First OFFICIAL Commission! 8x10, Watercolor and Pen. Hey everyone! This time, I'm actually back. First off, let me say I was not planning to fall off the face of the Earth again. At the time I last posted, I had a little less than a month of school left and I had hoped I could wrap up all my final projects early and be done. I was wrong. My teachers assigned more and I had work due up to the day before school ended, but I survived! Since my last post, I do have some updates. 1. I did indeed graduate high school! I was very lucky my school not only had a ceremony, but it was at Soldier Field. (I'm very happy to say I graduated Summa Cumme Laude and with the honors of completing the Alpha STEM and the Arts program.) 2. I also got an Instagram! I'll be using it not only to post final pieces but also as a way to post progress. {@mapalomar.arts} With regards to this painting, it is my first official commission, past commissions were from people I knew (family or friends) but this one isn't. I can say I'm pretty proud of the end result, especially as a person who doesn't consider themself a watercolor artist, it's not too shabby. :) Anyway, I hope this piece will have a safe journey all the way to its new home in Massachusetts.
Newest work! Alcohol inks for the sky, oil pastels for O'Neill himself :). A2 canvas - biggest I've done in a while! This was a present for the boyf, who is a massive Stargate fanboy!
Meet Dr. Lorna Breen. She was in the trenches of the front line inside the New York hot zone during the first wave of the pandemic. She saw the massive influx of patients she knew she could not save (29,000 deaths reported in April, 2020). She contracted the virus and after recuperating, went straight back to work. A week and a half later, the hospital sent her home. Her family intervened to bring her back home to Charlottesville, Virginia. During her visit with her family, she seemed “detached.” She passed away April 26, 2020 at the UVA University Hospital in Charlottesville from self-inflicted wounds.
"She tried to do her job, and it killed her… Make sure she’s praised as a hero. Because she was, she’s a casualty just as much as anyone else who has died."
—Dr. Philip C. Breen, Father
An attempt at people. This is Holy Week for some of us. Yesterday was Palm Sunday, and we watched mass on our church's new YouTube channel. The Gospel reading was very long, so everyone in the frame was standing still for a good while. I was really looking forward to our spring class People in the Park because I haven't done much figure work. It was postponed of course, so your constructive criticism is welcome.
When we help someone there is always something that blooms and grows beyond us. It is an increasingly necessary action in a world that unfortunately is increasingly divided.
@givingtuesdaypt challenged me to illustrate its movement inspired by this year's motto "Together we change the world"!
This day is celebrated on the first tuesday after BlackFriday, calling on anyone to choose a cause that ressonates with them and give back to them however you can. Thus, a wave of massive generosity is created, which can (and should) extend beyond today! Are there any organizations you want to support?
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"Mask Up" by Ty Tatmore (2024) is a powerful and unsettling piece of contemporary social commentary. This work throws the viewer into a scene of post-apocalyptic anxiety where an individual, wearing a striking conical hairdo and a defiant "MASK UP" t-shirt, sits amidst the wreckage of a dilapidated room.
The artist uses dark humor and surreal imagery to explore the cultural tensions surrounding public health mandates and personal responsibility. The sign "CHOOSE WISELY!!" acts as a stark warning, while symbols like the gas mask and the Scream mask and also wearing a mask suggest a spectrum of survival and fear. The massive explosion breaking through the window is a haunting, almost surreal symbol of the unstoppable outside forces impacting daily life.
With its raw, graphic style and intense atmosphere, this painting is a memorable and thought-provoking statement that captures the isolation, uncertainty, and dark irony of living through a moment of global crisis.
M is for Masstransitscope. Masstransitscope is a zooetrope made by Bill Brand in 80s. Now restored and enjoyed on the B line going from Brooklyn to Manhattan. It never fails to make me happy.
Painted as my final project for my Painting Environments course. I was super nervous about tackling this one, but learned a ton taking this course. I'm happy to move on to the next one. :-)
Ironwood Forest
Project parameters:
- Forest full of massive trees
- Implied path
- River rambling through tree roots
- Waterfall
"Robot Manflower." 8x8 ink and watercolor. New discovery: Noodlers 54th Massachusetts Ink (watered down) works incredibly well for painting shadows/value before the watercolor. Watercolor does not disturb that ink! Drawn with a Pilot Custom 743 EF with De Atramentis Document Ink Black.
A whimsical illustration of a large horn-whale creature with fangs, an anchor tattoo on his fin, and a tattoo of how many ships he has sunk on his back, with a whale rider perched on its back, is surrounded by gentle waves. The contrast between the massive creature and the tiny rider suggests a playful narrative. The muted colors and simple lines create a charming and imaginative scene.
Galacons are these giant space robots, and there's two variants. The Solar Galas are much larger and thinner, and sport huge solar sails like frills along their necks and tails, a few even have sails on their long limbs, somewhat like wings. The Solar Galas are surprisingly passive, despite hosting hundreds of concealed turrets (some with EMP missiles), blue/white laser flames from their mouth cannon, and smaller lasers from the lights down their body and limbs. The Solar Galas can hold fleets of cruisers in their chest-like docking bay, and smaller ships down the rest of its body to the hips. Solar Galas are still dangerous though, as their diet consists of metallic asteroids, and small ships can be mistaken as food. Magma Galas (not featured in drawing) are much more bulky, sporting massive drills on either side of the head, as well as drills instead of front claws. They also have much larger and more powerful lower jaws, also used to tear through planets to eat the cores. Though they're much smaller, most have huge tails to store lava/magma, and most can spew superheated laser-like blasts of white magma from their mouths and tails. Magma Galas also have extremely tough armor all down their body, the largest having plates nearly 80 miles thick. They are hyper aggressive until they find a planet to bore into and slowly devour, however if attacked while feeding they won't hesitate to vaporize their enemy.
Still behind but whatever :P
Day 2: mindless. I had an idea for this prompt and will probably still do it, but this is a doodle I just mindlessly did on the front of my sketchbook. No thought to these I just doodle this same snarling, twisted mass when I just randomly doodle.
#viowolf #vioart #vioarts #vioartstudio #vio #art #artist #inktober2019 #inktober #mindless #doodles #sketchbook #ballpointpen #monstermaker #monsters #teeth #horror #macabraart #twisted #instagramstories #Halloween #October #fearcon2019 #fearcon #supporlocalartists #darkart #artistoftwitter #artistoffacebook #artistofinstagram #artistoftumblr
My mind is on Puna so much lately. I love Hawaii...was born there and rediscovered it as an adult. I stay in Puna area when I go, in little houses I rent, or once, housesitting for a friend. This drawing was made one day when Mom and Dad and I went to Pohoiki to sketch. This little cottage and park is in the path of the flow and may already be gone. You can no longer drive there as the roads have been cut off by the lava flow. My heart goes out to all Hawaii residents dealing with this massive lava flow, and the VOG that goes with it.
There might be a few weird reflections in this as I had to take a pic of it on my screen to get a file large enough....I gave the original to a friend who lives near the park.
Only my second time tackling the lusca as a drawing subject… hopefully it checks out!
“The Lusca is a legendary sea monster from Caribbean folklore, primarily said to inhabit the underwater caves and blue holes near Andros Island in the Bahamas. Described as a massive hybrid—often half-shark, half-octopus—or a giant squid/octopus, it is rumored to reach lengths up to 75–200 feet.”
I had a rock tumbler as a child and really enjoyed it. When my youngest was a child we bought her one. She was eager to enjoy it too, but somewhere after starting on that path, we lost track and it everything inside turned into a solid mass. We tossed it and forgot about it. On a recent beach trip, I collected handfuls of rocks, as I am always likely to do, and, upon return, remembered how I loved my childhood rock tumbler. I immediately researched, ordered and eagerly anticipated its delivery. Of course, with Amazon Prime, that was only a couple day’s wait. As soon as I unboxed it I thought “what am I doing?” I have neither time, nor space for yet another hobby. I thought “what will I DO with a pile of polished, pretty rocks?” I would gather them in my hands and feel their silky smoothness. I would likely gather them in some beautiful glass bowl and…then what? I have toddler grand kids frequently at my home. They put small colorful things in their mouths and up their noses and feed them to the dogs regularly. And I don’t even have a single space to display a bog bowl of pretty rocks. So I quickly decided “I’m Returning the Rock Tumbler” and will, for NOW, stick to painting them when the mood strikes.
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943)
After he had started his own company, Tesla arrived at the office at noon. Immediately, his secretary would draw the blinds; Tesla worked best in the dark and would raise the blinds again only in the event of a lightning storm, which he liked to watch flashing above the cityscape from his black mohair sofa.
Tesla ate alone, and phoned in his instructions for the meal in advance. Upon arriving, he was shown to his regular table, where eighteen clean linen napkins would be stacked at his place. As he waited for his meal, he would polish the already gleaming silver and crystal with these squares of linen, gradually amassing a heap of discarded napkins on the table. And when his dishes arrived—served to him not by a waiter but by the maître d’hôtel himself—Tesla would mentally calculate their cubic contents before eating, a strange compulsion he had developed in his childhood and without which he could never enjoy his food.
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Of all things, I liked books best.”
― Nikola Tesla
“One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.”
― Nikola Tesla
#dailyrituals #inktober #NikolaTesla @masoncurrey
