foureyedbat

The Men in the Walls

I was invited to participate in the 2nd Annual Bird Dog Silent Auction, a show of movie posters. Artists were asked to produce a poster for an existing or fictitious movie, and who could resist that challenge?

Digging through my stacks of well-loved science fiction paperbacks, I came across one of my all-time favorites, Of Men and Monsters by William Tenn (1968). Originally published as The Men in the Walls (Galaxy Publishing Corp. 1963), this is one of the best “man as cockroach” novels ever written.

For this piece I was inspired by the art of Richard Powers, who did a lot of Tenn covers for Ballantine, and Kamala Dolphin-Kingsley’s use of salt with watercolor.

Finished poster here.

Bird Dog Video
1333 16 Avenue SW
Calgary, AB T3C 0Z7
(403) 398-2283
Silent auction Thursday June 19th, 7-10pm.
All proceeds from the auction will be donated to a local charity (tba).

Novercaphobia

Novercaphobia is fear of one's stepmother, which is encouraged in the fairy tales you've been fed since before you remember. Since 30 million children in the US alone currently live with a step-parent (more stats on stepfamilies here) and chances are very good they will grow up to be stepparents, you'd think maybe it was time to drop that particular stereotype, but it shows no sign of disappearing anytime soon.

A piece done for "The Apple Show" at Uppercase Gallery, Calgary, way back in June 2005.
Acrylic on wood.

Endless Flight Part Two

If you were alive in the 70's, you know this album. I have been fiddling around with painting on the cover for a while, but when I was asked to be in "Finders Keepers", a show of embellished and augmented thrift shop art, that project was put on to the frontburner.

Did you ever notice how much Leo Sayer looks like Matt Damon in a wig?

Acrylic on album cover

ETA: Boots!

Volatile Valentines: Warts and All!

One of my favorite coworkers is Boris, the warthog. This is a valentine to him, but I thought I'd share.

Hyena Valentine

I'm working on images for an upcoming valentine show; yes, there will be zombie valentines as well! Here's the inky part of a hyena valentine.

Green Christmas

Watercolor, acrylic, Photoshop

Inspired by the illustrations in this book.

Frida, Seamonkeys, Theater Schmeater

My pal David Miller hit me up for a donation for the Theater Schmeater Wine Auction, and who can resist David Miller? Not me. Hopefully Frida and the Brine Shrimp will go to a good home and continue to spread the Sea Monkey joy.

Acrylic on wood

cleaning the flag

I'm working on cleaning up a scan of this painting so I can put it on the imagekind site, available as a print. Unfortunately the red and blue areas reflected the light of the scanner, so there is a lot of fiddling around to do and it's taking many days to get it done.

Next time I do a flag painting I'm putting in more white. Lesson learned.

I love you this munch!

One of two valentines I did for the upcoming Zombie Valentine show here in Calgary. (closeup)

And this is Tom Bagley's contribution to the mayhem!

Yessiree, Calgary loves the Undead! And the reconstituted Dead! And the sort-of Dead!

Digital print on doily and paper

Onanism

POUND Gallery, Seattle
March 2003: Ladyfest [ISMs show]
Acrylic on board, 12" x 12"

I named my pet canary Onan, because he spills his seed upon the ground.
---Dorothy Parker

Genesis 38:8-10
And Judah said unto Onan, "Go in to your brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother.”
But Onan knew that the heir would not be his [under Hebraic law, the offspring produced would belong to his brother’s family line]; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother's wife, that he spilled his seed on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother.
And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: therefore he killed him also.

Onanism is an old-fashioned term for masturbation, although the story of Onan has nothing to do with self-pleasure. (The story is, however, the basis for centuries of religious rule against contraception.)
It has been said the everyone practices the Science of Onanism: Mark Twain himself delivered a speech with that title in 1879 to the Stomach Club, a society of American writers and artists in Paris. There are hundreds of terms for this act, and god bless the folks who collect them all and make web pages for lazy artists to research late into night. Historically most of the words for this activity have been very male defined, but it is heartening to realize that the girls are rapidly catching up to the boys! I thought it would be entertaining to try to illustrate a few of them literally, so here you get two “Isms” for the price of one: euphemisms for Onanism.