Underwater Unattended

A Wizard Decides To Change His Shadow Blue

The Lighthouse (For Creative Tuesdays)

Over at Creative Tuesdays, this week's theme is Lighthouses.  When I used to work the Maine market I would sometimes drive up and down the coast from just north of Portland down to just below Old Orchard Beach.  I recall a few really nice lighthouses, in particular the one near Cape Elizabeth, which is just south of South Portland.  There's just something very intriguing and freeing about lighthouses.  Please stop by to CT and check out the various inspirations this theme has produced from the excellent artists that contribute there.

Dining Out

Ladders

Birds of a Feather (Creative Tuesdays)

Creative Tuesdays makes it's long awaited return, after a much needed artistic reprieve.  Can't wait to see what everyone's created.  Despite the Theme being Birds of A Feather, I'm 100% confident the creativity will be anything but Fowl :)

Stop on over to Creative Tuesdays and see all the wonderful artistry on display.  While you're there, perhaps you'll feel inspired to create yourself.  Check out the guidelines to get started, can't wait to see what you'll choose to share.

Images From Forgotten Fields

Of Light or Fire (A Siege Arrives)

SPY (VS. SPY) (For Creative Tuesdays)

SPY, is the theme for this week's Creative Tuesday's Challenge. Definitely stop by and check out everyone's response to the challenge.  Another great theme, where the artistic interpretation can be found in a myriad of directions.  I was going to go with the OO7 idea, perhaps try my abstract hand out with perhaps a weaving of OO7, where bullets, girls and the like can be seen interweaving them, but I don't know where it came from, but SPY vs. SPY popped into my head and I rolled with that idea.  Can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with.

If you've never been to a Creative Tuesday, then definitely stop on over, you'll enjoy what's linked up, and, perhaps, you'll join us in future weeks as well, perhaps as a contributor even.

Paradise Island Retreat (For Creative Tuesdays)

Over at Creative Tuesdays, the theme is Paradise Island.  Boy, could've gone in a number of directions there, but, because of artistic limitations and my desire to keep this site as close to a PG rating as possible, I opted away from some of those other notions and went with a perfect scene at a beach, where you could spend time watching the beauty of the ocean, the alternating colors of the sky, any various animals that pass by your line of sight, sand, a bed (counting on it being rainless of course), fishing for one's supper, over an open fire of course, and naturally a small boat, in order to get back home when you long for that, again, counting on the waves to be gentle that day :)

Stop on over to Creative Tuesdays and see what the others versions of paradise Island prompted them to create.

Fireworks Celebration (Creative Tuesdays)

This week, the theme over at Creative Tuesdays is Celebrations.  I have to admit, I couldn't think of what to do.  I had a few ideas, but none of them panned out the way I wanted them to.  Then, I was watching a show, actually channel surfing, not really sure what the show was, but in that brief flip of the channels, I noticed a fireworks display and that's when I got the inspiration for this piece.

I was reminded of when I was a child and my parents used to take me and my younger sister over to this hill about 20 minutes from our house.  It was really nice, as it was in a nice area, but also because they let people sprawl out their towels, picnic baskets and it all turned out to be a really nice place, where a lot of families would get together to watch the fireworks display, that the village was running about a mile or so away.

I remember always thinking how close the display appeared, despite the distance between launch site and our location up on that hill.  The only thing I wish I could've incorporated into the piece are all the variety of sounds associated with the fourth, but hopefully everyone's experienced one of this and will have no problem recalling those loud yet exciting sounds, that again, seemed so very close to our ears.

I haven't been to a fireworks display in a really long time though. Actually, I think my last time seeing one was when I had a business trip in Boston, MA about 5 years or so ago.  I stayed at this hotel near the water, and I was high enough up, that I had a perfect view of the display, and I have to say, it was pretty awesome, way beyond
anything we ever got on that hill.

But then again, I think the fond memories of those trips to that hill, weren't so much as the marvel of the fireworks itself, as it was the time spent together as a family, which, as we age, it gets harder to coordinate such moments of real quality time, like the kind I so fondly remember we'd share back then as kids.

Captivating Space

Nebulas Vol. 2- Attack Of The Ice Vultures From An Imploding Star

An extraterrestrial superhero DJ, living in a loft somewhere in NYC

Sometimes I wonder if aliens exist.  Then I wonder, if they do, I wonder if they go through the whole pretending to be a super-hero phase.  Then finally, assuming that they do exist and that they do like to play super-hero games, I ask myself, "If I was an alien that liked to dress up as a super-hero, what would my secret identity be and what day-job would I use as a cover story, after all I am an alien?

My answer:  I'd buy a loft in NYC someplace, convert the entire place into comic-strip decor, B &W would abound, except for a splattering of color, about all I could afford.  I'd wear a mask most all the time, after all, in NY you could probably get away with it.  Then, I would use some of that alien technology of mine and become a world famous underground DJ.

Then I wonder what I would spin?  What kind of sound alien technology could procure?  Obviously I can't answer that question, but I think it would sound pretty cool.

Entanglement (before and after)

As usual, I begin with a random brain-writing session if you will, and see where that takes me.  Here, I had a general disarray of lines and decided to make connections between them all.  From that point I thought it would look better if I shaded in the stems, what I called them, the long connecting lines.  Then I smoothened out the the corners and finished up by darkening in some sections of the design.  I like the way the piece turned out; it reminds me of an entanglement of plant growth.  I picture a traveller who has just made their way through the dense brush of the woods.  Then, just as night appears, they reach the opening, where a beautiful and enchanted world can be seen, the vegetation comes alive entangling and entwining together, becoming an impenetrable wall.  The combined species of green growth turn dark.  Now only the beauty of the other side shows through the openings in the wall.  The traveller is now resigned to remain at least one more night in this, now, dark and unfriendly wooded confine.

Anyhow, once I got the story down in my head I decided to play around with color schemes.  The one shown in the lower painting is the one I through best represented the scene.

The Contents of the Box

Behind
Secured fence
Resides a box
Clearly unmeant to see

So many measures
Some men took
To keep its contents
Hidden deep

And what's within...

The Young Master of the Blackest Bird