about "The Canadian Look". I wanted to throw the dust jacket away (because I usually take them off my books) but I liked the picture so much that I had to translate it into a painting first.

Thanks for looking.

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flash dump

Truth be told, I'd grown tired of blogging. Tired isn't even the right word... it's more like I started to feel like it was totally pointless and therefore I wasn't doing it.

However, a friend encouraged me to keep her up to date with my drawing/painting progress and so, with that small prodding, I'm back. I thank her for that because it is nice to know that people care.

So... here are some things...

This lady head is done after Amund Deitzel flash but I'm not going to finish it because I'm unhappy with the shape of her face. (Actually, I have already redrawn and inked her again and I'm not finishing that one either because I just can't get her to have the aloof/angelic look I want... I will eventually come back to her and try again because I like the image but I needed to move on and try something else.)

This bird is from the Ben Corday Tattoo Travel Book and it is the first bird I've attempted. I didn't have any brown ink so I had to use some water colours. I'm not loving my current paper selection or the water colour paint. Anyway, a learning experience.

This one was really fun.

Having gone through art school and done a lot of "life drawing", I've drawn many a penile region in my day... but, as I was never an adolescent boy, I don't think I've ever drawn a random, gratuitous "cock"...

Now I have...

This whole image is so delightfully ridiculous that I enjoyed every minute of drawing it.

It is from the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume 1. The caption says it is a "humorous youth tattoo known by convicts as 'Duet with sleighbells'". Here you can see my drawing beside the original.

Here's a scan of the inked drawing.

Here it is hanging on my fridge because I thought it was an "A+"... and also funny to use the "This is ART" magnet (picked up at the San Antonio Art Museum) to hang it.

And lastly, one I did yesterday.

Everything on this sheet is Ben Corday flash and I tried to keep the inking style as close to his as possible (so, more brush-strokey in some places than smooth, gradated washes).

Here's the central lady with her original counterpart in the book. I really need to go get some brown ink and maybe some (caucasian) skin tone - because mixing the inks doesn't seem to work very well and I had a hard time getting the colours of the original (which I was trying to do here... for practice...)

Anyway. that's it for now. Thanks for looking!!

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questioning death and dishonour

Yesterday I was waiting for a friend to swing by and got to sketching these Sailor Jerry skulls. I was also listening to some CBC coverage about the Shafia murder trial - parents and a brother accused of killing 3 daughters and a first wife... they claim it was an "honour killing".

Oh... and I had also just read about a cold-blooded murder that took place, most ironically, in a Lululemon store... Peace, love, and what?

So anyway, I know the "Death before Dishonour" tattoo imagery has certain historical* meanings (and I know it applies to one's own death) but I have always found it troublesome... I guess it's too far outside my worldview or I am so comfortable with dishonour that I can't imagine embodying this statement personally...

Anyway, thinking about a parent killing his own children for the supposed embarrassment/dishonour they brought upon their family (they became too Western after he brought them into Western society)... well, it's just too much. It doesn't make sense. It makes me so angry/frustrated that I don't even know how to talk about it. There aren't words for how gross that logic is.

So when it came time to put words in the banner of the last skull, it had to be "dishonour before murder" instead of "death before dishonour"**...

* I don't know the exact historical meaning because I've never been interested enough in this imagery or sentiment to look it up - I would guess it was originally of military origin, possibly influenced by Samurai culture, and likely also used by gangs... ???

** Too bad Shafia didn't just kill himself to deal with his supposed dishonour instead of his first wife and his 3 beautiful young daughters... then "death before dishonour" would work in this case... although I would still think it would be a dumb reason to die.

More Stoney Stones

I drew and painted these characters from a little picture in the "Stoney Knows How" book you can see here. They were really fun and quick. I gave them all names that end in "y" but my writing leaves something to be desired so I just messed around with it.

These two are my favourites.

Thanks!

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