all my hEroes are going to ground...

Jean "Moebius" Giraud: 1938-2012

This is the man who both fascinated and inspired me-- more than any other artist --to be myself in everything I drew; to develop my own style and vision.


Most of you won't even know him... that is, until I tell you one of his stories can be found in the early 1980's film Heavy Metal.

I first met Moebius in Heavy Metal Magazine with the adventures of John Difool in "The Incal," and later with his graphic novel, "The Airtight Garage." I have always admired his work; his visionary worlds and concepts. He took the simple stroke of pen and made it beautiful. I wanted to draw like... still want to draw like him. I want his portion; the one God gave him.

A poster he painted for environmental conservation is directly responsible for the main element of a short story wrote eleven years ago; a story that is growing into a full length novel.

He took the ordinary and made it extraordinary by asking, "what if I...?" He paid attention to detail without drawing every detail. He extracted the beauty from the banal, forcing the simple lines to show what world-weary eyes often miss. to recognize And that's all I've been trying to do my entire life. Sometimes I've found my visions to be on the same par if not caliber. But his is the standard to which I've always looked.

There are certainly other artist I admire... Maxfield Parrish for one, Michael Parks, for another. Picasso before cubism (specifically his Rose Period)... but I can't help but love the man who gave sight to many of my own personal visions.

May God grant him peace.

artist watch - Melissa Haslam

Kinda reminiscent of Audrey Kawasaki, and lovely in it's own right. Melissa Haslam has some beautiful moves.Here's a link to her place. Check it out.

This piece is called Honey Hive

artist watch -- Moony Khoa Le

"Birds" by Moony Khoa Le, Moonywolf at Deviantart.com


"Little Voice" Moony

someday soon...

...i'm going to turn this article into a very sensual poem, sans much of the crude imagery.


Mind Of Man: The Types Of Women That Really Turn Us On

ditto, the certain dark things

"Te amo como se aman ciertas cosa oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma."

— Pablo Neruda

the cost of perfection

As an artist you must both recognize the value of the extraordinary talent you possess, and an unsatisfied critical eye...

Picasso is in a park when a woman approaches him and asks him to draw a portrait of her. Picasso agrees and quickly sketches her.

After handing her the sketch she is pleased with the likeness and asks how much she owes him.

"$5,000," he replies.

The woman screams, "but it took you only five minutes."

"No, madam," Picasso replies, "it took me all my life."

* * *

"Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If you look at it to admire it, you are lost"

--Samuel Butler

Armed with these two truths you will both grow and prosper in your gifts.

shE makes me want again to take up my brushes...

Miss Audrey Kawasaki paints on wood... an amazing artist is she.

It's been more than twelve years since I picked up a brush. I went to work one day at a television station, picked up Photoshop, and my brushes have languished like Poe's House of Usher ever since. I picked up a pen in earnest about the same time and began to write poetry... few stories, because they require the patience of a saint and the determined insanity of a free climber. I have patience in spades but not the gritty determination. The desire is there. It hasn't left. Nor will it. My gift's muscles will wither and atrophy, but exercise will bring them back to life. Yet in order to pick those brushes up again, I've got to have something to say. I'm not even sketching anymore, so whatever voice I have it has been as celibate as I have, lo, these many years.

But miss Kawasaki makes me want again to take up my brushes, and in both wide and fine swathes give my dreams a measure of corporeal presence they've not enjoyed in a long while. Few artists inspire me, which is why I even bother mentioning miss Kawasaki...

My Brush, Dreams' Clarion

Lips a' blush
at the tip of a brush
rose madder and silky pearl
on wooden dreams unfurl
our lips brush
while intimacies blush
hands steady
colors wide, heady and thin
in
swathes, corporeally
stand and demand
~ yearning attention
dreams' intention all along

ELAshley
033110.034926.6

Sorry, didn't mean to wax lyrical. It happens.

I look at miss Kawasaki's work and I am amazed-- I wish for talent like hers --but I must remember that she lives with her talent every moment of her life. As do I. What I see as mundane (seeing it every moment of my life) others look and say "I am amazed!". As am I, at times, when I step back and look at what I've created. Did I really do that? I ask. What force directed my hand?. The easy answer is God.But truthfully, He gave me and miss Kawasaki extraordinary gifts, but we can choose to use them or bury them someplace dark where languishment and atrophy smother dreams. Sometimes our hands are directed. Sometimes not. Having a gift is no guarantee that all we do will stand apart. Standing apart is a struggle, ask people like Dennis B. He succeeds, but success is by no means assured. We must work for it.

It's time to go out into the back yard tonight and in the dark dig up my brushes and wanton inspirations and nurse them back to health.