The Fine Art Blog of Daz and Holly

Here is my latest poem!

of all the lives
and infinte trys
to perfect my soul,
and good advice
from aliens nice
to ease my weary toll
this loop is off!
i dont care if i cough!
i’m here to experience and savor it!
and I’ll dance and sing
and do my art thing
till I die with my favorite!

I had the pleasure of watching Holly Eitenmiller paint this custom oil painting on canvas called “Crag Tree In The Moon”. She says it is inspired by me! She is my favorite artist and my favorite art model! Holly has taken to painting with oil paints and oil glazes and I have a couple of detailed oil paintings with layers of glazes in progress!!!

Yea Henry Rollins!!!!

“I’m starting to think that i’m not a human being. I don’t feel like one. I think i was one when i was about seventeen. Now i think i’m something else. I don’t belong here. Maybe a snake, a copper snake, dusty, addicted, crawling slowly. I do not suffer. Only wounded suffer. I’m not wounded. I am inflicted. I inflict myself upon myself. I re-arrange, breakdown, deplete myself of myself, causing hunger, causing pain. People hate people who are free. People who are waiting for their “reward” will wait forever, content to hate, fear and condemn. I am up to other things in the mean time. Freaky misfits, disciples of the sun, you are the ones who understand the rhythm of disease. The cold, isolating, beautiful fire of the distorted soul. The flowers bloom for you! The birds in the sky sing for you! The sun shines for you! The copper snake crawls for you.”

- Henry Rollins

I wanted to modify this pic, and so I did! Hobby Lobby always inspires my creative soul and the one in Pekin Illinois is one of the best! Holly and I needed new brushes and tubes of oil paint, we are kindred spirits to the Impressionists and of course to our hero Vincent Van Gogh! We don’t look too fast!

Paul Gauguin “You paint too fast!” Vincent Van Gogh “You look too fast!”

Remember to print out your 40% off coupon, 1 per person per visit from the hobby Lobby corporate website!

…you know the scene in the movie Titanic where the guy is sketching the girl.

In that case art helps the biological needs of love become more romantic and cerebral, which ultimately make the biological parts of love more enjoyable. The picture below is a collage of a couple of artworks of mine that Holly modified (to give herself wings!) then I modified it again!

How has Art enhanced your life?

I have a really big jpg version of this picture (click link below pic!) that you can download and print if you wish, or continue to swirl the motifs in an image editing program!
I love love love this picture, it celebrates that first warm, warm day of spring when you suddenly smell flowers and you want to dance! (and some of us actually do!)

http://99daz.com/art/springdancer.jpg
I’m really proud of my Springtime Dancer pic, that feeling of that first warm spring day where it feels almost hot to your winter skin…yes!!! you can download the huge jpg file to print or look closely at the detail or even modify it in Photoshop if you wish, there are no strings, just do it!!!

I am going to allow everyone to download and print out, if they choose to, as much of my art up to this point as I can share.
Here is the first one, I call it “Treasure Box” and you can download it from this link http://99daz.com/art/jpg/treasurebox.jpg
I love the idea of opening a box (or a book) and finding treasure. Here I went with a silver and emerald theme! The liquify filter in Photoshop allows some very nice and shiny effects!
So download from the link above if you want and I will be adding as many as I possibly can!
Here is some technical info to show you how big the download file will be. I’m not getting all uptight about copyrights and all that but if you want to use bits and pieces of my art in your own work, go for it, just let me see what you have done! I love the idea of inspiring creativity!

In other news, I have built and primed my new 8 foot by 8 foot canvas and will be painting on it soon! I have many of the motifs planned out from the central figure of a girl washing a unicorn to the guinea pigs frolicking! Here is a pic of the virgin canvas laying on the floor of my studio in the Speakeasy Art Center located at 353 Court St. In Pekin Illinois, cultural hub of the midwest!

I am also working on a follow up story to my Love and Robots short story that at least one person a year loves! So maybe you will be the one this year that reads it haha, it’s really short sci-fi and I’m a bloody genius so do yourself a favor and read it! More on this later as it progresses!

Back to the big printable jpg thing, I will create a page and have them all on one page for download soon. Oh I forgot, i have a cool holiday dragon pic to upload next!

Here is the latest stage of my huge oil painting across from the art studios of Alec DeJesus, Doug Halstead and Doug Goessman.
Tree of life – oil on canvas 30 feet by 10 feet – by Darren Daz Cox 3rd floor art studio Speakeasy Art Center in Pekin Illinois 353 Court St.

Above, detail of the center ‘tree’ motif. True ‘more is more’ art!
Below is a mermaid I painted on the wall on friday night to help people wind their way through the labyrinth of rooms on the 3rd floor of the art studios!

Right now the Speakeasy Art Center is showing (some of) the work of Eric Cooney and Gene Mialkowski!

Yea for me, I woke up, saw this painting on my bedroom wall and was suddenly inspired to finish it! I think there’s still room for some gold highlights, heck, none of my art is ever really finished! But I have made a commitment to sell something in the next Art Alliance show, just to finally pop that cherry of artistic purity, I don’t need it anymore and being a starving artist shouldn’t be a career!

~*Springtime Maiden – oil on canvas 20×24 – Darren Daz Cox 2008*~ This painting started as a charcoal sketch directly on the canvas then the first layer of oil paints then a layer of varnish (you can see where the light is reflecting back on this photo!). At This stage I called it "Allegory of Birth" and the background is an abstract of the biological process, later I added another layer to get a sweet blue oil patina that emphasized the bubbles! Remember that you can put as many layers of oil glazes as you want! I chopped that old digital file up in Photoshop to make a nifty abstract below, why? because I can, why be satisfied with one view of your art?
Springtime Maiden such beauty rarely ever shine in thistledown as soft as thine in petals velvet to the cheek in woodland creatures fragile meek springtime leaf and redbird hop the twitch of squirrels tail the colors from the backdrop POP and next to thee they pale springtime maiden in your court rejoice in natures powers treasures so beautiful cant be bought j’aime tu mon ami dans chez flowers ~*really really, did I say cheesy yet? poem by Darren Daz Cox From "Florescent Rat Fur" Limited edition monoprint Poetry Book 1990*~

 I suddenly got the jones for painting in grisaille , which means shades of grey to the regular joe. With thick and thin oil paints (the magical ‘liquid white’ that Bob Ross would prime his canvases for his famous ‘wet on wet’ technique) and a grease pencil, I can convert a pencil sketch on the canvas to a cool looking painting. This is satisfying me right now, even though, or maybe because that i’m slowly reading a huge book on Vincent van Gogh.

Feline Mind Meld oil painting on canvas by darren daz cox pekin illinois january 2010 8×10 inches

This was a random drawing that I made into an oil painting. I try to see the artistic side to things and create my own stories and i thought it would be cool to paint the ‘telepathic’ communication that we think we have with cats!

There is a much bigger version you can download free or you could support a starving artist by buying a print of it here at my DeviantArt site (I only have a few prints so far and actually sold one, thanks Geno!).

 

World of Wonder oil on canvas by Darren Daz Cox 16×24 inches

I love how stuff just randomly appears on my canvas. I am very excited that I found a painting technique that celebrates brunette girls now. I love the floppy bean bag horse too, he looks so comfy, which is perfect when you are riding through a magical world! Bigger version on my DeviantArt site here.

Amanda F Palmer fan art by Darren Daz Cox oil on canvas 8 x 10 inches

I know it is not a photographic likeness of the coolest chick singer out there but it is an impression, quickly done and with love. I generally paint wearing my paint stained Dresden Dolls hoodie and think AFP and her entourage are cool people, I hope to be able to paint her in person one day!

I would like to give a shout out to awesome artist Leslie Abraham who said it was a cool painting and shall forever be in the art history books as having impeccable taste and a shout out to my very first official fan who introduced me to the Dresden Dolls way back a million years ago and is forever honored as Gemma The Stowaway in my awesome short sci-fi stories, Gemma (her awesome art is here).

Zombie and his pets oil on canvas photo frame, 8×10 inches by Darren Daz Cox

This one makes me sooo happy. I love the idea that the zombie is not evil…(read into that whatever you want haha!). This is continuation of my awesome zombie series that started with Zombie with balloon and hot girlfriend sketch.

The Vortex Pose oil on canvas 12×12 inches by Darren Daz Cox

This one is one of the paintings that really makes me see how far I have come and how good I can be as I was in the zone the whole time and it totally worked from random sketching (I drew this and the rest completely from my imagination without a photographic reference or a model). If I can continue to be in that zone I will be able to do some really awesome art and make the world a better place and get rich and famous! Ok, I’m going to paint some more as soon as I post this blog, happy clouds everyone.

 

My friend Karina asked me where I was with my art these days as I’ve grown and modified my feelings about it.

To me, art isn’t a contest with other artists, it’s an individual endeavor that you can share with others. The second you think that it has a monetary value then you set limitations and will pursue and settle for money as the reward, problem is, if you’re an artist to begin with  then you really won’t be satisfied by just having money be the end result of your work so money is a pointless goal. Most artists just want money so they can do their art in comfort rather than sit on a big pile of it unless they have some gold fetish or something.

You don’t really need the feedback of your peers either as you run the risk of ending up like van Gogh and Gauguin, two great artists that didn’t want to accept the other ones motivations and the point is to make great art not make your fellow artists sing kumbaya around the camp fire.

comments are pointless as people mostly comment for themselves not for you, popularity can be bought with time and money but those friends are fickle and it’s pointless to pursue fame as it doesn’t last.

you might be making art as a way to showcase your skills, build your personal character, to compensate for percieved flaws in other areas or to capitalize on being different to begin with (and thats probably the mechanism the universe has created to encourage creative behavior, as if you were so happy and fullfilled by regular life you’d probably not be so passionate about the arts to begin with). but art is more than some darwinian compensation for not being a hunter or child bearer as we can be all those things and artists too, so if you do art because you need an identity thats cool but if you dont enjoy the creative process, only the results, then you are missing the full experience I feel.

there is also the idea in art that you are making things that will change the world in a butterfly affect, like Pollock making art into something that anyone can do (not that he intended to or cared) but that might have unintended results such as Yoko Ono going from being a popular big fish in a small pond to being considered un-cool and probably a poser in the very feild of art she helped create, which would suck, as no matter what she does now it will always seem like shes cashing on on her fame and money rather than making art for arts sake, even if she is literally making art for arts sake, it doesn’t make it fun if people think you are a fake, and there is a ‘universal mind’ like Jung said, what people are thinking and saying about you and your work really does have a physiological effect.

For example there have been tests done with sensors on peoples skin etc and the ‘are your ears burning’ old-wives tale was proven to have scientific validity, the same way you prove it to yourself everyday by staring at someone at random and they look back, knowing, if only subconciously. that you were looking at them even if you were behind them and their eyes never saw you looking. Scientists have theorised that’s why ex-stars end up being substance abusers and generally erratic because once they fall from popularity there is a physical withdrawl effect. So be careful if you seek fame as you might end up as a one hit wonder, type-cast by a one shot thing you long ago moved on from or just a miserable wreck when the spotlight is off you, not out of ego but from forces that science hasn’t even explained fully yet, but forces we know are true.

so what does that leave? and here’s where I am with art. I do art for one person, or contiguous group, at a time. Consider the new-age/ancient religion concept of ‘there is only one of us here’. We are all the same person, we just think we are separate individuals and thus if you make one person feel special by catering the project to their personal taste the ‘butterfly effect’ on the world is far more positive than just doing art for whomever discovers it first. If that’s too hard to wrap your brain around, just look at the zero point feild from quantum physics and understand that we are ‘entagled’ whether we want to believe it or not but we are literally all at two places at once, the place where you are now and the same exact point in the quantum feild. (this incidentally is a solid answer for how ESP works).

Expect all the fame and ego-stroking and possibly rewards that you art deserves,but from the tiny target audience, not the world in general. Often giving a reward makes the art even more precious for it’s audience and the artist should be gracious and only ask for what is reasonable. If you do a painting for a friend expect the friend to treasure it more than one they might have bought at an art gallery, if they do not like the art then that is the feedback you need to improve, a friend will take the time to give an honest appraisal rather than fake approval.

In the big picture, any art done with the best intentions, such as painting something pretty for your friends room, is perfect art. Sometimes, that art grows and spreads joy to the rest of the world like the spirals in a sunflower!

~*Fishbird – drawing then liquify filter – by Darren Daz Cox*~

My friend Cathy Dailey came up with the original fishbird in the 80′s and it’s been a reoccuring motif in my art ever since! Another motif that appears in my art are deer! Below is a painting I did a few years ago, Deers in Twilight, it is an acylic painting with mega thick textures!

Motto

I Play it cool and dig all jive

that’s the reason I stay alive.

My motto, As I live and learn is:

Dig and be dug In return.

Langston Hughes

I like the mystery of twilight when the noctournal animals wake up and start their day, that transition time seems to have a certain magic! I seem to paint the moon quite often too, this next one is called Nocturne, acrylic paints with a super crusty texture from glue alchemy! I then used silver paint on the edges!

~*Nocturne Moon abstract by Darren Daz Cox*~

Many of these paintings, especially the more abstract ones were random experiments in techniques and I recommend that you just wing it sometimes with your art and see what happens!

~*just added*~

I found some detail shots of the horse painting I was talking about earlier! Here you can see the variety of textures!

This morning I started a magic painting, oh what is so magical about an abstract tree you might ask? Well, consider that time is the forth dimention here and I will enjoy watching the painting evolve from winter white to glorious gold!

I started with a gold spray painted canvas then added four types of clear acrylic medium (goes on white and dries clear), india ink, a dozen different iridescent and glitter paints, gold leaf and gum arabic with lashes of white glue on top!

This painting will look different as each layer dries and cracks and reveals the gold underneath! magical!

Yesterday at my local Micheals store (arts and crafts chain) there was a girl who was just starting her art career, probably spending her Christmas money on art supplies which was very smart of her! She just happened to mention to the folks she was with that you couldn’t do a still life with cats because obviously the cats were alive and would move! But I had to interject and mention that Paul Gauguin had already broken that stereotype with his classic "Still life with Puppies" which as every art nerd knows, is the finest irony and the essence of art itself, as what is less still than a puppy? well, maybe when they are asleep, but even then they are quivering with happyness!

(..and it goes a little like this…)

Still Life with Three Puppies by Paul Gauguin

As an homage to Gauguin’s painting, one of my favorites it is indeed! here’s an oil painting I did in the early 1990′s in the art studio of Revo Gruv in Carbondale illinois when I was an art student at southern Illinois University. "Still life with Fast Food and Puppies" based on real life events!

Oh and I’ve been meaning to upload this for a while, i did this a few years ago with the liquify filter smudge finger in Pshop.

Winter Love, or how snowflakes are created, Liquify filter (Photoshop) art by Darren Daz Cox

~Decaying Theatre with Shaman oil on canvas by Darren Daz Cox~

This one is evolving, the girl has morphed into some kind of shaman, going in between worlds… The backdrop has changed from rotten to mystical symbols, writhing in the shadows…

~*Darren Daz Cox’s painting studio march 2008*~

I miss my grey cat. There was a time he was the only one, I felt, who actually loved me.

I seem to know a whole lot of really talented people and in several cases, I seem to be one of the very few ‘fans’ that person has of their creative activities.

I read this today in the Law of One (I haven’t read all the LoO stuff, but there are bits and pieces that ring true and make sense of things.)

"The attempt, if it reaches one, reaches all. " -Ra

Which, not to get silly, is what Kirk meant when he said "sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many" as he went to save Spock.
The love you have is what matters, and your free will to use that love.

So don’t think you are a failure if only one person likes what you do, even if that one person is you .

There is only the love (or negative emotion) you project…

Here’s an illustration from a few years back, I was thinking of and inspired by those old fashioned advertisments for Horse Soap (and other obscure items that have a romantic feel to them).

~*Horse Soap Dream – Illustration (pencil and digital paint) – Darren Daz Cox*~

“The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers” – Deepak Chopra

TinEye.com, It’s not perfect yet (my art isn’t indexed yet *wah*) but it sure is satisfying to find a larger sized image of a great piece of art you stumble across!

…and here’s some of my art (on this blog it’s generally 500 pixels wide but I have larger versions out there too and would like Tin Eye to index my stuff so people can quickly find a larger size so they print it out or make it a quality desktop pic!).

"She had no use for my heart" Fine art by Darren Daz Cox, pencil and then the liquify filter in Photoshop.

"and when I looked the moon had turned to gold" 

- Blue Moon written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1934.

It’s a great song no matter which version you hear, and there are many many versions from The Marcels doo-wop classic to Biff Brown doing a trombone solo in the pop punk version in 3-Man (early 1990′s Carbondale Illinois band).

I put gold moon motif’s in my art, and people think it must be a sun motif, but the sun is not as poetic as a gold moon as the sun is a powerful constant but a gold moon happens after a blue moon morphs by some magical event!

If you don’t get it that’s ok, this blog is my auto-biography for when I become a famous artist and such things will be in used to fill up an art book and hopefully some kid in college will spontaneously decide to be a great artist too…