various projects

Dear Reader
Billy Collins
Baudelaire considers you his brother,
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs
as if to make sure you have not closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing
in the doorway of these words.
Pope welcomes you into the glow of his study,
takes down a leather-bound Ovid to [...]

Time WIP3

What’s in the top left corner?

Time WIP2

Time WIP1

—
The Long Boat
Stanley Kunitz
When his boat snapped loose
from its mooring, under
the screaking of the gulls,
he tried at first to wave
to his dear ones on shore,
but in the rolling fog
they had already lost their faces.
Too tired even to choose
between jumping and calling,
somehow he felt absolved and free
of his burdens, those mottoes
stamped on his name-tag:
conscience, ambition, and [...]

Sitting WIP2

After 5 hours.

Sitting WIP1

After 2 hours of work.. I am becoming more efficient. mixing colors is always boom or bust, though. I need to sit down and just mix, for many hours, to get used to the color combinations.
I need a title for this one, also.

incompleteness? (a Gondal poem.)

Alone I sat
Emily Jane Brontë
Alone I sat; the summer day
Had died in smiling light away;
I saw it die, I watched it fade
From misty hill and breezeless glade;
And thoughts in my soul were gushing,
And my heart bowed beneath their power;
And tears within my eyes were rushing
Because I could not speak the feeling,
The solemn joy around me [...]

Thick As Thieves WIP3

Drastic changes have been made.

Details (messy brushwork):

Only a little left to do. From the photograph at the top, it looks basically finished.
As a portrait, I really like it. But as a piece, I think I have to call this one a failure. I couldn’t follow through with my original concept and idea. (Too hard.)

Thick As Thieves WIP2

Progress. I cannot do two figures (the second is not even close to being finished). I cannot draw hands. A lot of frustration. That sums up my feelings.
So I stuck it into Photoshop and this is more like what I want it to be:

Thick As Thieves WIP1

The best picture I could get, in the late afternoon. This is only a section (the only complete section). My camera flash made some very shiny spots.
The shirt will not be orange for very long. I will probably end up lightening the background. I don’t want the figures to pop out that much.