The Fine Art Blog of Daz and Holly

I am a pretty cool guy, I make art, I write poetry and have always been a dreamer.
One day I met my soulmate Holly and the adventure began.
She made me a soda cap button like the couple in UP.
I made this Adventure book for our souvenirs!
Holly is my favorite art model and inspires my figure drawing with her natural poses, I mean she is wearing a posh frock, pearls, painted but bare toes and is peeling potatoes for her gormet soup right now. We call it Vincent Van Gogh soup because we are poor like his Potato eaters painting! Being poor and creative is far better than being rich and un-creative! She made me a Dead Milkmen ‘taking retards to the zoo’ (it’s a song off their debut album) unofficial bootleg t-shirt for Christmas which is so excellent and punk rock! The pic below was drawn long before I met Holly and kind of symbolizes the past for me. The bored angel with her neglected guinea pig haha! guess that isn’t too hard to find some psychological meaning in there if you like to do such things.

Above is one of my latest sketches taken from real life. Holly likes to jump up and down on the bed, because she can and that carefree frolicking inspires my art more than more ‘serious’ topics. I am a Roccoco fan (it’s the art of the court of Marie Antoinette!) far more than what came after that era of art! I have always wondered if the figures in famous paintings of the past were inspired by lovers (rather than it being an intellectual exercise in line and shadow for example). I’m sure if Vincent Van Gogh had found his soulmate he would have painted lots of pics of her! Here is a pic of Holly working on a painting!
Holly has been making some great stuff with Femo clay! I love the fact that her art compliments mine. It feels good and makes people happy.

I just had the best Christmas of my life (since I was a kid anyway!).
DJ Disaster suggested that I should buy a ‘Our first xmas’ ornament and I said “you don’t know Holly if you think she would buy something like that or think it was cute that I bought one of those hideous mass produced pieces of generic crap!”.

It’s cool being punk rock artists, Holly and I have the same thought processes and attitudes to materialism and general weakness in society. There’s more to xmas than buying crap! As I suspected, she made a flying guinea pig ornament with a Gustave Klimt inspired present in his little paws haha! So excellent! We will meet him again next xmas!

I have so much more art to put on this blog but for now, this photograph I took of Holly and her bird paintings in progress really makes me happy, I hope it inspires you to be creative too!

“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” Vincent Van Gogh

Well the zine project is off to a great start! Over 50 people have received their copy of Faerie Zine #1 (in various incarnations as I worked on it!) and some people really liked it! I’m sure everyone appreciated it that received it but it obviously isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but the art project was to do it! Spread the love! Below is art from the next copy out in a month or so! GoBzine Publishing rules!

You can get your own free underground art zine by writing to Darren Daz Cox box 1111 Pekin Illinois 61554 USA Planet Earth. (I know, how excellent to have box number eleven eleven right? The universe loves me and wants YOU to get cool art for free in your analog mail box!!)
Eventually, as Riverfront Media gets settled I will have color copies of zines aand poster sized prints available for whomever asks!

There was no thought, no conscious intention even, just peace and harmonious feeling channelled through to the hand from the soul…
The one below was from the same pages of the wonderful sketchbook I bought on sale at Hobby Lobby in Pekin (yea! I love that place!!!). It is using a variety of art materials and is a prototype for larger paintings!

Soon after that yellow bird appeared on the drawing above, I saw a bright yellow bird in the parking lot at my day job and he inspired me (along with his greener colored mate!).

and if you realllly want to hear it, here’s a link to a song I made with my band Homer Simplex (in the Riverfront Media studios at the Speakeasy Art Center 353 Court st. pekin Illinois) to inspire Dave Omega Moses to write some new material since he is a really awesome singer/songwriter! Dave Omega Get Off The Couch
and if you need to read the lyrics for that 30 seconds of musical genius*…
this song goes out to Dave Omega you need to get off the couch
pick up your banjo make your fans go wow wow wow
put down the star wars dolls stop drooling on boba fett
you’ve watched so many Netflix movies you’re turning in Shrek
you used to write some real good songs but now you a lump
so get off the couch dont be a silly chump – Dave!

I am working on getting royalty free audio material for our 24/7 streaming radio station (for arts related projects and community service that Riverfront Media is initiating with me as the program director!). I will have a bunch of short stories and poems as well as original olde time radio Theee- a-Tor!

Oh and I almost forgot, here is my latest inspirational poem!

This world is a mirror of how you feel
it reflects back symbols of you
so BE the change that you want to see
and find out that this is true.

If sad why stew and make the world blue
and hating just makes your fate worse
and you CAN get the whole world to smile with you
but you will have to smile first!

*the amount of genius in this song is mostly due to Apple and Garage Band on my Macbook!

Im finishing up a ton, and I mean lots of unfinished projects, uploading and then selling/giving the actual art away! Im reducing the clutter in my life and in my mind and the less distractions I have the more time I spend doing art and that time doing art is really what matters most, it is my passion and my bliss. So here are some of the latest things!

Hidden Hamster tempted by golden apple, pencil sketch with colored pencils – original to a private collector.

Gypsy Singer, pencils, awesome drawing by Darren Daz Cox of Pekin Illinois USA.

Zombie Petting Zoo, grisaille oil paint on 8×10 canvas photo frame colored with colored pencils (yes, that actually works!). Price 99$ or trade for something cool you have, find me on facebook if interested.

This one is a photograph of me and my family taken when I was kid, back when I was drawing robots and mutant alien punk rockers and didnt give a crap about tomorrow, Im learning a lesson from my younger wiser self as what a nightmare it turned into by planning for an art show in the future, its not for me, im doing art for right now for this is where I am and that makes me happy!

This one is a sculpture that shows a treasure chest opened and has my tiny sketch of my art model Beth and her bird, one of my smallest sketches but generates lots of happy feelings, treasure indeed!

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.

If you don’t like my post you can press fast forward… (interpolating 99 Problems by Jay-Z)

So why is my blog 99daz.com and not 88daz or 45daz or any other combination of two digits?

First of all 99 is a penultimate number, it’s one away from 100 which in terms of percent is perfect or at least complete.

I’m not trying to be humble by saying I’m not perfect, far from it, 99 is a metaphor for being one step away from God, as all of us mortal souls are.

"You asked me for one hundred dollars but I didn’t have but 99" Sonny Boy Williamson

99 happens to appear more often on my I-tunes playlist than any other combination of two digit numbers, some of my all time favorite songs are "99" songs and many of my favorite bands have excellent songs with 99 in the title too!

No, the Toto song isn’t in my playlist, I don’t hate it or anything negative, it just doesn’t make the cut, considering how many songs I’ve heard and the availability of music these days I don’t have to listen to anything but the best!

So here are my favorite songs with 99 in the title. Perhaps you can suggest some I might have missed?

99 Luft Ballons and the English version (99 Red Balloons) by Nena totally rock and the 80′s punk cover by 7-Seconds and, this took me by surprise, the best (in my opinion) version of the song appeared in the 90′s by Goldfinger.

99 Problems by Jay-Z is one of few new school rap tunes I really really love.

One of my favorite bands Social Distortion did 99 To Life which is a brilliant tune that is an homage to the darker side of those home grown American blue grass tunes. "lonely weekends lonely nights the judge he gave me 99 to life"

Sony Boy Williamson uses 99 as a metaphor for the blues in his classic song 99. After all, what is the blues if it’s not a dollar short?

Two more of my favorite punk bands have songs with the title 99 (weirdly enough), The Minutemen and Screeching Weasel, both songs are excellent.

The last song on my 99 list is a cover sung by a local Central Illinios favorite country rock performer Simon Webb. 99.9% Sure, I don’t know who does the original, maybe I should check it out but I really enjoy Simon Webb’s cover!

There was a time when I wished life was like the 1988 John Carpenter movie They Live, a world subverted by an obvious non-human enemy that you could just take up arms against, kick their ass – (forget the bubblegum) and then ‘win’.

How excellent it would be to just blow away endless groups of zombie alien yuppy pukes who control the world.

Thi$ is your God

Then I found out there really is a group of un-humans running the world, dumbing down people by re-enforcing, with endless repetition, our most primitive desires to fight, fuck and run away, and shellacking a snide veneer of sarcasm to anything spiritual as they enforce the worship of symbols like flags and a few books over human lives.

Then I found out that it’s us who are allowing ‘them’ to subvert us, they are the tangible reflection of the lessons we need to learn, without them we cannot learn to come together and fight, spiritually, for what is necessary for us to survive. Remember the scene in They Live when Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David are beating the shit out of each other? Keith doesn’t want to put the glasses on because they are a symbol of change, he just wants to be a "good German" like most everyone else, but you don’t learn by just being a follower.

The only way to end, for good, dictatorships of all flavors is for a majority of people to stand up and not allow it to happen. Yes, that sounds simplistic, but it is the only way. You have to overcome the fear of death and the fear of losing your loved ones, the fear of losing everything that gives you comfort. You have to make a stand and stop driving in the middle of the road or you will have a wreck eventually. Look inside, meditate, find that inner strength and the world will be a better place.

Oh man, this is crazy, a painting by Albert Pinkham Ryder didn’t sell at auction! and then the website that pointed this out didn’t even do a  spell check. Why are people allowed to buy art by the mighty Albert Pinkham Ryder anyway? isn’t it a national treasure by now?? Well, i know there are a billion or 5.9 billion more pressing concerns than this painting, but come on, what’s the world coming to when this painting didn’t sell?

The screen grab below was from http://www.thecityreview.com/f07camp.html

"it was property formerly in the collection of…" If  A.P.Ryder was so "mystical"  why are you treating this like a used car?

At least the comic strip Apt.3G gave A.P.Ryder a mystical tribute hehe!

Why can’t i meet a woman who gets excioted that Albert Pinkham Ryder painted in a particular place? *sigh*

She is my dream girl…

 It’s good to be on a creative streak again and I am proud that I have finally transitioned from the relative safety of pencil sketches and liquify filter random happy accidents to oil paint on canvas which is what I said I would do about five years ago on a my DeviantArt site haha!

I am so totally a Taurus in that I am stubborn and I feel my art power as a juggernaut and when I get in the zone some cool things that result, things that make it all worth while for me, even though I’ve sold less paintings than Vincent Van Gogh did in his lifetime haha!

Here’s a painting I did the other day, totally at random except for the choice of a pot of white paint, a lid for the pot that turned out to have been for the yellow paint as it had yellow paint on the lid, and two small brushes, one of which, I found by happy accident, wasn’t properly cleaned from the blue paint it still had a bit of on it. The dark lines are from a grease pencil (works perfectly with oil paint!).

The random became serendipity and I totally love this painting! I know, somewhere in the universe, perhaps on a planet similar to this one or perhaps just down the block from me, someone will love this painting too and it makes me deeply happy to know that someone will look at this painting and be happy, if only for a moment.

The Girl and the Bear oil paint on canvas board 8×10 inches (unfinished) by Darren Daz Cox.

Another painting that is still unfinished but getting there is this one…

Moon Falling, oil on canvas about 5 ft x 3.5 ft (unfinished) by Darren Daz Cox

And even bigger than that one…

 

Spirit Journey, oil on canvas (in two pieces) about 8ft tall. Unfinished so far. By Darren Daz Cox

Here is the pencil sketch for the original idea I had for the painting that I’ll probably re-visit many times as it hits my brain’s art g-spot to think about clouds that look like animals and why people do that, somehow it is part of the big answer to the meaning of life (or just cool).

Cloud Girl pencil sketch, (on my desk at work to inspire me) by Darren Daz Cox

I’ve still been sketching with pencil but these days the majority of those have gone directly to people in my immediate circle because it gives them something they can share with others to build a bond, whether they are laughing at it with their friends or admiring it, the result is the same, it is an object that they can focus on while building human bonds, it’s a win/win thing!

Here’s a sketch that didn’t go to anyone in particular because it’s a little too creepy to give this to someone and it’s basically unfinished but it’s here for historical accuracy to show another facet of  my ouvre. I feel obligated to draw some faeries to balance out the angels I’ve been drawing as I don’t want either group to think I’m taking sides! (you might want to read my blog post of faeries vs. angels to understand what I’m talking about here http://99daz.com/faeries-vs-angels haha!)

Random Faerie Representin’ , pencil sketch by Darren Daz Cox

this one is oil paints on a wooden panel, soon to have oil glazes with rich colors oooh! I need to redo her ear though, funny how it’s easier to see the mistakes when i look at an image rather than the actual peice hmmm…

~*Art by Darren Daz Cox* -

 I love to watch paint dry, that sounds like a joke but the process of drying paint can be fascinating when the paint changes shape and color as it dries which is the case when you use clear acrylic medium and elmers glue (trust me, it has synergy with acrylic paint).

The picture below makes me very happy, and I call it The Happy Cloud, in homage of the mighty Bob Ross of course.

here is the painting from a different angle plus another one with the glass bead texture paint I used for the cat in this one.

The painting above, is dry but the texture is smooth and wet looking which is very enjoyable to touch. There is glitter embedded in the clear paint. This one started as pencil and then markers directly on the canvas, randomly but with the quantum intent to inspire and produce happiness.

I have several more canvases ready for the paint stage (a couple are shown below) that are just markers on the canvas so far, the clear acrylic gel and or white school (Elmer’s) glue will absorb some of the pigment from the markers and add even more character to the painting. I will use oil paints for the elephant and for the bird, at least, maybe in some other spots too but I don’t want to over plan the art as i want the experience of making it to be fresh and enjoyable.

Here, below, is the current phase of the Cloud Angels painting, the tiny glass beads in the clear acrylic medium allows the light to make excellent effects!

and here, below, is another one in progress that is making me happy, I call it Happy Red Monster

and here, below, is a photograph to show you the scale of some of my current paintings in progress (I have dozens in progress)

 

Beauty is as beauty does, that’s one of the things we learned from faerie tales, perhaps not the Disney versions where all the good guys are invariably pretty and the villains less so, but you know what I mean. What we learn as we grow up is that confidence is what brings out your "beauty" regardless of how you evolve in a physical way.

When you love yourself you can love others so it is in our best interest to encourage and foster confidence rather than to enforce a Darwinian hierarchy of castes. This carries over into the arts where galleries and organizations generally have an entrenched core of regulars who consider it their turf. I’ve been on both sides, as I’m sure you have, and I know how hard a person can work and how appreciative a person can be to get their chance to a part of the group.

When the government funds local arts organizations for the good of the community it should be inclusive of all the members of the community and not favor the ones with an arbitrary amount of shows and experience under their belts in my opinion. I hope the forthcoming issues of my local, government grant funded, arts magazine do not focus solely on the artists that are already ‘established’ because those artists already have their confidence. If the first issue of X-IT is any example, then to them it is just another step forward in their ‘other’ job. Yes, most artists’ have a day job, but an arts magazine isn’t the place, in my opinion, to talk about that. Art isn’t just ‘another job’, it’s the essence of humanity, we become The Creator when we create, as lecturer David Wilcock so aptly puts it.

Encouraging people to make art, no matter how humble, should be the goal of a taxpayer funded art magazine. I’d like to read about a local senior citizen who finds joy in their art because one day I will be old and art might be all I can do, and if Picasso and Michelangelo are any example, art is one thing I can get better and better at if I so choose and perhaps get a little encouragement here and there. Also I want to read about the people who are just starting college as art students, why not interview Nick Simko and give him a good start, help him find his confidence. One day he’ll be the one in charge of the local arts.

~*Beauty Is as Beauty Does – pencil and digital paint – Darren Daz Cox*~

oh and because I just found it in my archives, here’s a cheesy poem I wrote in 1990 dedicated to those of you who do art because it makes the world a better place, like Lord Byron did…

Poem For Byron

sublime thoughts inspired by love perhaps on the Acropolis

congeal in the floating forms above and cast soft shadows on top of us.

sublime feelings fueled by spring on every vine it’s written

if you love life – then dance and sing for anything less – just ain’t fittin’.

‘neath olive boughs, knee deep in vowels we sit and wonder why

we have the time to wax sublime and get lost in the sky.

would that you join us, today in the sunshine for some verses and maybe some wine

the clouds we’ll be seein’ above the Aegean making us rhyme so sublime

 

I still have some work to do on this one but it’s going to be finished and dry for the next Art Alliance show!

~*The Girl under the Moon – oil on canvas – Darren Daz Cox*~

~**Girl under the moon, unfinished oil on canvas by Darren Daz Cox**~

Still unfinished but I’m about to work on it as I suddenly got a second wind after listening to a few David Wilcock talks. For a moment there I was all tweaked out about evil illuminati and all that but after listening to hundreds of such talks I’ve decided that just being fustrated and angry isn’t worth it.

I don’t want to just ignore the bad things in the world, I’m not a coward so what can I do?I can create things. No, I’m past the point of thinking that I’d be happy if I was a rich and famous artist.The very act of creating these things and you looking at them changes the world for the better.

…and here’s the finished painting!

The girl under the shiny happy magical moon of love and happiness

Oil on canvas with irridescent acrylic paints.

I’ll change the title as often as I want thank you very much!

love, Darren Daz Cox

I like to sing when I’m driving and when I’m working on stuff in the Riverfront Media Club House (my roommate DJ Disaster and I’s house). After listening to a recent Coast to Coast Am streamlink replay where the guest **insert guest name here** told Ian Punnet that he had a whole lot of angels and spirits around him, I suddenly had the idea that my angels might be singing along with me when I’m singing and since they are angelic, MY version of angelic, they must rock!

David Wilcock (as well as Edgar Cayce and many more) have told us that your guardian angels are actually your higher self, a version of you in the future! So if my guardian angels are actually versions of me in the future they must be like a do-wop group, well a punk-esque flavored doo-wop group! Maybe more like Sha Na Na back in the day when they were at their most motley and hippy haha!!

So sing because your gurdian angels are going to follow along with whatever you’re thinking and if you’re thinking about hate that’s pretty lame, think about love.

"Sha-Na-Na were the kings of Woodstock
You know it’s true deep in your heart
Greasy guys in gold lame
If only Hendrix had been so smart
Pete Townshend wouldn’t be so deaf
If he followed Sha-Na-Na’s advice
And played fifties do-wop songs that
Even your mom would think are nice…"

(In Praise of Sha Na Na by The Dead Milkmen)

 “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all.”

 Emily Dickinson quotes (American Poet who has been called the New England mystic, 1830-1886)

And make sure to tune into Coast To Coast Am with George Noori tonight (sunday night january 04 2008) as David Wilcock will be on there as George’s main guest!!! http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2009/01/04.html

  I have several cork boards in my apartment (aka my art studio) with pictures from art books and various paper ephemera that inspires me.

The act of arranging art and things helps formulate ideas in my mind, I’m sure Liz beck has some art therapy techniques that involve collage! I think this Facebook app (that extends beyond facebook obviously) is nice artistic tool for artists and especially for people who don’t think they are so artistic but suddenly discover that they do have a sense of composition when they are allowed to rearrange motifs! Maybe you guys would like to make a vision board and share it with us! Mine had (fbefore the app borked..)

"The studio under the eaves" by Henri Matisse, painted at his financial low point it shows a positive future through the window – brilliant!, a chakra diagram to help me meditate and inspire me to think about the infinite potential of reality, madame Grand by LeBrun, one of the most brilliant portraits ever done and one of my faves in the Met, Blow your cool by the Hoodoo Gurus, a cool cd I love!, The reincarnation of Edgar Cayce (book I’m reading, slowly and thoughtfully), Michelangelos Creation of Adam, just to remind me that we are all given the divine power to create and a still from the cool movie ‘The science of sleep’.

“This is not the antidote (or a collage)” random fine art by Darren Daz Cox.

 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!