autumn eyes

It's so hot today I'm longing for cooler climbs and autumn days where the air is crisp and the leaves are falling from the trees and starring at you. Ok so that last part may be a bit strange, but that is what I scribbled up a while back when I stumbled onto this site: http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/scribblertoo/
It's a fun little tool that I expect to back and play with some more from time to time. So here's looking at you zefrank!

Purple Tulip as a Rose

Purple Tulip as a Rose, originally uploaded by Mr & Mrs Speeed.

I haven't had much time lately for drawing as our little bug has been on the move. All free time is spent supervising little guy as he explores the house in search of new things to bang his head on or sleeping or finishing reading the book du jour (American Gods - Neil Gaiman.)

I did snag a little time that I should have spent sleeping to create this though. Playing with my new scanner, I scanned in a tulip from a bunch I had gotten Little A for V-Day. I then tweaked it into a rose-like bloom in the computer and adjusted the image to give it a little bit of a painterly feel.

sketch

sketch, originally uploaded by Mr & Mrs Speeed.

This is an older drawing I did many years ago when I was working at a small sign shop. I often had lots of free time on my hands and drew this over the course of a week or so during downtime.

This is a style I developed in my high school years. An abstract psychedelic meandering of sorts. Working to expose the organic designs lurking beneath the surface of the paper.
I digitally edited the color, flipping it from the original. The original was blue and black ball point on white paper. Maybe I'll post it too if I can find it :)

Waves on the Burren

This is a picture I shot when Little A and I went to Ireland many moons ago. The picture hardly captures the awesome magnitude of this landscape. We were standing out on the rocks on the Burren and the ocean was crashing onto them with amazing force. The ground below us was hallowed out and we could hear and feel the water rushing in and out of the ground beneath us. Getting washed off the rock would have been curtains for sure. It was very humbling to be in the throes of the raw power of nature.

The Amber Throne

This started a s photo of a chair my Little A pulled out of a dumpster. It seems to have evolved into an abstract deconstruction of itself. The digital realm has a way of doing that to you.

Carousel of the Gods

The novel American Gods by Neil Gaiman is a favorite of mine. There is a part in where all of the old gods get together for a meeting to decide what to do about all the pesky new gods. They have this meeting at the House on the Rock in Wisconsin (not Missouri) which is a most bizarre and fascinating place. A and I had the chance to go there back when we were traveling the country and I shot many photos there. I took two photos of the worlds largest indoor carousel (which is also mentioned in the book) and overlaid them together. I then digitally painted over that composite to create this final piece. Careful, looking at it may cause dizziness and disorientation!

Outside of the Box #1

This is number one in a current series of digital artworks. It represents man made compartmentalization being subdivided and stacked on itself. Symbolic of modern development, cubicle office life and the social tendency to place people and things into neat little boxes. However the more we try and place our organic and mysterious experience into stereotypical classifications, the more it becomes apparent that things do not fit so nicely and neatly into perfectly arranged compartments. In fact as we attempt to analyze things down to their core and classify them to the nth degree, nature has a tendency to break down under such scrutiny and present more interesting anomalies that challenge our previous deductions about the nature of reality. Tunnels and doorways open up into previously unfathomable dimensions and possibilities. Eventually our own structured belief systems must melt away to make room for these new and unexpected realizations.