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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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
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
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.
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.
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.
"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.
My half of the art trade with OptimisticJerk (https://www.deviantart.com/optimisticjerk). The trade was to draw a monster as made up by your counterpart without seeing a reference image, based only on the description. Here is her half (which is awesome): www.deviantart.com/optimisticj…
For mine, I had to draw a monster called a "niter" based off of his description:
"Niters communicate in whispers. Nocturnal. Shy away from light. They’re black and oily and emanate a bluish glow. Large, looming 6 foot shadow things with massive hind legs, clawed for climbing trees and they have ‘maws’ instead of arms, claw-like appendages they stab people with and only one gaping blue eye. Their mouths open up and they swallow their victims whole."
What's funny is that I didn't see the fact that they emanate a bluish glow until now. So, the glow from the eye is purely by coincidence. Figuring out the hind legs of this creature was difficult, and so I sought reference images, and of all things, the koala turned out to be a pretty good reference.
For a while, there, it was looking like Carnage from Spiderman, but I toned down the reddish-hue a bit. The intention was to give the appearance of motor oil.
So, now to find out how badly I failed at drawing this...
This art trade was fun, though, and I would do a similar one, again. But I am le tired.
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.”
