Flaming ArtistY’all get 2 drawings today.
These were based off the drawing I posted yesterday. I was getting simpler,
more abstract, with each pass,
This drawing was executed
with Tombo ABT acid free brush pens, of black and various grays.
This drawing appears to have been exaecuted with a garden variety felt-tip pen
I’ve lost count; I no longer
know or care how many drawings I’ve done in this series. Probably I’ll do more
drawings before I’ve finished posting the ones I’ve done so far.
This
is another photo-reffed drawing, done with sable brush dipped into India ink
(then thoroughly cleaned with soap and water).
SEPTEMBER 4, 2013
This is my 3rd drawing in
the Daily Dick series, sketched in the 2013 American Express Date Book gifted
me by my late spouse, John Callahan.
This drawing is in graphite;
pencil that is. Plain old pencil, with an eraser stuck onna end, the kind kids
use in class. Or they usta; God knows what the little whippersnappers use now.
Probably one o’ them thar computer thingies y’hear so much about these days.
Actually, I wasn’t using
just any old pencil-with-an-eraser-stuck-onna-end. I was using mah all time
favorite pencil, the Dixon Ticonderoga Soft. Beautiful creamy line, and the
erasers are actually good, better than the Pink Pearl these days.
This
drawing is done from a photo, clipped many years ago from one of them thar gay
skin magazines, back in the day when folks bought their porn on paper.
THE DAILY DICK
SEPTEMBER 3, 2013
These are drawings in the Daily Dick series, sketched in the 2013 American Express Date
Book gifted me by my late spouse, John Callahan.
This is a pen and ink wash
drawing, with some gouache touch-ups.
One thing I quickly
discovered: The American Express date books are printed on really shitty paper.
It has a slightly waxy surface that initially repels the ink or paint, until it
gives way/gives in and starts to soak up the media, bleeding through to the
opposite side of the page and even getting on the page beneath at times. I
rather liked this; I liked the way the process of working damaged the paper,
causing bleed-through and warpage. I had recently completed a class in
“Painting With Photoshop” and was surprised at my visceral negative reaction to
the process. I realize I didn’t want to “paint with Photoshop”; I wanted to
paint with paint, on real paper, etc. I’m looking at a computer screen all day
long at my money gig; I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to come home and spend
more time doing it on nights and weekends.
These drawings are done from the same photo.
This was my first drawing in my ongoing “Daily Penis” project, executed on August 26, 2012. I started on the first pages of my inherited American Express Date Book that were relatively clean of calendrical crap. (a few days later, I reconsidered, and went back to draw on the earlier pages). This is a quick, loose pen and ink (and ink wash) drawing. It is taken from a color photograph, probably published in “Mandate Magazine” or “Advocate Men”back in ’84-’86, the 3 year period when I was newly released from my first relationship and had money to spend on frivolities like newsstand gay porn rags.
THE DAILY DICK
This is a first installment in a
daily blog (to be published daily going forward).
I started doing the work
last year around this time, late August 2012. My dear departed spouse, John
Callahan, http://www.ageofconsentrap.com/asked if I wanted his 2013 American Express Date Book. (He was still
alive at this point.) I accepted his kind offer. It occurred to me that it
would be a low-pressure way to do artistic play—I would be working on really
crappy paper already printed with clanedrical (is there such a word?) crap.
This would free me of worry about doing good art, and I could cut loose.
It was actually reminiscent
of my first one man show, at The One Way ( a leather bar in Silver Lake that
has since gone defunct after losing its liquor license toward the end of my
show’s run) in the summer/fall of 1989. That show was entitled “Recycled
Erotica”. All the art was drawn on the back (or front) of found Xerox copies,
or painted on grocery bags I disassembled and gesso’ed on one side for this
purpose.
This new project served the
same artistic purpose, except the new art would receive even less exposure than
“Recycled Erotica”. I was working in such a way as to make reproduction or
scanning difficult so as not to be tempted to do precisely what I’m doing now:
posting it on my blog. I simply couldn’t deal with it: I had too much going on
in my life, not the least of which was my spouse’s impending death from
metastasized prostate cancer.
Anyway, John died on
February 17 and I had my stroke on April 2. My beloved boyfriend, Richard R.
moved in with me upon my release from the hospital on May 18. The last 3 months
have been all about getting my life and my health (and my
drawing/painting/writing ability) back. Only now, on the eve of my September 2nd
resumption of paying work, do I feel the need/ability to start posting this
rather extensive archive of work. I’ve no doubt I’ll be kicking myself as I
start trying to reproduce scan… but what can you do?
This
is the cover of the volume. The black paper cut-out penis is glued down with
Elmer’s Glue. Last Saturday,when I took it off the shelf to show it to friends
(Joe Flazh! And Sid Lanier, of the now defunct Flazh! Alley Gallery, in San
Pedro), I found the penis was becoming unglued (“It’s hard to keep a good dick
down”, Sid quipped), I revisited the adhesion, this time (over) using Nuetral
PH Adhesive, by LineCo.
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This
is painting is called “Oroboros”. It is my belated birthday present to my
fiance’, Richard. It was inspired by a dream he had in late 2012, of a fantasy
being sucking his own dick conflated with the archetype of the snake eating its
own tail and the Infinity symbol. He told me his dream while we tabled together
at BentCon 3 at the Marriott Hotel in Burbank, California. I did a number of
preliminary sketches as he sat next to me, looking over my shoulder, so to
speak, until we arrived at a design he liked.
The
next stage was cleaning up the drawing until, again, we were both satisfied. I
know I had reached this stage by Xmas ’12, because I recall showing the drawing
at that stage to various guests at that year’s annual Xmas Eve party.
I
scanned the tight drawing into my computer, cleaning it up even more, and
coming up with several different color schemes. Richard chose his favorite.
Now
it was time to do the finished painting. I got the canvas, laid down the
background colors. I wanted it to be black yet translucent, with lots of depth
and subtlety. Richard loved it, and I prepared to paint the figure,
transferring the finished drawing to the prepared canvas.
However,
it was just at this stage that my spouse of 27(?) years, John Callahan, slipped
into a coma and died on Sunday, February 17. I put the painting on hold as I
dealt with John’s death and its aftermath, planning his Memorial, dealing with
his estate, etc.John Callahan Death Announcement;Feb 27 2013
And
then, I had my stroke on April 2nd. I My Near-Death Experience (May 20, 2013)spent 18 days in ICU, 3 weeks in Glendale
Memorial Hospital’s rehabilitation clinic/wing, was released on May 18th. I had
to deal with Richard merging his household with mine, using my work area in the
garage as his overflow storage area and the guest room for my visiting
relatives as they served as caregiver (see links to blogs).
Finally,
Richard moved his shit out of my work area, and my last, lingering family
caregiver bid adieu. I then had to
undertake the daunting project of cleaning up the garage, moving thing around,
throwing stuff away, so that I could return my workspace into being a space I
could actually work in. I was (and am) still recovering from the April 2nd
stroke and the debilitation of my left arm, and my lack of stamina.
Having
accomplished all of that, I could then, once again, start work on completing
“Oroboros”. I didn’t know how it would go. Even before the stroke, painting has
always been a fraught experience for me. I do it so seldom that I have to
re-teach myself each time I start a new painting. Add to that the uncertainty over
whether or not I still had, or could recover, all my marbles after the stroke.
And
here you have it; the finished work, all signed and everything. It now hangs
over the bed I share with Richard, a symbol of many things, not the least of
which is my on-going recovery.
I was interested in arcing lines here. I’ll probably take another pass at this drawing, using a brush, making the lines thick, almost geometric. Sort of like Peter Arno, or Frank Stella
I drew this over 6 months ago, but it fits with yesterday’s drawing. The guy is nude sunbathing at surf’s edge. What happens next? You may never know.
This is a lesson in knowing when to stop. I really liked my rough pencil sketch; I like the finished ink drawing less so. My big mistake was giving the guy dark colored cut-offs instead of light colored cut-offs. What was I thinking? I know, I know; given the capabilities of Photoshop I could easily make the cut-offs light, thereby giving us a nice view of the man’s low hanging fruit. Maybe later.
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