Black Heart

Made for a freshly created Twitter Account, we'll see if I'll use it. I once thought that a black heart would be cool on a flag, somehow. It's a simple symbol, and I loved the ambivalence, blue skies and here one is hanging, dark and moody...

I've often wondered how to find a balance between the salt and sugar of life in my art. Perhaps I shouldn't. Too complicated. Why not just let them hang there, side by side? It'll look impossible, but it'll look like Life.

PS. They don't let me add a Dislocation, so here you'll have a hearty, manual one.

Turning Flies Into Angels

Here we learn that if you have right card, you can turn angels into fl... no, the other way round.
(For a book.)

Detail.

Granada, Analogue Dream

This little piece doesn't have very much to do with Granada, Spain. It's the name of a bittersweet romance by Isaac Albéniz. It was stuck in my head while I painted this and I'm sure that it must have affected the outcome, with longing hands and dandelions (both are weeds) stretching for the unreachable.

Perhaps the silly (if not tragic) situation called Dating also was on my mind; far from impossible: One side to be constantly rejected and to get desperate and insane; the other side to deal, like Penelope, with this horde of suitors gone mad. And no Ulysses in sight.

The weather has been beautiful; Swedish summer before it gets too hot. And the urge to sit in front of a laptop has been absolutely nil. So here's my first draft for the little rant above (with the same pen) omissions and mistakes now replaced with other errors and lapsi calami. Voilà.

Extra Naïve Landscape with a Sailing Cup of...

...Coffee? Tea? Chocolate perhaps. Childish enough. Your choice for this simple pencil sketch (w. modest Photoshop embellishments).

My own thoughts were far from the ones of a 12 year old. But we'll save them for some other day. Look! Stars! Wonder what's up there.

Something with Fish In It

I really don't have any explanation for this ink-with-aqua. You're free to add your own.

The hall does have some fishy beings in it.

...and some really small details; the original is in the size of A4 (roughly letter size) and was made while I was waiting for other paint to dry.

Requiem for an Oak Tree

My parents had to pull it down, eventually. It saddened me a lot, of course; I grew up in its protective shadow, it had "always" been there (that the rings said "one generation" rather than "a millennium" didn't quite matter). Said protective shadow became threatening over the years, as heavy branches loomed over the house and if it would fall, it would clearly be in the direction of the house. So it had to go... Poor tree.

After some photos (you may see parts of the actual trunks to the left and the right) it was time for the gruelsome sketch.

The blood vessels and flow are of course branches and stem tweaked into red. A hollow oak nearby (ours wasn't hollow) made the fleshy cavity of the figurine. Her hair is made out of a very unruly willow tree that has never seen pruning or combing. You can't see it here, but it had magpies nesting in it. Life goes on.

Moods of a Coffee Cup

For a little music video that's in the making. The song in it is about coffee, and not about coffee -- it's loosely based on this wonderful ditty that Mississippi John Hurt is known for. So here goes... First, a happy cup:

I think that it looks a little smug?

A smug mug...

And here it looks definitely off. So it goes when you don't get your lovin' spoonful:

Poor little cup. When life is cold we want a strong one that's steaming hot:

Yoga for Introverts

It started out like this: A yoga guru demonstrated her skills somewhere on Instagram (where I am not exhibiting anything yet). She just turned up, quite randomly: Bend up, bend down, bend in, bend out, bend the bend and so on, and I made rough sketches of this meta bending on the top of each other. Tweaking back and fro, it all boiled into this...

All those twists and turns probably have cute names, Yoga positions usually have. Extended Puppy Pose, Half Lord of the Fishes Pose ("energizes the spine and stimulates the digestive fire") or "One-Legged King Pigeon Pose" (aka the Eka Pada Rajakapotasana -- now say that seven times in a row, quickly). But I don't know which ones these are.

Perhaps it was all those Indian names that made the patching together of our yogi (is that the right expression?) so colourful -- think of the Holi festival? Gods and goddesses with many arms, heads and so also come to my mind.

Announcing the Spring

Announcing the new season (or the wish for it, our spring is yet somewhat Arctic so far) with a few snowdrops...

A little warmer, a little sweeter, perhaps a little freer?

I've kept my usual heavy black outlines down. It gives a more "paintery" look, don't you think? But it takes more time...

Eyeflower

As I've decided to go with quantity instead of quality... no, the other way round! ...this flower (and the publishing of it) has taken more time than I thought. 4 o' clock one morning it told me that it wanted Heavy Water, and petals, because
"It would look much better on me, don't you think? I crave petals! Wake up!"
And some people think that the life of an artist is easy.

The next morning that spoiled plant wanted -- well, not a drop of blood; it was into sex, not violence, and now the slutty thing wanted pollination. So I had to create something -- I couldn't resist constructing a full scale Something that you only glimpse in the result. Behold; a Leggy Pollinator.

Most likely, these insectoids are spoiled things with endless flowers to choose from; they might even complain about how the flowers nag and put on; (perhaps they even get desperate and send them stamen pictures! How indecent!) *Sigh!* -- they're so many! (Now, being insects, they don't realise that it's this pestersome plenty that allows them to be choosers in the first place.) But hereby I leave my studies of extraterrestrial botany and return to sweet Mother Earth, where dating is conducted in fair manners without playing dirty.

Thorns

Made quite ad hoc without any plan, using this old photo that I found. I take pictures of, well, almost everything with an interesting form or twist. And when I forget when or why (I soon do) they become really useful.

Let's go closer and say Hello to whatever-she-is. Voilà :)

I Need More Time (Now Publishing Semiweekly)

As the title says, we'll now publish every other week (not always on the same day!). Yours sinc. will try to publish something good a few times a month than something often half-baked weekly. Besides, Paintstakingly has been on for quite some time now. This January 2018 there is already more than 300 posts waiting to be discovered and re-discovered. So that just must do.

And here we go, a watch with odd bits and ends, just as Surrealism dictates.

Cosmic Meow

Meooow! I did this three-eyed little furry for a friend who kept such a good guard on one of my exhibitions (the one in a hotel lobby this fall) with all of her eyes.

On the assumption that cats will still be cats, even if they're from outer space (actually, it would explain a lot if cats were from outer space) I made a little box town for them. And in a box you feel safe and cosy and hidden, even if your wary ears can be seen. That's cat logic for you.

It's not very easy, but here I've tried to capture how the gold gleams in the original (my usual Ink'n'Aqua on paper). I used some gold colour for the eyes, claws etc. and some sort of collar trinket that just entered my imagination when I sketched that part -- I wonder what the symbol stands for. Perhaps you have to be a space cat if you're to know.

I've done a wee little reading on cats with three eyes. Those kitties are obviously Tantric symbols of some kind, representing the stage just between dreaming and gaining consciousness; perhaps they purrrr some message from the Otherworld. -- I'll blame those realms for my idea, then. Meeeeow! :-)

Trying to Reach You, finished

I thought I had written a word about this, but obviously not. So the blog runs a little late. Anyway, here it is:

A detail. I'm still seeking collaboration with a happy printer.

Another one.

Happy Sunday, or whenever this reaches you.

Never Throw Old Sketches

...old notes or even doodles, if they're good. The few tones that you played might be the beginning of a symphony, that odd little squiggle of a text is your bestseller in being, that causal meeting might be the beginning a great friendship... And I didn't throw this little thumbnail away, a one or two minute sketch, which I am working on now.

Where I am right now:

From this scrap of paper:

I've taken special care of the keys of Whatever-it-is. That's why I haven't got any further until it's time to call it a day, but as the Tao De Jing says:

Be as careful in the end as in the beginning, for a journey of a 1000 miles begins with one step.

Now, I don't live as I learn.

I've scrapped works before, promised the gentle reader that I'll finish next week etc. etc. and these things don't always happen. (Sorry!) Most sketches don't turn into masterworks (I'm happy if my sketches turn into works at all -- and that's better) and some don't turn into anything. You might get stuck, run out of time or energy, betray the work for another, whatever. Still...

...Never Throw Old Sketches.

Delayed by November

This little piece was delayed by the November Melancholia suffered by Yours Sinc., but here goes:

This ink drawing was scanned in a few different modes.
First I made a dark rendering for the tree, etc. so that you may see the grain of the paper, adding some nice texture.
Next I made a light one for the birds, adding some light and contrast -- and, I would say, balance.
Finally I made the scan that you see the most of, just a few notches darker than the actual original.
All this was followed by some electronic scissorwork (Photoshop).

In the end, some colours were added -- sparingly. We don't have much energy. It's November, right?

A little Experiment with Body Paint

A little eye painted with some body colours that were on Post-Halloween Sale (obviously there's such a thing). Other experiments were also done with the help of some good company -- I decided not to show them on this blog...

Illumination with Odd Orchestration

The little drawing that was made to run around notes at my exhibition (q.v.) has been recycled as an illuminated border. Now it's intended for my not-soon-to-be-done-manuscript. So I had fun colouring it, putting some smeared collage on it (from sources you'd never guess) and expanding on it. As I went from about postcard to letter size, I didn't want to simply resize the old drawing,* so I had to fill in with something. I added some kind of clarinet joint...

...and some kind of greenery and... I really don't know. Do you?

---

*Upon second thought, I could've done that too -- putting details in the enlarged structures. But it would probably feel like "More of The Same". I believe paintings may be guided by some kind of necessity. As for the rest of Life, I'm still of two minds.
And is Art mirroring Life?
And should it?
Etc., etc.

Going Bananas

A little illustration for The Book that I'll Finish Someday. That page is vaugely about bananas (perhaps you don't want to know...) so we divide it in two with the fruit. -- According to my sister, bananas are not fruit -- they're technically berries. Berries schmerries! As long as the bananas know themselves, and are yellow and tasty, everything is fine. No need to go bananas.