Wednesday, June 2, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 266

Title: As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.

10.75 inches by 7.75 inches
ink and marker on found paper
June 2, 2010

15 comments:

  1. all your work is fantastice. i have been following for about a week now. congrats on being so talented, and thank you for sharing with us. i'd buy them all if i could.

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  2. This reminds me of the Stephen King novella "The Langoliers" in which creatures that I always pictured looking like this eat the past. Can't wait to see this one in person.

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  3. Thank you Elias, those are very kind words. But it means a lot to me to be able to share this project, and I really appreciate all the visits. I don't know what will happen to all of these pieces when I am done with all 552 but if I do decide to sell them I will post something about that right here.

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  4. Sean, finally, a reference I am not familiar with! Most of the time, when someone comments that one of my pieces called to mind something else for them they are absolutely right. Which sometimes makes me worry that I wear my references too obviously and maybe my work is too derivative. In this case though, I have never read or seen "The Langoliers," so this must have come from somewhere else. Honestly, when thinking about this piece, the cover to the Genesis album "Nursery Cryme" is what came to mind, so that was probably the most direct influence in a strange way.

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  5. Rudy, that is very good to read. This was supposed to take me around an hour to complete. And then I started drawing the brit. Brit are shrimp-like creatures that many whales eat, and in parts of the ocean there is so much brit that Melville describes it as looking like a field of golden wheat. The brit alone took almost 90 minutes. Ugh. I really have to learn to pace myself better.

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  6. I've never seen the (mini-series?) visual production of the Langoliers--I was afraid it wouldn't live up to my imagination--and the story isn't great, but it has stayed with me the 20 years since I wrote it.

    I like the Genesis inspiration though.

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  7. Sorry for the typo. I obviously didn't write The Langoliers. That should say "since I read it."

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  8. Very cool, the sun reminds me of what you see behind the head of Jesus or Mary in Byzantine art

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  9. Sean, I was wondering about that. I knew you were a very talented writer, but I didn't know you had been that prolific yet!

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  10. Thank you Michael5000. After drawing about a million pieces of brit, I'll take every compliment I can get!

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  11. Scott, I have long been fascinated with religious art, especially Catholic and Byzantine art so I am absolutely certain that kind of solar / halo imagery was a subconscious influence on this piece. Very good eye!

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  12. Thank you Patrick. It's kind of amazed me how many people have really responded to this piece in particular. I really like it too, but sometimes the pieces I like the most are not necessarily the ones that seem to draw the most comments and praise. In this case, happily, everything came together.

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