The Fine Art and Design Blog of Darren Daz Cox

This an oil painting I did a year or so ago. It started as a charcoal sketch on the canvas then layers of oil glazes were added. Oil glazes are translucent and refract light so the effect is a deep rich color!

Then after scanning the painting into Photoshop I chopped it up, duplicated parts and mirrored parts!

I finally settled on this version below as my favorite 99daz red dragon graphic!

and here’s the original charcoal sketch on the canvas! no prepatory sketches for this one, in fact, I haven’t done a prepatory sketch for any painting. I find that being spontanious on the canvas is a more satisfying process.

This started as an abstract oil painting of a forest, I photographed the canvas and then mirrored the image in Photoshop until it became fractilized.

Suddenly I started seeing animals, woodland animals and swamp animals which lead to me realize that my subconscious did exactly what I asked it to do the other day when i was walking on the street looking at the reflections in the puddles.

I asked my mind to find a way to capture that magic of seeing the world reflected in the puddle, and these colors are exactly what i saw in that puddle, the trees the sky the shadows, wow! Tripping myself out is part of the magic of fine art.

A few hours ago this canvas was just another canvas i wasn’t sure what to do with, it felt that a good start of something but not done, now, after taking the chance to photograph it and bring it into Photoshop it manifested into a completed thought.

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things." Edgar Degas

I can see a bear, a deer, an alligator, a spider, plants etc and to me, this is proof that you should trust your subconscious to work for you, consider it a computer where you have to program it. I’m sure that this idea of asking your subconscious to do something is easier to see with somethings than with others but i swear this is a real phenomenon.

We are far greater, far more brilliant than we allow ourselves to believe, and we can tap into that brilliance if we can find techniques to bypass our inhibiting factors.  Meditation helps us tap into the spiritual side of things and it seems that if you trust your mind to create art and ask it to guide your hand then the art you asked for appears!

Below, the current stage in the Green Egg painting!

here are two oil paintings that now have added onto them wet acrylic gel medium that looks white until it dries and then it turns clear.

The green and red are watered down tinted glue which is essentially liquid plastic that drys transparent. Plenty of standard elmers/white school glue has been added also.

The mixture will crackle randomly and create some nice effects!

I’m on a creative streak, this one is part of my violet on gold series, it is activated by the light in the room hitting it and it will always look slightly different as you pass by it. I’m not sure what the next phase of this one is but it will happen!
 

 Acrylic on canvas (8×10) painted white and then light blue and then gold. The effect makes me think of old plaster and old paint and patina. This one does have a story but the theme of love and lust and loss is universal, perhaps you see a different narrative but it stands as it is, perhaps my finest surrealist work…

and below are three more I’ve been working on in the last few days!

here the oil painting from the previous post has been photographed outside and then enhanced with the color and saturation tools in Photoshop. I then added some dodge and burn (which darkens and lightens certain areas).

In some ways the picture loses the old fashioned sepia charm of the previous one and becomes far more busy.

Looking at your art in as many ways as you can helps the artist to understand himself I feel.

 Below, the painting is fractalized by mirroring in Photoshop. As with all things in nature, when fractalized a unique pattern appears, the art becomes different art….