The Fine Art Blog of Daz and Holly

The Comfy Towel art by Darren Daz Cox. This was an attempt to capture that awesome feeling of being wrapped up in a big fluffy towel!!
I was thinking of the famous painting by Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas where the model is sitting on a fluffy towel. He excelled in capturing how the light fell on the figure and regardless of certain stuffy art history texts, I believe he posed the model with her towel, not only to show that she had just bathed but was comfortable and in a state of luxury rather than it being some kind of endless chore in the drudgery of everyday life!Frau bei der Toilette painting by Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas.
Below is a flyer by Holly for the awesome Peoria area folk rock band Something With Trees!
Something With Trees flyer by Holly Eitenmiller. You can keep up with Something With Trees at their website http://www.somethingwithtrees.com.
And this one is a digitally enhanced pencil sketch a of hippy girl! Holly is making a flyer for a 60′s themed concert and so I was inspired to draw from her happiness vibes!
Double Hippy Chick art by Darren Daz Cox
Trippy and cute art just randomly put together on a snowy morning in January 2012!
And below is a sculpture I did some years back in porcelain clay, I am inspiring myself to make some Fimo clay sculptures!

More art and recipes coming up!!

I’ve been busy working on bringing culture to the midwest and to the world! Eventually I shall bring it to the rest of the universe, but for now what I have been working on lately…
My new web-comic called Lives of the Artists which obviously (to me!) is an homage to the mighty Giorgio Vasari (30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574), he, 500 years after his birth, still inspires my creativity with his poetic and often hilariously gushing accounts of the artists of his day (Michaelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo etc) and the ones that opened the door to the Renaissance, many of whom we really only have his accounts to get a idea about the person behind the artwork.
This is hardly on par with the great masters but I love art and use the principles they wrote so passionately about and practiced. I plan to do a regular series of these! Featuring art-girl Holly and art-guy Daz with assorted flying guinea pigs!

The comics will be re-printed for the paper ‘zine, GoBzine, that I like to send out to my friends and random strangers who show a shred of curiosity about my work. The comics will also have lots of my art and tie into the poetry book that real life art girl Holly is working on! Those poetry books will be distributed at the local Peoria area poetry meetings as soon as we get them done! Donations of cash and poetry are welcomed to fuel this project. Just drop me or Holly a message on Facebook or to gobzine@gmail.com (me, Daz) and Holly’s email is writeoneforyou@gmail.com.
Here is a collaboration of my art and a poem by Holly, it is a clerihew poem! (or a variant of one called a Hollihew to be technical!)

Vincent Van Gogh
potato soup swirling
The spoon, a paintbrush twirling.
Soften the gnarly spud
he plucked from ochre mud!

It is a pleasure to know artists like Holly who are dedicated to the arts and the community. Here’s Holly with her side of the Speakeasy Art Center – “Gallery Open” sign we use on the sidewalk to bring the public in! It was her idea to re-paint it for curb appeal. I did the other side.

*<3*

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.” – Vincent Van Gogh

Both Holly and I are graphic designers in addition to being fine art painters and poets.
Holly has been honing her Photoshop skills for photo manipulation and photo restoration work in these fun examples below (that’s our faces over the more famous ones!). You can find her at The Speakeasy Art Center a lot of the time if you have some graphic design and photo work you need done (She is a professional photographer as well as the all the other hats she wears! – Mom, gormet chef, superhero etc.)

Speaking of The Speakeasy Art Center, there was an Art Fiesta on Nov 11 2011 and here is a little spontaneous video of the band Noodles N Chicken that played! Holly put her helper hat on for that event (we support the arts community however we can but don’t have much money so this is what we do).

The next night, Holly’s friend Dana Taylor played at the monthly Wineshare event (check the Speakeasy Facebook page for upcoming events!) and while I didn’t get video of that event, I did record him while Holly and I painted on the “Gallery Open” sign a few days before! First time he played the songs it was flawless, he got a little camera shy when I recorded them though haha!

but wait that’s not all! Here are a couple of Dana Taylor’s awesome songs on MP3 you can download for free, two more originals and his really sweet Fleetwood Mac cover! He will be playing live around the area so support your local musicians by going to the gigs!

Holly, like the cool kids do, loves guinea pigs (of course) and here’s some liquify filter guinea pig art I made recently! There is a bigger (printable) version on my Flickr account!

Geez, still not done with this blog post, I really should have kept up with all this, and will *shakes fist in determination*
Below is the complete MP3 recording of the October 26 2011 Poetry night at ART SHOW on Jefferson in Peoria Illinois.
It was a weird night! NOTE: The next Peoria poetry show is Thursday Nov 17 2011 at CHAMPS WEST 515 N Western Ave Peoria Illinois. Here’s the FB event page! CHAMPS WEST REVIVAL holistic hootenanny Gala of Poetic glory
David Von Behren will be the host and will also be featured prominently in the forthcoming poetry ‘zine as edited by Holly and illustrated by Me!

I think that’s all for this blog post but lots of other cool art projects are poised to happen and are already underway! I know, I have some video art projects long overdue to post but they aren’t quite done yet!

I re-worked this one just now. I drew the girl in pencil and created the dragon in photoshop!
You can download the huge jpg (for printing purposes) via the link below the pic!

http://99daz.com/art/dragongirl.jpg

Salvador Dali as an angel – pencil sketch by Darren Daz Cox

It’s funny how I really can’t draw things that aren’t organic, curvy and cute, at least when I just let my mind wander the results are generally pleasant even they are surreal. I don’t have a lot of nightmares and I remember my dreams just about every night so perhaps this why but I think it’s because I consciously chose a target audience for my art and that audience is not how I was when I was an angry young man. Before I was an angry young man I was a pretty damn happy pre-teen who really wanted to learn how to draw, and who wrote poems and stories and read a whole lot of science fiction.

 Here’s another sketch I did randomly, the found bird. It would be really special if a bird you had let out of a cage found it’s way back to you! Pencil on paper and colored in Photoshop.

The Found Bird, just some cute art to make the world a better place by positive intention.

this groovy monster appeared randomly when I mirrored the art! yea for monsters!

Oh and the coolest thing ever, well, not ever, but pretty awesomely cool, my friend Jenni from when I lived in Hong Kong scanned a copy of our 1981 yearbook and it had a poem I wrote in there that makes me happy!

My Best Friend by Darren Daz Cox age 12

My best friend is kind of weird
he has no hair, eyebrows or beard
He even has light blue skin
(No don’t tell my next of kin!)
What I tell you is no lie
My best friend will never die,
He’s a mutant from the stars
who has a zombie ranch on Mars
(he keeps them in check they say
by feeding them plutonium hay.)
We met at a lunar convention
while I displayed my new invention.
To study humans was his intention
to study him there’s no need to mention.
I told him of the Earth so green
He told me of the places he’d been.
We talked and talked until we were through
Then I went home and he did too.

 I’m really proud of this poem because it’s very me and very Spike Milligany who wrote my favorite poem …

Porridge

Why is there no monument
To Porridge in our land?
It it’s good enough to eat,
It’s good enough to stand!

On a plinth in London
A statue we should see
Of Porridge made in Scotland
Signed, “Oatmeal, O.B.E.”
(By a young dog of three)

Spike Milligan

 Jenni was a mutant slave and I was the ruler of the mutants in our school play at St. Georges School called The Second Coming, which was an awesome sci-fi spectacle and the finest thing put on stage since, no, it was the best play ever.

My sister Sonja was also in the play as well as my friends Jamie Anderson (big Judas Priest fan!) and Alex Speed (first guy to suggest Led Zeppelin as a cool band to me hehe!).

I have some really awesome memories, am very happy right now and look forward to an awesome rest of my life!

I love art and I love to make people inspired and happy, it is what I was put on Earth to do. I have always been an artist and I always will be.

All art on this bog post by Darren Daz Cox world’s greatest artist in the world!

People often ask me to draw things for them but don’t realize that their casual demands leave me puzzled and will most likely not be fulfilled any quicker than it took Michelangelo to finish the Medici chapel.

People are rarely shy about asking me to do something for them that requires me to draw power from God and inspiration from the world. Sometimes they’ll just open a conversation by asking if i’ll  draw them something  specific, an angel with a camera for a logo the lovely photographer Tina T-Pain’s business and a dragon for Skinhead Linda’s business, a piece of tattoo flash (cherubs holding a banner) for C-Charles and another (shooting stars) for one of my art models, Beff. 

But you would never go up to Stephanie Sugarcookie and say "I’d like you to bake me a dozen chocolate chip cookies" or to Monstertruck Rick and say "I’d like you to adjust my Gran Torino’s carbourator"  or ask Dave Omega to write you a song on his banjo about skipping merrily down the f*ing lane with your one eyed cat. 

I know you guys do it out of love and that it’s a compliment and even though I really would like to please you, even if I thought it would make me happy by making you happy or get me material goods and/or services rendered or even to score points with a girl I want to get to know better, the fact is I can’t draw on demand, and If I’m not drawing on demand for them I most likely will not do so for you. 

Don’t bother to bring money into the equation as yes, given enough money I’d draw you something but as we know from quantum physics, intention is key, and my intention would be to get the money not to stretch my creative powers. If you paid me to do art you’d get faux-art but a machine might not be able to recognize the difference since the same hand made it.

Writer John "Mr. T Experience" Phillips said I could paint the cover to his new book, and gave me some specific things he wants and I really want to, and I will try, but……

Anyway, here’s my latest random digital piece of art, the Magic Snail, all hail the magic snail!

Click this one for my flickr account where the huge version lives and is ready to download. Feel free to use the liquify filter on it to make your own swirly trippy pyschedelic art!

The Magic Snail by Darren Daz Cox coolest artist in the universe.

Here are some detail jpgs to add more awesome art to the search engines and the word "zing" so when ever you search for that word you have a chance to see my cool art too.

Pyschedelic bunny artwork baby! We need more of this!!!

I really like this magic indian totem looking mask that randomly appeared in my artistic randoming. 

I have some awesome awesome pencil sketches I’m dying to show you but I don’t have electricity in my house anymore to make the scanner work, it’s been a week and no word on when it will return but yea for Copper River Coffee shop and it’s free WI-Fi, awesome staff and yummy green tea and muffins.

Have an awesome day my friends and remember to be creative!

Here’s another magic snail Pic I found! 

 Potential, the possibility of a certain thing happening. Quantum intent, the scientifically proven connection between your intentions and what actually manifests. In terms of art, that intent creates a potential and then that potential manifests into a reality.

For me, positive intent is paramount, I want to inspire, I want to be appreciated and I want to be able to continue to do so.

I really am happy in the moment, just like my fortune cookie at the excellent Dynasty Buffet. DJ Disaster liked the short haired waitress and I thought the long haired girl was lovelier!  I rarely draw girls with short hair.

We were discussing time travel and I explained (because I am such the expert on everything) that you wouldn’t suddenly disappear, like Back To The Future, if you ‘changed’ your past. The ‘grandfather paradox’ is not a certainty as quantum physics has concluded that our perception of time as being cause and effect linear is really only a perception and everything is actually happening in an instant.

Imagine that every possible outcome is out there waiting for you to grab it like a gold balloon. How do you get the outcome you want? You set your intent and, because things are all happening in an instant, you act as if you have what what you want. Have no fear.

Just a note on the flu pandemic thing, trust God. The univere will provide you with what you need to survive, if you want to survive.

Appreciate the moment, for the moment is all we have.

My intentions, which will become reality.

1: To get that sweet copier Riverfront Media looked at last week, and make tons of 11×17 double-sided posters and booklets that will inspire and spread happiness.

2: To publish other artists and interesting creative types in my new version of Go B Zine (having a finisher on the color laser copier will be perfect!)

3: To print something for the Peoria Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure since their race for the cure is on the same day as the Tech this Out – technology expo at the East Peoria Event center on may 9-10 2009.

4: Get a new office and studio for Riverfront Media, hopefully near the Illinois river again (where we got our name from) or perhaps in Pioneer Park.

5: Spread the love, we’re all connected and with all this fear and negativity around it’s time to rise above your fears and be the change you want to see. 

For The Love of Seahorses – gold leafed seahorse and digital paint by Darren Cox aka Daz

I share a birthday (coming up!) with Daphne Du Maurier  who was born on May 13, 1907

 Welcome to the best art blog in Peoria Illinois USA The World ever. I am happy to share my awesome art with you! I sketch randomly and am thrilled that my randomness turns into pleasingly happy things. You might find it cheesy but some people really enjoy it and I enjoy drawing it.

Birds on an angel wing. Pencil sketch with Adobe Photoshop Liquify Filter by Darren Daz Cox.

I have a strong feeling about having a guardian angel, not in a religious way but something that’s always watching me and encouraging me.

I’d like to make a resin sculpture of this one day I think.

Butterfly Girl sketch by Darren Daz Cox. Drawn randomly today at my day job. I was thinking of how art is in the eye of the beholder, the girl thinks the butterfly is art, we think the girl watching the butterfly is art and perhaps our higher selves or souls etc see us looking at this as art!

Obviously there is a biological reason why we can translate pretty things into ‘art’, we find kids cute because we are compelled to protect them and find value in seeing butterflys as they add interest to the scenery, but when you define things as art you are adding the human factor to what we see!

Abstract art can add or focus attention onto certain interesting visual clues. Great abstract art requires faith and confidence. Colors, shapes and composition are worked until it just feels right to the artist, then it is ready to show. You have the option to enjoy this and I hope you do! Made with the liquify filter in Adobe Photoshop.

I love the cool silvery liquid mercury like metal with little hearts ‘pinning’ it together. I love being able to work on many styles of art at the same time without pressure to focus on one or the other, it is liberating and keeps art fresh and enjoyable for me as I continue to be productive!

Above is a random pencil sketch I drew at my day job and then randomly added liquify filter goodness and below is another work sketch of my art model Beff and her bird Buddy. I tried to make the picture more fancy but sometimes the simpler the better….

I’m really getting the bug to do a really huge painting, I often think of grand murals and painting a Roman chapel ala Michelangelo but it’s becoming a craving. I think I must have painted murals or frescos in a past life…

I started a blue oil paint on gold canvas painting and you can see it below in the photograph of the front porch of the Riverfront Media Clubhouse featuring DJ Disaster rewiring the house to use our new Canon printing press (it’s a heavy duty laser printer).

In a few days I’ll finally be able to crank out my new art zine and send it to everyone and be rich and famous and have my own pet elephant.

Riverfront Media, the most creative independent audio video company in Peoria Illinois, will move into our new studios, in Mossville Illinois at the Medina Crossing center at the beginning of June and we’ll move the high tech digital printing press there then.

I’ve been really creative lately!

The drawing below is called "Hide from the rain" and is not completed quite yet, in fact it may end up as a painting! Oh wow, i have so many paintings in progress, i really need to be rich and famous like Mark Ryden so I can just do art full time!

I am very thankful and happy where I am right now. Thanks for making my dreams of being an artist come true!

Oh I made a fan page for my band Homer Simplex on Facebook, so our one fan, Hairy Armpit Girl From Germany – please become a fan!!! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Homer-Simplex/199830490108?ref=mf

 Welcome to the best art blog on the internet, did I mention that I am the best artist in the world? Not only in the world but the universe and not just the universe, the best artist in all the infinite parallel dimensions! I might not be a household name or have achieved acclaim, fame and/or fortune in this universe, but I’m still the best and greatest artist that has ever lived! Wait, where are you going? Art is subjective so we are all allowed to say what I said above!!

I’m still cranking out the stuff for my new art zine called GoBzine, which by the way I own gobzine.com and have for quite a while! I was the first person to have the word gobzine indexed in google and over the years there have been several other gobzine things pop up, as weird as that sounds since I totally thought I invented the word!

Here’s a pic of one of the centerfolds in the new gobzine (minus the 99daz.com !)

Spring frolic girl centerfold for the new Go B Zine. Psychedelic and trippy art!.

I enjoy re-interpreting the standard themes in art, in this case (above), the ever popular landscape.

I used oil paints on canvas with glue and glitter. It has quite a lot of texture that doesn’t quite show here.

It’s a strange but beautiful painting to my eyes.

Yea My latest sculpture! starfish painted gold and gold painted rods, easy to re-arrange and make new star systems!

I love the unfinished 100 year old wood walls of my house!

Mirroring and framing are easy ways to add interest to your artwork.

You have different sight factors in each eye but your brain combines all the data it receives into a whole picture. One way to un-translate this for an interesting effect is to flip, merge and frame an image like I did with this oil painting I am working on.

~*The Girls Day Dream oil on canvas by Darren Daz Cox*~

Sometimes framing isn’t necessary like this pencil sketch I added digital paint to below.

~all art and graphic design by Darren Daz Cox~

Pea faeries and gold angels, trippy art by Darren Cox

Dragon of autumn doubled, trippy art by Darren daz Cox

Alien song doubled, trippy art by Darren daz Cox

Allegory of anger doubled, trippy art by Darren daz Co

excellent groovy trippy amazing cool killer great wonderful colorful, swirly and brilliant fine art illustration by Darren Daz Cox!

I don’t feel like an artist should be pigeon-holed into a style so that they can be packaged and sold as a brand. An Artist must retain the option to be good at many things! Be a Renaissance Man not a one trick pony!

Art is more than just a product, it helps find the answers! But fine art can provide a living so be somewhat professional but if you get as rich as Damien Hirst why waste your time dealing with money? Why not dedicate your time to making as much cool art as you possibly can!

I go by dazcox, darren cox, darren daz cox, 99daz, daz honey and gobzine at various places, see if you can find me around the web!

My Flickr account has a whole lot more of my art if you’d like to visit there!

One of my recent projects is called Faeries Vs. Angels, which is a quantum-art project that might manifest as a ‘zine then a book then a gallery show then actually become a grand Tiepolo-esque room!

Go B Zine – best zine in the world!

I’d like something good to happen to inspire me as I just feel blah right now. I’m going to meditate and clean up my apartment and look for synchronicity… Three pencil sketches with digital paint addeded, sometimes more IS more! You can see what style of motifs I draw when I concentrate (the figures) and what motifs I draw when I’m just ‘winging it’. I think what makes it interesting is the combination of the two methods, deliberate (conscious) and random (from the subconscious). What I’d like to do with these is have them printed large, wall sized, and then paint more details over them. Would it be graffiti to have your future self draw over your art from years back?

One of the things that you can learn from the discipline of General Semantics is to learn to consciously label yourself in distinct separate times for the purpose of clarity. For example the me in 2004 is quite a different person mentally from the current me in 2008 so while it’s not inaccurate to say ‘this is my art’ it is clearer to say ‘this is my art in the year x’ or from ‘when I watched a lot of tv and worked that job where such and such happened’, anything so that you associate the art with a specific time or thing you used to do etc. Of course you already do this unconsciously, but if you consciously index your work mentally it is apparently easier to notice synchronicity when it occurs, and synchronicity is magic!

Fruit Picking Girl pencil sketch by Darren Daz Cox Peoria Illinois artist

GoBzine 4th of July model art by Darren Daz Cox Peoria Illinois artist!

Springtime Kitty canvases by Darren Cox ready for oil paints!

and here’s the latest Riverfront Media of Peoria Illinois logo!

We are hard at work printing the new art zine!

 Welcome to 99daz.com the best fine art blog in the world, in this dimension, ( it’s actually number two in another parallel one, where Rozi made her own fine art blog. Rozi is also the captain of a giant robot shaped space ship in yet another dimension but that’s another story). 

Ok, so I listen to a lot of ‘new science’ lectures that involve quantum physics and spirituality and the fact that you found this blog means I know SEO and social networking so I wanted to combine everything I know and save the world.

Well, the world doesn’t need saving, but I do want to raise the vibration of people’s consciousness to the point where they think more creatively (if possible). Here’s my latest art project idea to do just that.

First of all i will need to get a spam contract, like all the stupid spam you see has to be paid for to some company, so I get a contract with that company for the maximum amount of spam sendings.

Next, I make a cool piece of art and a decent poem to go along with it and pick a variety of titles for the email, something cool, like "eat vegetables and you won’t need viagra" or "cute bunny art contest winner" and then spam, spam, spam.

We know from quantum physics that your intent affects reality and we also know that we are also connected on the quantum level. Here’s an example using a current event. How many people suddenly became interested in Michael Jackson recently? people that never even thought of him, but suddenly were fascinated, you might be one.

One reason why you might have suddenly become interested in jacko is by the The 100 Monkeys effect, which suggests that our minds are connected and that you only need a certain amount of people to be thinking the same thing for the others to know it without even realizing they know it.

So you might be thinking of a certain thing not because you really care but because other people have it in their consciousness so it leaks over into everyones mind, including yours, and if it is a positive loving thing then the world will be a better place!

My intent is to inspire and raise consciousness so my art spam mailings, even if they go directly to your spam folder will still reach enough people to affect consciousness (obviously spam reaches enough people to be profitable or there wouldn’t be spam, right?).

Anyway, it’s just an idea I have, one of my many art projects!

Here’s a tabloid sized (11 inches by 17 inches) poster in my upcoming zine. There’s a bigger version on my Flickr account too. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gobzine/3712274203/

 Twin Faeries fine art poster for the free paper art zine caled Gobzine coming soon.

All art by Darren Daz Cox a Peoria Illinois artist.

99daz.com the fine art blog of Darren Cox aka Daz.

Clearing your mind, slowing down those racing thoughts is a healthy practice.  The world is getting stranger as we move into the part of universe that is causing the Earth to warm up (even Pluto is warming up and that’s moving away from our sun btw).

There’s plenty of awesome videos on youtube about the 2012 transition. Don’t be afraid, the day ends at midnight but there’s another day just waiting to show up! The world will transition to a new world in 2012 that’s all.

The world is a magical place, and you are the catalyst…

*~Meditate on Cats – pencil and digital paint (Fragonard’s "The Swing" liquified) by Darren Daz Cox Peoria Illinois Artist*~