The Empress

Through even the tiniest drop of water she is revealed.

It Comes Through

This thing is big,
I open myself to let it through.
I peel back like a glove,
like a the skin of an orange.
I thought myself dead
in this transformation,
but I am prologue
to the things that come through me.
I am the lantern
and the light comes
and the light comes through me.
I am just the first word.
I am just the match.
I am just a doorway.
I am just a window
and the light comes through.

Realization

This is me coming to a greater understanding of the universe through the fruits of my meditation practice.  Growth is the slow movement of vines over a thicket, the breath of living progress.  The empty cup is filled with understanding.

Patience is one of the hardest lessons for me.  I want understanding now!  I want knowledge now!  However there are roads that can only be walked and experienced. Thus the journey becomes the destination.

Recommended Listening:
Claustrum
Penitential

{Digital Images manipulated in Photoshop}

The Black Goat

This one is an echo of The Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.  Also there feels to be an influence of Pluto here as well.  Not completely sure why this one is called the Black Goat.  I knew that was the title once it was complete, but not completely sure why.  The Piece isn't exactly black or goat.  There is definitely an angelic feeling here.  Perhaps there is a bit of Baphomet in there, but not so much on the Shub Niggurath.

OOP - I may be wrong there...LOL...I just re -read some on Shub and considering what I've gone through the past two months and the heavy influence of Binah (Saturn in Libra - 3 of Swords) in my life recently.  Shub might be spot on.

I also had a strong feeling of Odin and Metatron simultaneously while working on this.  Perhaps black goat is a misnomer on my part.  I may be pulling Shub in because of my current experiences and it may have nothing at all to do with this piece.  There is definitely a mixed bag here regardless.

{Digital Images manipulated in Photoshop}

The Janus Chariot

I think this piece may exist in the same plane as The Great Wall.  I see the wall now though as less of a barrier and more like a boundary marker...like you're now entering the freeway or some such.

I want to say more about this piece, but I feel blocked on it.  It holds its knowledge in place like a weighted net.  Most of my pieces freely give up their thought or idea to description, but this one, apparently, doesn't want to share.  I've tried writing this description about fifteen different times.  I've left and returned, and still no information presents itself.  I can't even seem to remember what I was feeling when I created the piece.

I am going to let it go and let it be.  You guys tell me what you see / feel / experience.  Perhaps that is the answer here.  Let me know what you find.

{Digital Images manipulated in Photoshop}

UPDATE: Kevin's Dream Catcher Completed Tattoo

Here is the finished version of my friend Kevin's Tattoo.  With Kevin's permission, I will post a photo of his arm once it is complete.  At some point (also with Kevin's permission) I need to post what his arm looked like before.  More on that later...

My post with my initial drawing of the Tattoo is here.  As you can see we shifted the whole dream catcher structure over.  The preexisting paw is very close to Kevin's arm pit and as I understand it, that is a very sensitive area for tattooing, so to avoid causing him too much pain, we shifted everything over.  :-)  We also changed the web design a bit to give it more organic, less structured feel.  I added the border around his existing paw to make it look like a large carved piece of turquoise attached to the dream catcher.  The feathers are modeled after the feathers of the Great Horned Owl.

{Drawn in Pencil, Scanned, Color Created in Photoshop}

UPDATE:

Here's Kevin's Tat, fresh from the shoppe! I'll post another once it has healed completely.  :-)

Night in the Forest of the Blue Gates

This one needs a scary new age soundtrack.

I really don't know where this piece came from.  It started as something completely different and turned into this strange dark forest very suddenly.  I'm still not sure what to make of it.  Such a strange vibe.  I know that the period that this came from was very intense and uncomfortable for me.

It feels like underneath.  Some contained underworld place that is difficult to escape.  I definitely don't want to get too close to those columns, they look hungry.

As well as the scary new age soundtrack, I also hear the hum of a dying fluorescent bulb here.  I suspect that light in the Forest of the Blue Gates flickers.  As soundtracks go - perhaps Steve Roach: Dynamic Stillness.

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

Melek Taus

This piece makes me think of  Melek Taus but also a bit of Shiva.  The night I was working on this was just before all the intense tornadoes and storms in Alabama.  I know that Shiva has associations with weather, I'm not sure about Melek Taus.  Some connections here with the Feri Tradition's Blue God.  Also, please see my post on Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. This piece and the one in that post were created from the same source material, but went different directions.  This one has a softer feel and a perhaps is a little more balanced overall.

I struggle with pieces of this nature, because I often want to give the work more detail and make the image I see clearer, but the whole point of this kind of artwork is that it is supposed to be vague on a certain level.  Much digital art is focused on being overly rendered and having every single bit detailed.   This kind of art is meant to imply or evoke the image that the viewer sees. 

When confronted with visual ambiguity, the imagination is forced to fill in the gaps.  Due to that ambiguity, each person that sees the piece gets a different view of it, thus everyone sees their own individual piece of art.  There are of course bits that everyone will acknowledge as an eye or mouth or hair, but the kind of eye or mouth that each person sees subtly changes the overall meaning of the piece.  The vague boundaries between these things opens the piece up to greater interpretations of meaning, expanding the piece beyond being a single image with a single meaning.  Suddenly, out of one piece of art you can get fifty different pieces.  This is no excuse for laziness or poor craftsmanship though.  There ARE images within the piece, but their boundaries have been overlapped and blurred to let greater meaning in.

Part of the joy of this kind of art for me is the discovery.  I will often spend hours developing the image until I uncover its inner core.  With particularly stubborn pieces, I will have to leave and return later to try again.  Sometimes though, it is like breathing: just letting the air in.  The image is already waiting.  I just have to pick up pen, pencil, or mouse and let it happen.

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

Passage of the Dark Daughter

I begin to understand.

I have found my way.

Without words,

Without reason,

I went blindly inside,

Fingertips feeling through the unending night

And found safe passage to the sky.

I found my way.

Not of this world and all its answers,

Not of sight or of numbers or of phones,

But of the ocean inside my veins.

The pressure of my pain and fear

Burst me like ripe fruit

And open,

My glistening seeds fell into me.

I look back at myself in wonder,

I found my way!

There is nothing you can give me

There is nothing I can hold to.

The way is all that matters now.

I thought it lost to time and torture,

But I followed the waters,

Oh blessed patient waters.

I found my way!

I slip beneath my waves

And into my indigo depths.

I undulate like my heart

And feel only the within.

The endless within.

The quiet dark part of me speaks.

{Digital images manipulated with Photoshop}

Update 05-12-12
Recommended Listening:

Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke
The Circulation of Shadows
from Duality

From the Archives: Jenna The Ranger

This set of drawings were created while I worked at 3am Games, Inc.  This character was developed as part of a Dungeons and Dragons style adventuring party.  The party was being developed to be present in any drawings in 3am Games supplements.  If there was a scene involving an adventuring party, it was to be this group.  Jenna was the Ranger of the group. 

These drawings were created to act as character studies to be sent to other artists for reference.  There was also brief mention of using the characters in a comic book setting.  The common adventure party in each book was abandoned, but the drawings were done.  I've always had a soft spot for Jenna the Ranger.  Hope you like her too.

{Pen & Ink}

The Old Blue Man

Once again...a rough year.

{Prismacolour on Blue drawing paper}