A sketch inked an hour ago while sitting on my bed (gingerly gripping the open ink bottle - oh those white sheets). I wanted the feather to be his spine because he is shaman of the feather. The dancing will is determination. When finished he likely won't look like this, though this is the backbone. Shaman of the Feather, 11"x15", 27.9x38.1cm, Strathmore cold press Watercolor. Click on image to view larger size.

shaman of the feather
healer of the soft touch

into the storm eye
opens

power of the dancing will

ghost rattle



                                                

I don't know why I didn't colour in her hair, probably because I liked the contrast. But her skin - rich honied earthtones, golden and chocolate - yes.

My intention was to write of the new direction my artwork is taking and to add a little sketch for interest. But the sketch became a poem painting and with the colours of the letters festive (there were letters like coloured lights strung along the bottom which I had uploaded but changed my mind on seeing in the post). Perhaps the energy of poem painting is upon me, but if you'd like the mantle for a bit, I'd be honoured to pass it on.

As I release myself from having always to draw from life, I find I am able to compose drawings and paintings from my imagination.

This makes working in visual media easier. As a homebody, nay 'recluse,' enrolling in art classes is difficult (especially since unemployed at the moment, and even when employed the salary is small). I reuse my old drawings from lifedrawing sessions over and over. I think about what I would like to do but cannot afford models or to arrange scenes as I would like them.

I think my artwork has not progressed as it might if I hadn't had this problem.

Now the possibilities open.

                                                

2009, 11"x9¼", 28cmx23.5cm, 
inks, oil pastel on archival paper
(I wrote into the drawing as I was
drawing; later I edited the words 
slightly into the poem that
accompanies the image)
throw bones

bone men
char men

cartilage has no
nerve endings

Baghdad is burning
-the bombers are coming-
hide your children

the god of fire thunder is upon us
the god who eats men

armor yourselves for it is useless
shrapnel sharp spinning
from the god's eye

cease & desist
cease & desist
cease & desist


                                                

A wee bit of humor today! ☆lol ♥♪

(click for larger size - it'll open even if the image is strangely absent from this page ;;)))

                                                

* The simplicity of this electronic music with its white spaces is conducive to my inner poetic thoughts. It's not shifting my brainwaves so much as moving with them. How this is I cannot explain. Is this ambient background music or muse to create by? A bicycle pump & air? Too wild for words. And yet it's gentle, opening pathways rather than probing; allowing a strange rhythm rather than imposing one. I like! I like!

Jean Toba writes in his album notes:


                                                

I am happier with this painting now. In it I see elements from different fairy and mythic tales, but she is Daphne. She is composed from my imagination.

Steven said, 'I have only been able to give the picture a quick look.  But I enjoyed a strange chilliness – not in a sense of anything emotionally frigid, but something wintery, something gelid, something in the tree branches that suggested icicles.  And I loved the eyes.  Two such different eyes to have on one face, and both so full of personality.  And the way the tilt of the eyes was taken up by the mouth.'

Yes, I felt Persephone, the onset of Winter, as I was drawing her!
_

Here is a little slideshow of the stages of the poem painting (click to go to Picasa for a larger viewing):

In this drawing I am trying to find something lost. A perception; a route; a way of understanding. From my book of doodle drawings, where I allow myself more freedom, less restraint. A poesis drawing - word painting.

'You are the TV'

Or this one I Photoshopped below - the caption could be:

I'm changing your channel to CONTINUOUS VISIONARY ENLIGHTENMENT!

Yeah!




                                                

These beautiful figurines were sculpted 7000 years ago!
Stunning.

The 'Thinker' and Female Figurine. Fired Clay, Hamangia, Cernavodă, 5000-4600 BC. National History Museum of Romania, Bucharest: 15906, 15907. Photo: Marius Amarie.

From a NYTimes slideshow, Artifacts from Old Europe, included in an article entitled, 'A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity,' by John Noble Wilford.