IF: History

   This week's Illustration Friday topic is History, and it took me a while to decide that this image fit the description. Weaving has a long history as a metaphor for the fabric of life and culture. And often, the stories of history are told with patterns of thread that miraculously combine to illustrate them. This weaving has a history too, because it once had little figures within it. But they took the spotlight off the weaving itself, so I painted them out. On the way to repairing the surface, I liked this in-between stage in which the figures are gone, but evidence of their presence remains. Kind of like how many people remain with me long after they are gone from my daily life. The title of this one is Tapestry.

IF: Dream

  Dreams have always been a source of inspiration and pleasure for me. I've kept dream journals for much of my life, and many of my images are directly derived from them, When my son was just beginning to talk, I would ask him about his dreams when we woke up every morning. For a long time, he didn't have an answer. But one day, he offered up that he had dreamed about his toy trains, which were a big hit in our house at the time. I'm glad for this opportunity to relive this lovely memory with my contribution to Illustration Friday's topic of the week, Dream. The title of this one is Dreamer in Training.
     I am also glad for the chance to show it again, because I recently corrected a minor mistake in perspective in this piece. It was a small error, but it has always bothered me. So here it is in its new and improved form.
  

IF: Folklore

I know I already posted to IF this week, but I just spent the day moving my son into his new apartment and for some reason, I started thinking about this image that he and I created together when he was about 7 (he is 21 now!) for an Artist's Trading Card. We discovered that a Japanese Folklore creature called a kappa (a nasty kind of dude who can do awful things to you, but is unfailingly polite, which is it's undoing) had some things in common with a Yu-Gi-Oh character he was interested in at the time that had special properties of light. So, in honor of our one and only joint artistic venture, I am posting twice for IF's topic of Folklore.

Illustration Friday: Street

This week's Illustration Friday topic is Street.The background of this painting, titled Annunciation, was inspired by a painting with a street by Remedios Varo.

Illustration Friday: Politician

    Today's prompt for Illustration Friday is "Politician", so it is my pleasure to pull these guys out again. In Japanese folklore, oni are like our ogres. One story I read about them was that a young woman had been kidnapped (or sold into marriage; either way it's about the same thing) and her mother came to rescue her. They got away and ran, but the oni followed them to a river and wouldn't let them pass. So, both the women lifted their skirts and scared the oni away! I'm not kidding!

    Anyway, these guys fit how I see many of our politicians today; mean and ugly on the outside and selfish and cowardly on the inside.

IF: Mysterious

    This week's topic for Illustration Friday is Mysterious. This is a little portrait I painted quite a bit ago, but I think she fits the topic. Perhaps she is as mystified by herself as she appears to others.

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IF: War

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is War. While I have no images of war, I do have this one, an image of someone who is a warrior of sorts. It is a portrait based on the Guerrilla Girl, Julia Child. The Guerrilla Girls are artists and activists who fight for equality for women artists. You can read more about them here: https://www.guerrillagirls.com/#open

The title of the drawing is The Fitting Room, from 2009. Wow! 10 years ago!

Ice Mountain

   Today's prompt for Illustration Friday is 'Mountain', so I thought I'd dust this one off and submit it for my contribution.

    This goes all the way back to my days as a beginning grad student. I was trying to use ancient Hindu goddesses to convey contemporary messages. 

   At the time, the Nestle Company had just plopped a factory down in a beautiful rural area near my home (razing a lovely stone house to make room for it). My area is gifted with clear sweet drinking water, which Nestle proceeded to pump out of the ground free of charge, bottle it in plastic and charge $1.25 a bottle as Ice Mountain water. It has been a hotly contested issue in my area, but so far, Nestle continues to profit while our water table suffers. This painting was mean to comment on that issue. Talk about beating the issue with a stick, right?

     Although this is not my favorite painting, I do like the little demon under her foot. One of these days, I might cut him out and fix him up (without the foot) so the painting can be about just him, instead.

Lt. Col.

Forgotten

I hate to bum anyone out on such a nice spring day, but the IF topic this week is "Forgotten", so this is what I have for it: When my dad died, my mother was completely lost. At the same time, I was reading many stories in which a person's name was a source of their power. It seemed to me that my mother had forgotten herself so much in her grief that she couldn't even remember her own true name, and so had lost her power and her identity. She doesn't physically look like this, but it was how I saw her mental state.

The Annunciation

Since Island can mean isolation, I am posting this painting for Illustration Friday's prompt. The girl in this picture is alone in her own world, but the nature spirits in the back are about to lead her out of that sheltered existence. The nature spirits were inspired by Charles DeLint's Crow Girls.