The Fine Art Blog of Darren Daz Cox

 It will be done soon! Sound like something Michelangelo said a lot.

Here are two of the latest phases of this almost completed masterpiece I have been working on.

oil painting by Darren daz Cox Jan 25 2010

oil painting by Darren daz Cox Jan 26 2010

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Youdle is over 30 years old, which makes him a senior citizen in terms of the life of a teddy bear, oh sure there are antique bears but most of them are not alive with the magic that only a child can animate them with. Once the child stops believing then the bear becomes just a pile of stuffing and fabric ready for another person to give him life. Youdle was brought to life in the UK then shipped to Hong Kong in a packing crate and again, years later in a box to Peoria USA, he has had a lot of surgery’s and his ears have holes where Sonja, well, I don’t even want to know what she did to his ears but they are worn clean through.

Youdle is my sister’s bear, the last surviving member of the time when there were many animals that had personalities, and while she is very much a responsible grown up she still has that connection with her childhood when Youdle was born. Now her daughter is enjoying the magic of Youdle! I’ve owned Youdle.com since 2004 and this is it. Youdle doesn’t mind. This post is dedicated to Jean aka Cheerful Monk as I think she understands, at least her recent blog post made me think so!

And Youdle believes that the purple squirrel is a miracle rather than a freak of nature as miracles are more fun!

Youdle Bear – Youdle.com "love is the answer!"

Originally posted 2008-05-08 17:42:06. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Two oil paintings in progress by master genius artist Darren Daz Cox!!!

The top one is light flickering through a ruined building in a forest, there is an angel about to take off after doing something mysterious in the forest too.

The bottom one started as an idea to make a blog banner but has taken on new meaning as it randomly evolves. *update* I took this painting on the Keansburg NJ beach and had a one man art show!

Originally posted 2008-02-29 09:03:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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It’s been theorized that the similarity between the structure of an atom and that of say the Earth and it’s moon is not a coincidence.

just imagine for a minute that there are no coincidences and that you are where you are not by chance or luck, good or bad but because you are where you want to be.

step outside of yourself for a moment and look in, imagine that the material world is like a 3d simulation and you are the person at the keyboard creating the scenareo, pick an online game such as the sims or secondlife or world of warcraft etc and your character is your body and the person at the keyboard is your soul, or higher self etc.

as above so below.

is it a coincidence that while I live in a small town that apparant random fate caused me to live in that one of my favorite sci-fi authors calls it home too? Phillip Jose Farmer, author of the classic Riverworld series, calls Peoria home too. He’s an old man now and I won’t bother him with fan-like behavior, but he’s a legend to me, as the hero in his Riverworld books, Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMGFRGS (19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was to him, and his alter-ego, Peter Jairus Frigate.

There are about a dozen authors who’s books I have read over and over since I was a kid, PJ Farmer is one of them others in the same genre include the mighty AC Clarke, RA Heinlein, Issac Azimov, AE Van Vogt and Harry Harrison.

Is it mere coincidence I live where one of my favorite authors lives? bare in mind that Peoria is only a quarter million or so people and not a suburb of a large city but is close to many of them, Chicago, St. Louis and Indianapolis are all just a few hours drive on flat, well maintained highways.

On Sunday at the Expo-gardens flea-market (junk sale) I picked up a copy of PJ Farmers ‘To Your Scattered Bodies Go‘ (for the sweet price of 25 cents). The novel is the first in the Riverworld series, and considered by many to be one the finest sci-fi novels ever written and I feel so happy to be reading it.

as above so below.

When I started reading it, and I must have read it at least a dozen times before over the years, I became so thankful for my ‘horrible’ memory. I was so happy that just about the only thing I remembered about the book was the hero, the reincarnated real life hero, Sir Richard Burton, and the fact that I loved the book.

I had even forgotton that one of my favorite Victorian painters, Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton PRA (3 December1830–25 January1896) had painted the adventurers portrait and it is easy to see why Farmer chose Burton to be his protagonist as Burtons visage is a catalyst to vicarious adventure.

If Burton was an early 80’s punk rock band, he’d be the Misfits, not only did he have talent, guts and showmanship, he looked cool, shocked polite society and was totally unique.

Ok my point in this ramble is that there are many many seers and mystics that claim we, as immortal souls, conciously chose to forget our past lives and/or the fact of our immortality so that we can do what what we do here, as mortals, without a safety net or baggage depending on how you choose to see it.

so, as above, so below. My soul chose to make me think I’m just a mortal being, a product of biological processes and presumably I have a task but maybe that task is just to enjoy and appreciate and give back by creating my own art and fiction?

By not having an eidetic memory I was at the disadvantage of those who do remember all that they have seen as was Burton who failed his Arabic translators test, perhaps because of a brain fart, surely not from lack of immersion in the cutlure. Perfect memory is pretty handy if you take tests only having to read the material once! but how unsatisfying it must be to remember a great novel!

My ‘bad memory’ seems quite selective, as I remember most of the science and history I’ve read as well as the essoteric teachings of spiritual and religious ‘experts’, allowing me to ramble as I do here. So would it be fair to say that I have subconciously chosen to forget my favorite novels after a certain amount of time so that i can enjoy the pleasures of them again?

Is that why I’m here in this body today unaware of any past life or soul or the such but enjoying every second of the bountiful pleasures of life because I already know what a perfect day is but chose to forget so I could have another one?

Originally posted 2008-09-30 14:10:52. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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At this point I’ve added four different green’s and three yellow oil paints. The orange pink red layer is underway then a layer of violet!  Photographs don’t really do oil paintings justice, the color is really vibrant in the light,  in some ways this painting is more like Mark Rothko’s color field paintings than a landscape, at least to me. 

My friend Pamster asked me what were the trees looking at down the hill? hehe, funny how it takes another person’s comment to make the picture take on a whole new direction! I was thinking about having faeries flying around so I think I’ll have them flying from the lower left corner up! I’ve been wanting to paint simple faeries like John Anster Fitzgerald did in his Fairies Looking Through an Open Window painting.

This is one of my all time favorite paintings, look at how punkrock the faerie at the window looks! The white allows for a rainbow of colors to be added subtly, and heck the faerie at the top has violet while the one at the bottom (punk faerie) has red, the extremes of the spectrum! I keep thinking about light, from the pure joy of seeing rainbows from crystals to the holographic universe theories.  I’m not a scientist and I don’t have any spiritual insights to share but I do know that there is a magic in art.

hmmm I guess this is a point for the faeries! Faeries 1, Angels 0

Originally posted 2008-06-16 18:18:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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