The Seven Deadly Sinners

February 2006

Where It's At

This is a comp for a series of 28 paintings I am starting - acrylic on plywood, of course - exploring the world of deer and birds and the transubstantiation of the didactic strategem model found therein, both the interlocutory and the codified copulatory epiglottis of the modern polytheism they may or may not represent. Indeed.

Need Material For Comic Strips? Just Watch Daytime TV.

These are a bit old, but I think they still hold up. Grab your sketchbook and spend a rainy afternoon in front of the TV. No need to hire a writer, simply draw what you see. Comic gems are ripe for the picking!

"TV is chewing gum for the eyes."
Frank Lloyd Wright

they say it's art

I'm sure we've all had the experience of being asked to donate a piece of work for a fundraiser for a gallery or artspace that wouldn't actually show our work in a million years. I once bid on my own piece at one of those auctions, because I really liked it and didn't want it to get away.

This one was for a gallery here in Calgary; the theme of the auction (upcoming some time in February) is "Hot Gossip". When doing a piece for a fundraiser you try and make it more sale friendly than perhaps you'd do otherwise, so I used the currently popular blues and pinks...which morphed to greens and oranges, I couldn't help it. I used "birds and branches", as is being done to death right now...and threw in a cow skull as a tip of the hat to the whole Cowboy Aesthetic thing. And yeah, with the title I'm kind of mocking the sort of art these galleries show.

And then I decided I liked it. So I'm keepin' it. It's only the second Calgary Specific piece I've done (the first, donated to a fundraiser auction, was a dinosaur painting which did actually make it out of my studio). Next subject: Oilwells. Oh yeah.

Monkey Sea, Monkey Do

monkey SEA, MONKEY do: bonni reid

Title: Enchantment Under The Sea '65
Medium: Graphite, Acrylic, Digital
Size: 6" x 7.5"

monkey SEA, MONKEY do: robert rini

HEY, HEY...IT'S THE SEA MONKEES!

Sure, all the cool kids might listen to some other brine bands, but the Sea-Monkees are so eager to please, they can even be trained! Just add water for a bowlful of happiness and flowers! That's all there is to it! These little pink pets won't bug you, either, like some other brine bands. These guys are too busy swimming to put anybody down! Send in your dollar and a quarter today! and take the last brine to Clarksville!

Title: The Sea-Monkees!
Medium: graphite and digital
Size: 8" x 11"

monkey SEA, MONKEY do: 14

It's amazing how similar today's gossip
tabloid celebrities are to the fabled Sea-Monkeys of
yesteryear. Both are touted as entertaining and
attention-loving creatures who live in a world of make
believe, and both disappoint when the truth is
revealed. In this illustration, I have updated the
70's style Sea-Monkeys with Paris Hilton, Britney
Spears and Tom Cruise. Yeah, I know...it's hard to
tell the difference.

Title: Celeb-Monkeys
Medium: Ink and digital

monkey SEA, MONKEY do: kipling west

Title: Frida and the Brine Shrimp
Medium: Acrylic on wood
Size: 8" x 10"

monkey SEA, MONKEY do: tom bagley

Title: Monkey Sea, Monkey Dead
Medium: Sharpies, markers