Lamb and Bullets

Journal - Pen and Ink (thoughts on Easter Song "Lamb who sits on the throne")

Journal - Pen, Brush, and red ink
"Chess man"

New and Dark

Someone once asked me "why don't you draw nice things?"Every now and then I think about this questions and I think I've found an answer that I can live with. "Nice" things don't have to work to be pretty, to be beautiful. It is their nature to be pleasing to the eyes, soft on the mind and in some cases downright sugary. Ugly and dark things are often in the process of becoming beautiful and it is that process that I find beautiful. Below are three new images from The Final Transformation... that deal with just that idea, or rather are an example of the road to beauty.

9 x 11 - Pen, Brush, Red and Grey Ink

9 x 11 - Pen, Brush, Red and Grey Ink

9 x 11 - Pen, Brush, Red and Grey Ink

Inside out

Second post in just about a week...

What is and what is experienced internally are often very, very different. Take a glimpse into the past4 days.

3.5 x 11 Pen, Red Brush pen

3.5 x 11 pencil (various) gray brush pen

11 x 3.5 Pen, Red and Gray Brush Ben

3.5 x 11 Pen, Blue pen, Grey brush pen

Journals

It's been far too long once again since my last post which simply put means I've been absorbed in work on the picture novel and my work on The Communicator. Last night I was flipping through some old notebooks, spiral bound books of mass produced paper that I used years ago as a way of coping....coping with the observed world. They are a crucial part of the process or journey.

Notebook - Mermaid story

Notebook - Greedy little bastards

Notebook - Merry Mary

I'll keep posting these from time to time.
- Matt

Lazy SOB

There is no excuse for how long I've left this blog twiddling it's digital thumbs so let's start things off right. I don't know what the means but it sounded good so what the hell.

NEW WORK

Here is some of the work I've been digging into recently from "The Final Transformation of Alabaster Johns."

Illustration from page 1 "As a boy Alabaster Johns walked the borders between the civilized and the wild things."

Pen, Brush, and ink

Illustration for Page 6 "To his father's chagrin, Alabaster fell ill."

Pen, Brush, and Ink


Also, you can see more new work, including a some sample pages from issue 2 of God is Sleeping at:

flickr

I'll post more in the next week.

Matt

Another Day

I Defy You - Pen/Brush and Ink on paper, 9 x 12

I don't have much to say about this piece except "it's done." Now it can get busy collecting dust! Seriously folks, artists who don't prolifically sell, but prolifically create are immensely wasteful.

This morning I was listening to my local NPR station's weekly what's going on in the local world of art segment, and was slightly annoyed by how passive and self-important the guests sounded. Do we all sound like this? The public does not want art that says something, art that contains beauty and depth, art that pushes the boundaries. The consuming public in fact does not know what they/we want. So the marketplace is flooded with "art" of all kinds trinkets and masterpieces resting side by side...and somewhere, all meaning is lost, washed way in the flood until those who have stood the test of time are left waving their fists at the world of men screaming "is that all?"


Happy slushy Thursday!

God Is Sleeping

God Is Sleeping, Page 9 - penciled lay out

Two weeks ago I began work on Issue #2 of God Is Sleeping - formerly Little Uglies. The story begins where issue #1 left off, in the cellar of the mad hatter-like "Sinister Terrance, and his man servant Rutherford putting a controllable head on the "headless one." Now known only as "The Creature," the deviant Terrance takes The Creature out for a little experiment in obedience. The test: kill a crazy street preacher on command. At first The Creature hesitates...but with the help of a little physical pleasure The Creature complies.

God Is Sleeping, Page 9 - Final Inked page

For this sequence I knew that I wanted to visually exaggerate everything slightly. It wasn't until page 10 that the Point of View pay off came in to play with The Creature bent over the dead body.

God Is Sleeping, Page 10 - penciled lay out

In the Penciled drawing I had a good idea as to how to manipulate that point of view. It wasn't until I began to ink the drawing that the point of view began to really take shape. I wanted the corpse to be almost respectively larger then The Creature because it represents the scale of the evil act he just committed.

God Is Sleeping, Page 10 - Final Inked Page

Matt