Back here on the arts side again with an embed regarding how I plan to approach this project as sort of a tutorial. Surface is a 9x17 crate style gift box, plain wood. Came with packaged cheese, crackers, jams and other such mail-order Christmas fare. Painted Marx Toys space tank missing its dozer blade needed something bigger than my 4x4 inch Fun Size.
Project had gotten stalled at this state with Marx tank descending crater to meet up with out of scale painted Marx astronaut from the same playset. Knew we could do better.
Much better.
Now it's an accident scene from one of those shows where guys in foil suits pull wrecked tractor trailers out of the snow. Only it's a spaceship and we're on Ganymede, where it snows frozen methane. My dad loves the shows and terrorizes anyone present with them daily. Plenty of material to work with here, respectfully. But yeah, this is therapy.
Some nomenclature for the box's etymology. All the way from China! Better their trees, I guess ...
The bottom will get a basic treatment of crackle paste moon terrain then sealed over with enough gel medium to be sealed in safely for display on tables or shelves. Though usually I approach the artworks anticipating it will hang on a wall and it seemed kind of weak to just leave the base plain.
I try to think of the box form as nine small panels intersecting at 90 degree angles. Each one should be its own interesting little painting, and all nine should work together no matter what angle they are seen from. When you first approach artwork in person it is rarely face on, and seldom from the Dutch Angle views I use for standalone pix. So it has to at least look intriguing from all sides, if not damn good for something that small.
My standard 4x4 and 5x7 inch sizes. Seemed kind of lame to have the sides just bare or even painted black, so I started letting the insides creep out. Now as much time goes into crafting the sides & bottom as do the main interior panels.
Goal for the sky on what I call The Forgotten Box with color shifts in a whispy haze of Light Interfere Fluid Acrylics. Then glassed over with multiple coats of Clear Tar Gel dried to a visible depth, with the shimmering Micaceous Iron Oxide Fluid Acrylic optically magnified by the curves in the dried gel layer.
So, working this motif sort of backwards: Usually I paint the box and then choose the found pieces to tell some sort of absurd little story. In this case it's starting with the story and a barely begun box, then crafting both to complement the other. The idea will change and evolve, spawning others. There are plenty of broken spaceships to go around ...
GOTCHA
Camera crew ready for more emotive interviews back at the Space Garage.
Unearthing more finds from the basement artwork storage vaults.
I like how the lighthouse has crackled over time, some of the terrain as well. Needs more ocean - Am fairly certain this one was shown at the same Halloween theme exhibit as Castle Squonkenstein. Or was it The End of the World? "But the cause was lost, now cold winds blow ..."
The song in question from 1972's very British "Foxtrot". Always sends shivers up my spine. One of the best Mellotron solos ever, you feel the bass pedals as much as you hear them, and Steve Hackett's guitar leads the hopeless final charge. Great ending.
Pleased with everything going on with it except the sky. And it needs human figures, somewhere. A nice big shadow from a cloud. Tiny red "Fox on the Rocks" off in the distance. Have the rest of my life to finish it off, so ... Will post what comes of the notion.
Hogweed Thrall Studies
2017 acrylics and pastel on insulation board, 24 x 24 inches.
Studies for upsized versions of the Hogweed Monsters from my larger "battle painting" concept on canvas, which never got enough work into it for the monsters to be anything but half sketched in. Useful at the time but am pretty sure a few hirez pix will suffice and its surface painted over. Nice light sturdy 24x24 foam board, wide enough so it won't warp and tough enough so its surface could be lightly sanded off.
More on the Giant Hogweed series here, in itself an unrealized mural scale project from 2018 inspired by "The Return of the Giant Hogweed". Including the sketch painting seen in the short subject video below with a portion of the song.
2017 acrylics and pastel on insulation board, 24 x 24 inches.
I like the griffins up in the sky. Pretty sure it was in some Halloween show c.2018 (?) but the impetus for the somewhat out of character imagery was for (paid) use as a horror movie video/DVD cover which never came together.
The Genesis angle on this one is that the Witch or Warlock character was partly evoked by the scarifying stick-figure "witch" image the band would project behind them while performing "The Waiting Room" during the "Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" tour. I'd have flipped out if in the audience during that evocation of something dreadful.
Squonk was also a college era nickname, with variations on it drummed up by my man Squidly like Count Squonkula, J. Robert Squonkenheimer, or in this case the Baron Squonkenstein. Very proud of this painting - will do more about the Baron's fictional universe.
One of the for the artwork inspirations including choice of colors, Halloween sound effects party album from 1972 or so. Coach Dodge used to play this for us every year in the gym at Tecumseh Elementary. Good times!
Glad that didn't sell! My approach to the figures almost works there, hanging guy looks great. Likely left as-is once the DVD project was abandoned. One more from today's heap ...
Pandemic Normal
2021, mixed media on canvas 24 x 36 inches.
That was end of the world horror movie, but it was real. Five other works like it from the time, none as yet shown publicly. More on the series soon.
Revived project from 2018, conceived of as material for a show at The Tech Garden in Syracuse with THE END OF THE WORLD as its theme. I did the lost Bimini Road, Lighthouses (at the end of the world there, get it?) and the Mighty Hogweed series. Which were increasingly large and more ambitious attempts to visualize battle between mankind and the Giant Hogweed in "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" by British rock band Genesis from their 1971 album "Nursery Cryme".
First the excitement of re-discovering the works for the first time since maybe 2019.
For reference, here's the entire piece of music in question. Makes good reading music.
"The Return of the Giant Hogweed" by Genesis, 2007 Remaster
Apologies for any forced ads!
Toxic Heracleamantigazziani, the Giant Hogweed. An invasive species introduced to the UK from Russia in the later 19th century and was considered a serious threat to the British ecology once its traits became known. Its spread ran unchecked for several decades until a national eradication scheme was implemented. While resembling benign Queen Anne's Lace its sap is toxic to humans and animals, its thorns sharp enough to cause bleeding, and chokes out all other plantlife in the plots it infests.
Genesis onstage from 1973 with then singer Peter Gabriel in his Flower Man mask he would don at a key moment in the band's majestic 1972 magnum opus "Supper's Ready". He only wore the mask & played that persona during "Supper's Ready", which Pete attributed to British children's show characters Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men.
TURN AND RUN
That is kind of scary, with his stage makeup for other sections of their live act. All I knew when I was fourteen and heard the Hogweed song was that this was the guy who wore the Flower Man mask. And would imagine Gabriel donning the mask for the climactic finish of the song, when the band pulls out all the stops as the Hogweeds vanquish over humanity for having trashed this planet and its ecologies.
"The Return of the Giant Hogweed" Live on PopShop, Belgian Television 1972
Apologies for any forced ads!
Well he didn't wear it, but he does (very carefully) gets rough with his microphone stand there at the end, and it's always a joy to watch Steve Hackett play his guitar parts when the camera operator allows us to. The song was on the nightly setlist of what is known as Black Show, before the costuming when Peter would wear the black ensemble seen in the above performance. As their catalog of songs to play increased and Gabriel's stage personas become more complex the song was dropped.
Well ... Maybe with some work.
So no, Peter Gabriel did not wear his flower mask for "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" but with some artistic license I used the idea of it as a visual motif for this army of walking human size plant monsters. Dangerous too, lethal to humans, with both dandelion thorn sharp hands, the strength of small trees, and spewing a poison that makes that Death Sushi poison Homer Simpson ate seem like a belt of decent Scotch.
Hogweed Thrall Study, acrylics on wood 8 x 24 inches or so. Did a group of them to help design a relatively simple character to replicate for the Flowerman Monster army. The painting was left unfinished before I'd started filling in the details. Am about to try again.
Brainstorm sketch for the composition, fall 2017.
Blue humans at right, green Hogweeds to the left.
Sources of ideas at play were World War One battlefield imagery, paintings by Otto Dix, and pre-20th century battlefield artworks of massive scale. Usually with expansive titles that go on and on, of which mine is a sort of parody. Of particular inspiration was the Gettysburg Cyclorama, a 360 degree work which surrounds the viewer with a human scale depiction of the battle.
Some of my charging humans are based on a reverse of this image.
Final Onslaught Study, fall 2017, acrylics and pastel on wood, 6 x 18 inches. This planning sketch does not yet include the Statue of Liberty form as I had not yet inherited the large canvas with the face on it yet.
The Cyclorama is not just painted either, much of the presentation hinges on the use of cutouts, 3d diorama elements and forced perspective tricks. All of which I have in mind for a larger "human scale" version of this composition, with the painting shown here a working sketch on trying to scale the motif up to larger proportions. The toy piece found object box paintings are a scaled down version of the concept translated to a size I could work on in my Lunar Module during pandemic quarantine.
"Totem Setup" from October 2022, using toy pieces sent by my fellow plastic figure collector and artist/musician Mark Dreez. Using a forced perspective trick to try and make the scene look epic. It can then be printed or projected onto larger surfaces to be traced, then and painted over like a giant coloring book. Solves the rendering precision and unlocks the potential of larger scales. To a degree I never need bother with freehand sketching anymore especially if it's proven a hinderance to creating new work.
Hogweed Studies, January 2018 4x6 inches acrylics on wood.
As to resolving the larger painting it crossed my mind when making the video that I can also use posable action figures generate pix matching poses which prove bothersome, print and make cutouts to collage into place. So this Hogweed project was a key evolution step: The frustration of not being able to realize what I wanted to see drove me to discover new solutions. Finally ready to try putting them into play, and regard this painting as Unfinished Business.
"The Final Onslaught of the Mighty Hogweed, Threatening the Human Race"
(2018) Acrylics and Pastel on Canvas, 66 x 30 Inches
Part of it I'm actually quite pleased with as-is, especially as nicely chosen digital pix. But the work was left "unfinished" once I decided that the precision of rendering for the human forms was beyond what I was capable of at that time. Feeling ready to try again.
The mass of Hogweed creatures shambling out of the weeds & sumac hedges down there by the freeway. Now overrunning the park and its sculpture garden, a teeming horde of Hogweeds stretching back as far as the eye can see, At the end three massive Mighty Hogweed giants lumber, crushing cars and tossing apart the shopping center like Godzilla's.
A ragtag band of humanity gathering to try and stem the onslaught, battling from the remnants of the trashed Statue of Liberty from "The Planet of the Apes". Which was a chance element, the beginning sketches of a Marilyn Monroe portrait the artist whom the canvas was estated from had left undone. So David's Marilyn lives on, and the battle design was adapted to accommodate the face while using the body contours to suggest how the terrain was shaped.
My JDHS classmate Philip Modesti USMC (Retired) on the tank there, shooting incindary rounds at the surprisingly flammable Hogweeds. They come right apart in this spray of green muck that looks like guacamole but is quite toxic.
Carnage. Heavy losses to both sides and the Hogweeds appear to have the upper hand.
Spewing their venom. They can also spit thorns, and up close use their Hogweed hands for melee combat to tear human bodies limb from limb. You stay away from them, see, even though some are smiling.
Humans responding with giant backpack canisters of weed killer. That was intended to be a self portrait image at left in the hazmat suit with the hose. Will finish it.
My best attempt at being gruesome. Will enjoy filling that in.
I'll be at that bench decent weather permitting, while adapting the basement into a new studio any painting instructor would be proud to invite their class to visit. More on the project soon.
Once more for good measure. Very pleased with this edit!
Three minute upload outlining the project including choice of box and other strange tales. Had a great brainstorm session and turned it into content - Post here on what I call my Space Blog with more pix and some of my thought process on the early conception here. Features the same video as above.
Some of the original 1960s toy line that the painted figure is based on, manufactured by Multiple Products Company (MPC) from 1962 to 1984 or so. Had em as a kid, finding some were a priority. My favorite is the Sentry at far right with the Soozaphone held up to his helmet. Would that work in a vacuum?
This figure a copy from the 1990s I painted and he needs a very special housing. Click the image to see more!
Current box paintings being finalized. Found some gallery representation and have a mid July deadline to get a crate of artworks together for an out of town venue. Will show you how it comes together.
And YES! Blogging from Camp Nyland here just outside of Syracuse NY where it is May, it is spring, and we can sit outside without survival gear. Today it's even warm and dry so making the most of it. To the right there are small sculptural forms from an incredible Foundry Workshop at the COMART Facility in 1989 with Roger Mack, Roger Bisbing, I think Clark Stallworth was there too. Just student stuff but I poured bronze for two weeks and it ruled.
On about this one today, begun December 2020 (?) called The Bristol Box, 4x4x3 inches on a plain wood craft box from Amazon. Usually used for potting plants out on the terrace or gluing decorations for a jellybean container. Now finally resolved & ready for hangers.
Inspired by the woodland area home of the Bristol family out there in Fayetteville where we used to visit as kids. Not so much a gated community but a series of modernesque homes set in a ring of woods which had a little drainage pond and creek that always impressed me.
I like letting the painting expand onto the side so the box takes on a kind of objectness. In that sense it's also difficult to display in just a picture or two, so we do blogs.
I presume display on walls so the world should continue onto the underside as well, and I like the trope of a pond or pool spilling over with a little waterway that collects.
Backside left bare for hangars on the top edge. I even sign them now, so this one not quite ready to go just yet.
A new method I stumbled upon when making my skies is to layer a thickness of Clear Tar Gel over the Micaceous Iron Oxide Fluid Acrylic I use for the night sky. Here's a side panel before the CTG treatment.
And after. The glass clear layer acts as a sort of lens and warps the light being bounced off the tiny bits of ground up mica.
The other outer side panel with starfield in plain Micaceous Iron Oxide.
And again after the layering of Clear Tar Gel.
I'd like to go there and just sit for a while.
...
I've come to think of these box artworks as a set of nine tiny paintings which have to both work together and hopefully work on their own as individual gestures. Am proud of this painting, which if memory serves has a 4 x 2.5 inch dimension.
Layering on the Clear Tar Gel, and you can see how it's more or less impossible to get a perfectly flat even coating. It's the little ripples and curves which cause the slight magnifying effect -- Stumbled upon completely by chance!
Ripples and curves in the dried Clear Tar Gel creating a lens effect that varies from patch to patch.
The sky for the main panel here has not yet been treated with the Clear Tar Gel, and you can see how the reflected light off the mica is dazzling the fone's camera.
I love drainage ditches or retention ponds, and want the painting to look like it might be wet or leak on the floor. And suggest a hybrid between painting and ceramics, so that it look like it might have been baked in an oven.
The pool is like 19+ layers of Clear Tar Gel, Glass Bead Gel, Iridescent Fluid Blue and Green, Cobalt Blue Fluid Acrylic, Manganese Blue Hue Fluid Acrylic, more Glass Bead Gel, and more Clear Tar Gel, to create a visibly deep pool that the eye looks into and has a bottom. You could dive into it.
Usually I finish off the artworks with some little figures I painted, maybe a vehicle or space craft they got stuck in the mud etc. I do like how they suggest a sense of scale here, but decided the orange suits did not stand out from the terrain.
Nice shot. That's one that could get re-formatted into a painting via projection, printing, or tracing the outlines. Saved for later reference.
But no. I can't think of why they would be there or what they might be doing. Other than a 420 out in the woods by the pond, and I gotta drive. So ...
Some of the paintings don't get the space bling and I'm proud of that, love how the reflected light dances and shimmers. I'm aware that the format of a box for a painting surface is unconventional, but they served as a metaphor for the cloistered pandemic quarantine under which the method was arrived at.
Someone suggested I apply for a mural project (didn't meet the quals & that's showbiz) and all I could think was "Well, they'd have to get me an enormous box the size of a railway car and some mannequins dressed up in space suits." I've heard of crazier things ...
