Color Thoughts

When I created this piece, "Black Bird of Obsession," I enjoyed combining intuition and calculation. The drawing was spontaneous, the colors analyzed and weighed..

To me, the drawing conveyed unease and the unknown.

I wanted the color to provide harmony: excitement rather than the expected colors of men and ominous birds. So I choose unlikely, secondary colors, not the too-familiar shades of pure red, blue, and yellow.. I used the same vivid intensity on bird and man to link them thematically, and added gray to the color of the non-existent background to push it back.

I like the result. Does anyone have opinions about the choices? (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Lady Soul

"Lady Soul": the final piece, created as a birthday gift for a friend.

The color experiments that got me there. Beware of browns, for they are infinite and subtle.

(Click on the images to enlarge.)

The Raven Who Thought He Was a Peacock

A sketchbook work I wanted to share.

Después de pasar

Inspired by a passage from a poem by Federico García Lorca.
In English, the passage reads:

The lamps are put out.
Some blind girls
ask questions of the moon
and spirals of weeping
rise through the air.

Fishing with my Father

When I was a boy, my father took me fishing on occasional summer days. We rarely went any further than the long breakwater rock paths, the breakwater that destroyed virtually all Redondo Beach surf.

We rarely caught anything at all, and one day I caught a fish that was probably 7 and 7/8 of an inch long. Just below the legal limit. My father didn't want me to be disappointed, and he proved that the fish really did meet the legal limit of eight inches.

I felt sorry for the fish, guilty, and I wouldn't kill it myself.

But it tasted good.

Bug Paper

Because color is fun. And bugs are natural visual focal points.

From a Comic that will Never be Published

Playing loud and tinny and treble-y over my speakers is "Blue Suede Shoes." By Carl Perkins, only Carl Perkins. It seemed so right, and everything you think is right comes tumbling down someday, anyway.