Daily drawing Eat, the Hungry Penitent , graphite, watercolor, gouache on toned paper
Yet another drawing inspired by dream analysis ; I’ll leave it to the viewer to interpret further.
Eat, the Hungry Penitent
Month: April 2023
(He has Risen) & All the Earth Rejoices
(He has risen) & All the Earth Rejoices
My intention was to have this drawing finished for last Sunday, the Easter Sunday I celebrate but alas I wasn’t able to finish in time.
Instead, now completed, it will commemorate Orthodox Easter, a celebration I favor anyway for its solemnity (and general absence of bunnies). My intention with this drawing was to integrate my Christian faith with the old gods, the Greenmen and earth spirits that I revere in near equal measure. Greenmen of course our hard to resist , I doodle them aimlessly, I have them painted on my walls and on my ceilings,
and I turn to them time and again (and they seem in to turn to me) . Just the other morning, from one of my numerous monarchial email updates, I received an “invitation” to Charles III upcoming coronation. Its design is charming, traditional yet bright and optimistic, a cheerful herald to this new Carolean Age ( may it be splendid and hopeful). The design not only delighted me but inspired with its Greenman theme.
To add further inspiration, walking home from church during Holy Week I noticed for the first time these foliate faced fellows peering down at me. Greenmen it would be then, the perfect symbol of the Earth rejoicing .
2023
Graphite and colored pencil , gouache on illustration board
15 by 30 inches
I was further inspired by the earth’s awakening here in Chicago. It is still barren for the most part, but tender shoots are appearing ; the daffodils have been in bloom for some time and the tulips are gathering their courage. It is that period of opposites, fresh blossoms popping from the bones of autumn, of vivid chartreuse and dull earth- dull, cracked and crazed earth, broken by the vitality just beneath the surface.
If Man is by nature a maker of patterns, he learns that art by Nature herself, I hoped to capture that in this detail.
And that is that. Happy Easter to my Orthodox sister and her family , to my Orthodox friends and in general, happy spring and all that new beginnings offer.
2023
Graphite and colored pencil , gouache on illustration board
15 by 30 inches
New drawing: Vivisection of the Seraphim
2023
color pencil and gouache on toned illustration board
15 by 19 inches
Today’s drawing : “Vivisection of the Seraphim “, pencil and gouache on toned illustration board, 15 by 19 inches .
A friend recently mentioned that she didn’t believe in the existence of the Soul . This set me back a bit , I’ve heard this argument before , heretical from my position , that the soul, not actually something sacred but instead an entanglement of the nervous system. This materialistic perspective nonetheless upset me a great deal, leading me to uncomfortable rumination. Given its Holy Week and reflecting upon the soul appropriate, this image ultimately made its appearance.
The cold , hard science worship of our age with its mechanical “logical” detachment, cannot adequately discern the essence of a soul . For the Trust-the-Science crowd , such close scrutiny of the sacred would be as fruitless and as brutal as dissecting an Angel – you’d be left with little aside from disenchantment and some bloody feathers .
The soul is ineffable , wilting under the demands of the empiricist , but I have faith in it and the fact that you cannot be an artist without one.
Speaking of the intangible , the conventional depiction of the Seraphim , here illustrated from the Petite Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry, conveys the fragility of their nature. I attempted to capture that shredded-butterfly-wing tragedy in my drawing.
Details of my drawing follows :
Sending forth warm Passover and Easter greetings.
2023
color pencil and gouache on toned illustration board
15 by 19 inches
Boondocks Babylon 