Prince of Wands Ascent

From 9-17

Finished the color process.

I was fairly happy with the results.

It was less windy.

Lots of love from the people!

Prince of Wands Color Shift

Today, 9-16

Had a good productive drawing day on the piece I started yesterday. Creating a large, complex outline usually takes a full day by itself, and the color fill takes at least as long. Worked on it from about 1 to 6 today. The site is so windy it is a bit uncomfortable sometimes, with dust blowing at me. The color work went smoothly enough, clockwork style.

A homebum was in the area when I arrived with his dog and cart. He set about spanging near me from people passing by, and when they didn't give him change he snarled at them.

A choice bit of dialogue:

"Man some people look at you like you're fuckin stupid if you don't have a job like me. I take care of my dog! They should give me money so I'm not breakin into their house and stealing their fuckin TV set!"
(.................................)

A while later I started talking to a local guy who seemed pretty disillusioned about SF. He described himself as a former homeless advocate for gay folks who had fallen out of popular opinion. I sympathize with anyone who can't afford to get their teeth fixed and the health care system doesn't do shit to help them. He ended up ranting at me about politics a little more than I would have liked.

All in all it was a good day for art. Working on Market, the people offer steady encouragement and compliments, and the rest look a bit befuddled.

The Wands suit is characterized by fiery reds, oranges and golds, and I stayed as close to that as I could with the basic colors. I was rather satisfied with contrasting the flesh tone of the figure with bluish gold.

The horse seems rather on the small size; more like a pony. I suppose this works. I was remembering that the Khans rode pretty small horses. Not much bigger than ponies.

The photos were taken at the end of the day and the angle of light made kind of a 'grainy' effect. Hopefully one more session will finish it and I will get decent photos.

Moon Priestess

From 7-13-09

I had a nice day of drawing on Haight street in mid July of this year. After meeting up with my crazy artist friend Cameron, we took the bus from Mission to the entrance to Golden Gate Park, where Haight street meets Stanyan. It was an excellent spot; I made good use of it's geography. The place I'd picked to draw was along the centerline formed by the middle of Haight street meeting the symetrical entrance to the park. It felt like I was lapping up at the enery of this axis, a laser beam pointing along the symetrical current. It was a nice, spacious area to draw, and being a nice day in the middle of the summer, there were tons of people.

It took all day to finish my outline and do the skin tones, and at the end of it I was rather satisfied, and excited about the next step. The figure had emerged cleanly, and the complexity of the symetrical forms on her dress had an extravagant effect.

Some folks in the area were nice enough to buy us drinks and some food. We listened with amusement to one guy among them whose tall tales just kept getting taller and taller. It went from driving a limo and meeting rock stars (plausible) to being buddies with Andy Warhol (stretching it pretty badly) to (I kid you not) multiple encounters with alien species who played games of basketball against each other. (Hey, who knows...)

I was looking forward to finishing the coloring of it the next day, but it was not to be. Upon arriving, most of my work had been shmooshed somehow. Fortunately, I had taken numerous pictures.

Luna Progress

I will be trying to get up to speed by posting the backlog of photos from the projects of the last few months. This one was fun, if exhausting, and got a good response from the passersby and the people in the neighborhood. It took up a large area and had some complex color effects. I worked on it from 8-1 to 8-3 of this year. I will post the photos of the work in progress and then another post for the finished piece.I had noticed this site in the course of scouting around: on the corner of Market and Dolores, a nice expanse of sidewalk. A nice mural site for the amount of foot traffic and it's central location, yet a little of to the side so that it wasn't directly in peoples' way. In front of a pet store.I have been trying to get a working image for the tarot figure of 'the moon'. It has been a devilishly difficult card to figure out. This attempt, though it had a nice result, didn't really hit the mark. The woman seems calm and patient, pleasant. The card for the moon is a fairly sinister card. It suggests madness, hysteria, illusion, sorcery. I met and talked to a number of different folks in the course of working on this one: an employee at the pet store, families, various street characters and artists.

Prince of Wands

Today I started a new piece at a favored spot along Market St. The corner of 15th and market St. was the site of a large mural I made in July; one which lasted about a month and a half. I decided to reuse the spot with a similar subject. The previous work was of the Knight of Cups: a figure on horseback, with the accesories of war yet having a calm demeanor.

The new one is again a figure on horseback, but this one is a bit more agressive in nature. He holds a large spear in one hand, and has an ambiguous, pan-cultural style. (While I was working on it, someone asked, 'Hawiian or Aztec?'. Later someone asked, 'is it Genghis Khan?'. I try to never give definite answers to these. I relish the murky origins, which ease the way for the archetype manifesting.

I worked on it today, 9-15, from about 1230 to 5, and managed to finish the outline. The next couple of days should be enough to complete the colors.

Angel and Scarab

On 8.24.09 I finished some art comissioned by 'Inspired', a Salon/Day Spa in Monterey, CA.

I wasn't given any specific request, and didn't have a specific plan.

It was fun to do a bit of improvising as well as retreading a proven design.

On one side I drew a large egyptian type scarab beetle. Very colorful and with nice blends. In front of the door, on the other side, a sort of angel woman with her arms spread in welcome, and a large orangish lotus blossom in front of her. Small swarms of butterflies released from each hand.

At one point, 2 police cars showed up. The cop was nice enough. We talked for about 5 minutes. He said someone had called in that I was "vandalizing the area with chalk". This offends me a bit, as what I do is art, not 'vandalism'. To me, vandalism implies specific property damage, breaking things, scratching up walls, things like that. What amazed me is that, yes, whoever it was saw me understood that it was chalk, and still called it in. I remarked to the cop how upset people can get over temporary artwork. He told me of a couple other calls they have gotten which were ridiculous. (One: some one calls in to complain about transients sleeping on the lawn of Colton Hall. 'Can't you get them to move along?' When in point of fact they have a constitutional right to be there! Another: someone calls in and complains about the Mexican flag hanging at the bus plaza!)

So they show up, because they are legally obligated to when they are called; they see what is happening, and they leave.

A couple people seemed very interested when I was working there, and stopped to talk to me. (stopping their cars and getting out, actually) One seemed like a possible business contact. This happens regularly. I actually enjoy chatting with people who stop and look about art and the various permutations it leads to. I find this a little unusual sometimes, ....talking to people in an unfiltered way. Simply because its about art, a favorite topic.

Alchemical Dragon

I made this one over the days 9.2 and 9.3.09
along Market Street. A funny intersection where Market, Herman, Guererro and Laguna come together. A busy, slightly chaotic intersection. I found a spot on one of the corners near a dry cleaners shop, a nice wide bit of sidewalk under a leafy tree.

I had come across something in a book about Alchemy, and an illustration from a 17th century treatise. The imagery of a triple headed dragon with rainbow skin captivated me. It describes a chemical and a metaphysical formula. Mercury represents the ephemeral (spiritus), sulphur the fiery energy of the soul (animus), and salt the corporeal (corpus).

The combination of these could form the (materia prima) which could be transformed into the philosophers stone of wisdom. It is a reminder about finding harmony in a three fold solution.

The design itself is much simpler than the last two pieces along Market Street. The color blending was the key feature of this one. It took a while to get a decent semblance of the color spectrum. The outline was a bit rougher than I would have liked. The proportions of the dragon's body weren't quite as refined as the sketch I was working from, coming out a little longer and narrower.

It proved to be a lively location. Numerous people stopped to appreciate the work, and I got into a few conversations with various folks during the second day. Besides having a super cute girl to chat with on her work breaks, I got an offer to do a mural in someone's home, and had a lengthy talk with a travelling dude about San Francisco. At one point a gaggle of kids were being led around doing a neighborhood scavenger hunt, and the item: "temporary public artwork" (!!!)