EBSQ 'Anatomy' show

I have a favor to ask of all my readers. I have entered three pieces into the January themed art show "Anatomy" at EBSQ. The site is a membership organization for self-representing artists and a general community for artists everywhere. They hold monthly contests, provide helpful tools and resources for artists, and also showcase amazing artwork from artists all around the world for the benefit of collectors and art-lovers.

This is the URL directly to the show - EBSQ - Anatomy Art Show



Now, here's the favor. The winners of these shows are determined partially by outside voting. Could you please go to the show site and vote for me? My three pieces are on pages 6 and 9. You only get one vote. They are all drawings on paper. I would appreciate any support you can offer. Thanks so much!

If you're interested, here's another link; this time to my personal portfolio on EBSQ. You can check out my gallery and view more info about me.

LeftoverJoe Artist Profile

New painting auction links

Here are the links to my current eBay auctions for the new paintings...

Sunday Afternoon in Dreamland

Demon On Velvet

See earlier posts for images of these two paintings. These auctions end Tuesday the 31st around 9 PM EST.

Within the next day or two I will post images of my next painting. I've already laid the background and the first layer of clear varnish. There's probably going to be another layer or two of paint and more varnish yet. It's going to be another abstract, but a little less busy than my previous stuff. I hope it turns out ok because it looks great in my head, but getting it onto the canvas might be a different story.

New bizarre landscape paintings

The great muse has struck once again. In my dreams I stroll through golden fields of gently shifting wheat and glide over massive shimmering lands of snow and ice. My mind has once again let me be creative and feel inspired. It's such an amazing feeling to want to paint and create again after so many years of being trapped behind a wall of medication.

Speaking of dreams, in one of my latest dream escapes, I was falling down a steep snowy cliff, hundreds of meters down and then I fell through the snow on the ground when I hit. I plunged through layers and layers of snow and I ended up in a wintery city, far below the surface. This was a majestic city decorated in silvers, blue, greys and white. It felt like such a friendly place and I wasn't even cold or uncomfortable.

The weird part of this dream was that I went into this small chapel and I spoke with some of the people there. The mayor of this subterranean city was a nice, jovial man, dressed in grey robes and wearing a crown of glittering silver. The place seemed so wonderful to me that I asked him if I could come back. There was so much to explore that I knew I'd like to come back. So he promised me that I could go back later in my dreams, once a week if I wanted. I've never been able to bargain in my dreams, about future dreams, with a character that I knew I was dreaming about.

Bizarro.

Anyway, I want to show you the new paintings. This is a triptych of weird landscapes with massive hands reaching up out of the autumn earth. Stylized trees and clouds dot the landscape in contrast to the stark forms of the hands. I've dreamt about stuff like this before, these monolithic shapes out in the middle of nowhere. Each canvas is 11"x14" and the total size when hung together is 33"x14".



I am going to list this landscape triptych and Demon On Velvet tonight on eBay. I'll post direct links to the auctions tomorrow probably. Cheers everybody!

Bipolar treatment update 1-24

I had an appt. with my doc again last night. We talked briefly about the lack of current side-effects and how the Lamictal had settled in and my sleep patterns were even getting back to normal. I'm on the 100 mg dose at this point and that's where we decided to stay. Before now I had been using the free five week starter pack.

So she gave me the scrip for a months worth of 100mg Lamictal and I was on my way. This time the waiting room crowd was pretty normal. At least normal compared to what I've seen in the hospitals I've been in. I guess we look like most everyone else, just the brain is messed up.

The interesting thing about my recent mental situation is that I haven't been suspicious of my improvement. Normally I'm so used to the ups and downs and not being able to sustain any success. But these last few weeks I've been feeling pretty good and I haven't questioned it or felt like it was only a matter of time before it blew up in my face. This is a welcome change and I hope it stays like that.

On another note, I am getting excited about finishing my degree. When you're bipolar and you suck at making decisions and sticking with something until it's done, finishing school can be an insurmountable task. Lately though I've taken steps to complete enrollment in a new school and I am estimating a November 2007 completion date. Well, that's enough for now, cheers.

New Auctions for Old Paintings

When I say old, I mean old to me. These are three paintings that I did between 8 and 12 years ago. I'm putting them up on eBay along with my newer paintings that I've already blogged about this week. I believe it's important to revisit older work and take out certain pieces to share with the world. That is, if the world gives a shit. Hopefully someone out there will be inspired by these paintings. If not, then at least I've enjoyed looking at them again and feeling their timeless textures and seeing the details up close a second time.



They aren't really all the same size as this little preview image indicates. Actually the one on the left is a 16"x20" oil, the one in the middle is a 20"x24" acrylic and the one on the right is a 24"x30" acrylic. The earliest work is the one on the left called 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.' I know, I know, it's a James Joyce novel, but that's a novel and this is my painting, and it perfectly describes it for me.

Here are the links to the eBay auctions. They are ending Sunday the 22nd in the evening...

'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'

'Ghost More Than Man'

'Warrior of the Underdark'

So yeah, like I said, I figured I would intersperse some of my older works in with what I am doing now. There still seems to be an audience out there for the type of work I used to do back then. It's good to know that style is appreciated. I sold a few of my paintings already from that time period and they were all well received. If you're interested in any of the current paintings just go to eBay and bid or e-mail me and we can discuss all the ways that you can make me rich by collecting all my available paintings at once. :)

Demon On Velvet

I'm posting this painting even though I'm not sure it's quite done yet. It's called 'Demon On Velvet' because it literally is done on blue velvet, stretched over 1/4" plywood. I stapled it onto a piece of 24"x24" ply and then just started painting this image that I had in mind from a long time ago.

I am considering adding a Francis Bacon style space frame around the head, almost as if to suggest it was inside a glass box. At this point I am still debating that idea. Because it's velvet, as soon as you make a stroke on the surface, it's there for good. There's no blending over really or gessoing it and starting from scratch. I really like it so far, so I don't want to bollocks it up.



The whole thing is sort of an homage to Bacon...I really didn't plan it that way though. The more I sat back and looked at it it revealed itself like that. I also did some work on another series of paintings I just started yesterday. They are smaller, and there's three canvases that are meant to be hung together. I've never tried that setup so it should be interesting to see how they all turn out. It's just an adjustment making sure you've got enough color mixed to cover all three surfaces so you don't run out and have to re-mix just the right tint to finish.

New eBay Art Auctions

Hello faithful friends and occassional passersby. I have listed three more paintings at eBay. Here's a quick little thumbnail sketch of the three paintings together. They're not really meant to be together like a triptych, but they do in fact look pretty good this way. If I were to hang them together though, I would put the larger abstract in the middle.



Here are the links to the current auctions. Please check them out and if you feel inspired, please bid. When people buy my work it makes me feel great. It just blows my mind sometimes when people shell out their hard-earned cash for my artwork. Anyway, please consider supporting self-representing artists, whether it's me, ;), or any artist you like.

'Apocalypse on Planet 27'

'Rabbit Hole Redux'

'Abstract 01'

New Outsider, Contemporary, Bizarre Paintings

So you know those two tree paintings I posted last week? Well, I completely changed them and made them more interesting. Neither of them sold on eBay so I said, "just, dang" and then I decided to paint over them. I also touched up an older abstract painting that I hadn't worked in about 6 months.

I will be listing all three of these paintings on eBay over the weekend. But for now, here are some larger images of the 'new' stuff. They are mainly bizarre, outsider art type stuff. I really love Juxtapoz magazine and the artists in there inspire me considerably. Not that my paintings are up to that caliber yet, but I like to think they could be favorable grouped into that sort of category of art at least.

'Apocalypse on Planet 27'





'Rabbit Hole Redux'





'Abstract 1'





I've been on a little bit of a roll with painting recently. It seems like I've been able to tap into the old muse that forced me to paint and disturbing imagery to the inclusion of almost all else. I did sell quite a bit of that kind of work, so it definitely has an audience. I'll keep up to date with any new paintings and post links when the auctions go live.

Bipolar treatment update 1-10

I had my follow-up appt. with the psych yesterday. It went well and I was there for around fifteen minutes or so. In the waiting room I was sitting there, twiddling my thumbs, when this girl walks in, and with her, this tremendous rush of cigarette-smoke-laden-air. Even a man with a sinus infection could've smelled the smoldering remnants of her smokes. I can't even imagine what it's like inside her car. Holy crap was that nasty. Fortunately I only had to wait there for a couple of minutes with her in the room before I was called for my appt.

So the doctor and I talked about the mild side-effects of the Lamictal. The sleep disturbances were the number one topic. She said she could give me something to help me with that, but I would rather just ride it out and hope that it evens itself out. Actually last night was the first night in almost three weeks that I didn't have too much trouble getting to sleep. This morning I felt kind of tired too, despite my 7 hours of sleep. Lately I would feel high as a kite if I woke up from that long of a rest.

We also decided to meet again in two weeks to talk about a formal prescription. This is my second week on 50mg of Lamictal. Next week I will ramp up to 100mg per day. She said that the average person needs somewhere between 100 and 200 mg a day. So we might need to increase my dosage somewhat after this initial period of steady increments. My system should be ready for an upgrade without too much trouble. But who can say for sure.

Some days my emotions are on a yo-yo string, but mostly I've been pretty stable and I feel fairly steady. Once my sleep evens out I should be feeling alright I think. I just realized that I should probably apologize for the dry, remote style of my writing lately. Maybe it's because of the nature of these posts, or maybe it's because I am trying to remove my emotions on this topic and just view it as a science project. I don't know. All I know is that this isn't very exciting reading, unless maybe you've been through this process yourself or know someone with these problems. Anyway, I am going to make an effort to be more interesting and try to write more colorfully.

Thank you and good day.

New Paintings for Sale

I have two new paintings that I just completed this week for sale on eBay. I am kind of on this new theme of somber tones and single trees. For whatever reason these paintings are appealing to me right now. So, if you're interested in this type of contemporary landscape painting, check out my auctions:

I Solitude

and

I Darkness

Here are previews of each of the new paintings:



The titles are more in keeping with my recent mental state. I've found this strange dichotomy recently where I have energy to paint and be creative, I stay up until 1 or 2 a.m. each morning and I am full of ideas and interesting thoughts. Yet on the other hand I am massively depressed, very muddled in my concentration and I am thinking thoughts of despair and hopelessness.

Normally these symptoms don't come together and have a drink at the pub in my head. They are each other's nemesis, and as such, don't mix much. Accept when it's time to transition from one mode to the other, then they will begrudgingly accept each other, but only briefly. I don't know what's going on or how to really explain it beyond that.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the paintings and will consider bidding on them if you fancy them. Thanks!