Read Books Draw Pictures

  My favorite original mythology about the nature of the universe from Barker. The Great and Secret Show was imaginative and believable, combining life, death, dreams, and the origin of creativity. It also touches on the familiar religious stories of saviors and resurrections. There was Lovecraftian homage; Barker’s myth wasbinspired by Cosmicism or the idea that our reality is a cover for a more abstract, bendable reality that would drive mundane humans insane. The two characters that launched the plot, Jaff and Fletcher, especially Jaff, resembled those types in Lovecraft stories that mess with things beyond their comprehension and get out of their depth. Besides all the human evil that went on, there were also creatures, known as the Iad, comparable to the Lovecraftian monsters from other dimensions and of enormous size and horrifying appearance. Barker's Cosm/Metacosm isn't limited to the fear of the unknown; there was also the beauty of the undiscovered and the mystery of...

Okay, this is a strange one. It's a small part of an image of an octopus, if you can't tell. Watercolor pencils on watercolor paper.  I used complementary colors to make the black and the shadow.

  "There is no greater misfortune in the world than the loss of reason." ― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita This novel was a pleasant surprise. I read it as part of my exploration of magical realism, and it ended up being my favorite of the books I tried. Among my favorite elements are the crazy slapstick and surreal scenes involving Woland (the devil) and his entourage, who came to Moscow to torment the Soviet literary elite of the time (1930s). The supernatural band makes fools of the citizens of Moscow who attend his theatrical show, greedy for money and material possessions. I’m not deeply familiar with Russian history (though I do remember the basics) so some themes and allusions, as well as the people Bulgakov was satirizing, were probably lost on me, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying the ride. Oddly, the title characters don’t come into the book until the second half. The lovers Master and Margarita are separated by the Master’s struggle with his novel, whi...

  This beauty was drawn on Strathmore grey-toned mixed media paper, using colored pencils, watercolor, and watercolor pencils. She was originally intended as a thumbnail image for a podcast my husband and I did about the old television show, Friday the 13th . The podcast never really got off the ground, but it was fun to work on the art.

Short book, long review Short and sweet novel that follows the story of the title character, a charismatic teacher at an all girls school in Edinburgh in the 1930s, along with her six pet students, known as the Brodie set. The writer gets immediately down to business with the story and lays out the major plot point of Miss Brodie’s betrayal at the beginning. The timespan starts from when the girls meet Miss Brodie and extends to adulthood and extends long after they have all gone their separate ways. Miss Brodie is the glamorous central focus. I’m struck by how narcissistic she is, but it is easy to see why she would be attractive to her students. When she first meets her six, she stands out from the other teachers right away by both ignoring the standard curriculum. Instead of sticking to the memorization of “hard facts,” Brodie wants her students to know about culture, art, and life including talking about her own tragic first love. Kids love rebels, and Miss Brodie encourages indepe...

  Painted this guy as part of series of paintings of Universal Monsters. The hero image for this site shows a few more of them. This was done with acrylic paint on an 8X8 canvas board. I enjoyed the acrylic paint as it is much bolder than the materials I normally use. You can paint over it practically endlessly too.  In fact, that made it a slow process because I could tinker with it until I was reasonably happy with how it looked. Getting the folds in the bandages had me painting and repainting. 

  The Invisible Jerk Summary : A mad scientist creates a serum that makes him invisible. He holes up in a small town and uses his new condition to create chaos. There were two things about this short novel that took me by surprise. First, I didn’t realize how much humor there would be. Wells added a lot of slapstick and dry wit, composed of scenes with various citizens of a small town chasing and being terrorized by the title character. I always thought of Wells as deadly serious, so this book was more entertaining than I was expecting. The second thing was my preconceived idea that Griffin, the mad scientist, would be a “misunderstood monster.” I expected an Incredible Hulk -type story where a scientist’s experiments go horribly wrong and ruin his life. You felt bad for him because his change was accidental, and the consequences force him to deal with the struggles of his humanity. He would travel from place to place, and people would hate and fear him, while he tried desperately ...

Three Corvids, drawn from reference photos from the social networking site, Paint My Photo . I drew them with watercolor pencils on Canson XL Mixed Media, using about half of a 7X10 page. This newer Canson pad has very little texture and therefore the color is not as intense as I would like. I do like the way I got the look of black without using much actual black.  

Cool cover art, eh? The Big Apple with Big Worms New York City is the setting for cosmic horror and a capitalist satire where characters are either worshiping or exorcizing demons and monsters for profit. The plot is divided between two characters. First there's Julie, a tough and gritty freelance demon hunter who needs quick cash and is in love with her best friend. Then there is her ex, Tyler. He’s an upwardly mobile prick who works for a supernaturally evil law firm. He’s always strategizing how to get ahead or at least not die on the job. The two plot lines blend together pretty well, with each action that Julie or Tyler take impacting the other one. Tyler’s employer, Thorne and Dirk, is a Wolfram & Hart clone from the old Angel television show. Just replace “Upper Management” with “Senior Partners.” I have to admit, I expected The Dead Take the A-Train to be something like Clive Barker’s “Midnight Meat Train.” (Now there’s a writer who knows how to use gore to good effec...

 The above drawing is water-soluble graphite on Canson XL mixed-media paper, rough surface.  It's a drawing of my daughter's fingerless glove that just looked so fascinating to me, piled up on our dining room table one fall day. The curves and the shapes created by the stripes, not to mention the cool shadows and contrasts from the stripes. I still love my water-soluble graphite pencils but the paper type isn't available any more. They still make a mixed media book in the 7X10 size but the rough surface option is no longer available. 

How many Mickeys does it take... Initial thoughts: Cool premise that started off fun and exciting. I enjoyed Mickey’s first-person, conversational and light-humored narration. The opening chapters set me up for a great story. For those that didn't see the film/don't know the premise, Micky 7 is set in a future where humanity has colonized other planets. Crews exploring new potential planets hire someone to be cloned and do all the dangerous jobs, sharing their memories with the next clone in the (likely) event they die.  Mickey lacks other employment possibilities and desperately needs to leave his current job. The set up wasn't that believable; it seemed to me that his solution was drastic relative to his problems. Mickey breaks a rule when he is only assumed dead and another of him is activated. This is a major no-no for a resource strapped outer space mission. Besides the central conflict of too many Mickeys, there was also the greater jeopardy to the colony and Mickey’...