"Angry Sneer" Palm Frond Mask, Acrylic

Latest mask. An interesting story behind this one:

I had a plan to paint a dog on this frond. I really need to make more dog masks. People really love their dogs, and I'm sure I can sell many masks portraying popular breeds. But when I looked at the blank canvas of this Queen Palm frond base, I couldn't help myself from seeing the angry spirit here captured. It was inherent in the folds and markings of the wood: the squinty eyes, pig-nose, and side-breaking mouth. This is my usual method for creating these masks: I find the face already hidden within it. But this time, I really wanted to make a dog mask! But the spirit of the wood was there, glowering at me. Could I really just cover him up with a happy German Shepherd that had nothing to do with this particular frond's shape and form? Well, no, obviously, I couldn't. There are thousands of frond bases falling off thousands of Queen Palm trees in the OC area. But only this one frond contained this wood spirit. I'm not sure how saleable this mask will be, but here he is, angry sneer and all.

New Palm Frond Masks: Red Stone, Long Face. Updated!

Update: Finished this one.

Red Stone Face

Acrylic on Palm Frond

Feb 2017

Original Post:

I've been working on my palm frond masks lately.

Red Stone Face
Acrylic on Palm Frond
Feb 2017

I've cleaned up a new batch of downed frond bases. That involves trimming off the excess fringes, messy and breakable edges of the fronds, with saw, razor and shears. Then sanding the remaining rough edge as smooth as possible-- this part is tricky because the wood is porous with thick fibers, so sanding the edge more and more just ends up revealing more and more rough fiber ends.

I left them, concave side up outside in the pouring once-in-a-lifetime torrential California rain, and they got pretty clean, like being power-washed. Some sanding remains to be done on the surfaces, which often shed a wispy filmy skin which kind hinders the painting process.

Then the design goes on. I have a plan to do more quicker ones, say under an hour of painting, as well as a few more intricately designed ones taking much longer.

Long Face
Acrylic on Palm Frond
Jan 2017

Here pictured are an example of each type. The red mask was inspired by a vision, of a red stone face, not surprisingly. I have a bit more work to do on that one.

The wood textured mask was more or less doodled onto the frond in black acrylic paint, diluted with water. It has eye holes which I had drilled previously.  Painting the face on it took me considerably less than an hour. More like 5-10 minutes.

You need a mask! I have your mask! Hit me up! Let's make a deal, I will work with your budget. What kind of mask do you want? I'm your man for palm frond masks. I can draw or paint Your Face on a palm frond, and it will actually look like you! Or your loved one, your pet, or your favorite person or animal or image!

BFF!  Best Fronds Forever!

Support the Arts!

Oil and Acrylic Abstract Paintings

Some old work, starting with three pieces I did when I studied oil painting under Dinah Cross James. Her technique involves applying thick layers of paint with a paint knife, and then scraping through multiple layers to bring out unique color blendings.
The last piece is in acrylics, just my usual abstract expression and runes.

Abstract
Oils
2012

Abstract Cartoony
oils
2012

Energy Beam
Oils
2012

Abstract
Acrylics
2012

Abstract Cartoony Vision Paintings - Acrylics on Masonite Board

 More paintings from a few years ago.
The first three are from visions I saw in my mind's eye.
The last one, just a random character doodled in a sketchbook.

Face Melting Over Box

The Body Like Soft Serve

Organic City-Structure

Toothy Character

Vision Painting: Clash of Shaded Circles

This pattern of circles appeared within my closed eyelids.  Two sets of randomly-arrayed circles, each set colored and shaded differently.  I painted it in acrylics.  I have nothing to say about what it means.  It means nothing more than its appearance.  If it takes on a meaning for the viewer, that is about the only meaning it can have.

Clash of Shaded Circles
Acrylic on masonite board
May 2016

Abstract Color Design

This algorithm came to me as a vision, a dancing, swirling pattern of colors in my "mind's eye."  A random scribble of lines makes a framework for somewhat of a checkerboard pattern of light- and dark-themed cells.  

Rift Portal Sketch

Sometimes the rift opens up before you, spreading open like an orifice, bursting, portal-like with teeming weirdies from nether regions, strange dimensions, converging on this nexus of hyperspatial awareness.  Dig it!

Rift Portal
2015

Vision Sketch: Abstract Tower

This tower, or something that looked quite similar to it, appeared in my mind's eye as I lay down to sleep recently.  

Abstract Tower 2015

Additional Vision Paintings

 

These few paintings were completed awhile ago, maybe a year or more, but for some reason, I neglected to post them to this blog. Now here they are.

My vision paintings are paintings of visions that I have, in dreams, or sub-conscious states.  I try to remember them when I have them, and sketch them down on paper, to be later finalized in paint.

 

Gnomes in Sentient Forest

Spiral Energy Beam

Energy Cone

 

 

 

 

 

Light Show



Energy Beam Omega



Spirits of Consciousness



Energy Field

The following paintings aren't exactly vision paintings, in that they are not based on any vision I had.
Rather, they represent a style I experiment with, of filling in the visual field with swirls and splotches of bright color, then finding faces in the jagged edges of the splotches and bringing them out with additional paint.  As such, abstract and naturalistic-looking creatures and spirits emerge.  Enjoy.

Paint Spirits I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paint Spirits II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paint Spirits III

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paint Spirits IV

Vision Sketch: Alien picture frame

 

Barely just started on this one.  Another vision sketch, to become a vision painting, perhaps starting with a page-sized watercolor, and then stepping up to a large-sized acrylic painting.  Just the elaborate, alien architecture of a picture frame for now, to contain an idyllic pastoral mountain scene, but I may have said too much.  The image will speak for itself, once completed.  For a drawing with this much detail, documenting progress in stages is wise, kind of like saving a backup, in case the computer goes kerflooey.  Anyway, enjoy.

 

I'm out drawing on Main Beach, Laguna Beach, California every weekend, at the south end of the boardwalk by the kids' playground, just south of the historic lifeguard tower.  Look for me in the afternoons and evenings, and get your caricature drawn, free of charge!




 

Vision Sketch: Boxy figures

 

 

Another one of those images that drifted into my consciousness as I was on the edge of dreaming. Once again, I make no excuses for what I see, nor how I interpret it.  Enjoy it, or not. 

 

Vision Sketch: Intricate Circle Patterns

I had this vision of an array of circular patterns.  Each highly intricate but each having its own style or character. This is but an approximation of what I saw. In my vision, the array of patterned circles was held tighter together than in the sketch, and each was of a level of intricacy that is well-nigh impossible to capture, and can only be approximated.

Intricate Circle Array

Amalgam of Many Things II: Sketch

Latest trippy sketch.

Kind of like this other one.

Vision Sketch: Organic Tower in Ecotopia

This organic-looking tower appeared in my mind's eye one night as I was drifting off.  I tried to capture as many details as I could in my memory, but, as always, something is lost in the translation.  Anyway, I rather like how the sketch came out, and plan to make it into a color painting.

Drawing: Vimana

  A Vimana is, in the Hindu tradition, a spiritual vehicle that ferries souls to the afterlife, or any other realms where they need to go.  There may be some mysterious connection between this myth and sightings of UFO's.

  This image just popped into my mind's eye, as artistic visions will do, and I did my best to memorize the details of it.  Generally something is lost between the vision in my brain and the sketch in the physical world, but I hope at least the idea is preserved.  I interpreted the image as a Vimana, perhaps my Vimana.  This vehicle just had an elegance and grace to it, while it's form still suggested power, freedom of movement.

Vimana Drawing
2015

Sketchbook Page 34: Network of Panels

Another abstract, or "whirly art" creation, inspired by a vision I saw in my head, as I drifted on the edge of sleep.

Network of Panels

Painting: File Folder Tabs of Destiny

A painting I made many years ago, based on a vision I saw in my head.  It hangs at my parents' house. 

The File Folder Tabs of Destiny
acrylic painting

Vision Sketch: Consciousness-spreading spirit-entities

This image appeared to me as I was coming down from a DMT hit.  The consciousness the figures experience comes to them from outside, as independent and free-acting light-spirits, symbolized as white snakes with two rounded eyes, all emerging from the third eye, or pineal eye, of the ancient one.  Those not woken up by the spirits continue to sleep in darkness. 

2 Vision Paintings

More vision paintings.  These will be included in my art display at the Center Camp Cafe at Burning Man. 

Rainbow Maze

Rainbow Path

Sketchbook Page 22: Vision sketches, birds

 The top part of the page shows some patterns I saw in my inner eye, the middle left is a vision I had  after watching my nephew play Minecraft for an hour, which is a game with very blocky graphics.
The rest was drawn sitting at Zinc's or at the beach in Laguna Beach, observing mostly pigeons, but some crows and sparrows, a eucalyptus tree and a man.

I CAN HAZ BRED CRUM?