The Fine Art Blog of Daz and Holly

~*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*~

The Unique Ewe, oil on canvas 8.5 x 11 inches, then waterbased markers added to color her fleece, the next step is to add swirls of elmers (white) glue on the fleece to emphasize the swirl textures and to absorb the color of the marker. I’d guess that the pigment in the markers that will now be locked into the glue will not be as colorfast as the oil paints but it should last a childhood, perhaps it could be re-colored by another owner!

Tinted glues do seem to be sturdy though, here’s a much larger example, canvas over a wood panel about 16×24. Yes, art history buffs, the girl on the horse is an homage to the mighty John Collier! In the sunrise areas I layed down a thick layer of ink from markers (hint: bingo markers are huge and cheap!) then drew my swirly random designs with the bottles of glue. After the glue is dry (couple of days) then you can wipe some black acrylic paint over the glue to make an excellent 3D effect!

~*Allegory of Dawn by Darren Daz Cox*~

Yesterday at the Art Alliance studios in Red Bank I was working on a piece of quantum art that I started in 1993. I tie-dyed a bed sheet, then ripped the sheet up to make ‘canvases’ as I was a starving artist and it was cost effective. On this blue-green random splotched fabric I had drawn, with grease pencil and pastels, a girl surfing while wearing a pink dress, sort of an homage to Jean-Honoré Fragonard and was really proud of my accomplishment, but something happened and I painted over it and then on the other side too. I kept it and it has been on my walls in various stages of existance ever since and the memory of that original piece of art lingers in my mind.

here’s a detail (lower right) of the latest incarnation and below is the previous incarnation before I washed it!

This one has been dry a while and I’ve been contemplating what it means to me.

I love that it looks different with each angle and light intensity and source.

I love that I need not explain what it means as this is pure expression with positive intent.

I hope you find this interesting!

non objective acrylic paint and glitter on canvas by Darren Daz Cox

and here’s another detail shot!

Inspire, be inspired and appreciate!

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!

I added another layer of oil glazes to this one (formerly known as popcorn princess), I was thinking of calling this one ‘the termite’ but that seems to have such a negative connotation so hence the working title it has right now, who knows what it will end up as! **update** well, after the generous comments of my artistic peers and Marlene‘s amazing (to me) revelation that termites were not universally despised (which is a good thing to contemplate as things in nature have a purpose and are therefore good, any problems with the "inherent goodness of nature" are those of human perception. http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/Marais1/whiteantch1-2.html -The Soul of the White Ant By Eugène N. Marais

EUGÈNE Marais was a South African poet, a story-teller, a journalist, a lawyer, a psychologist, a natural scientist, a drug-addict, and a great genius — an abused and forgotten genius, and the world is the worse off for that. He was master of a science that was only invented 50 years later (ethology); it was 60 years before anyone else attempted to study what he’d studied (ape societies in the wild); he described natural mechanisms and systems that were not identified by mainstream science until 40 years later (pheromones); and neither science nor society has yet caught up with many of his findings and conclusions. (read more about Eugène N. Marais by Keith Addison)

Many of us live in wooden houses so, out of need for shelter, the termite is vilified as a pest, but without a way to dispose of dead wood, the forests would become too cluttered for new life. Ahh the paradox of human life, we fight against the tide of entropy, often neglecting the beauty and wonder around us as we desperately struggle to keep things as they are. 

The Termite (Popcorn) Princess – acrylic and oil paints on canvas by Darren Daz Cox

Wendi Kelly, noted writer and thinker  added some great points to my post on acrylic paints with glue added to make deep crackle textures.

Do I (and other fine art painters in general) think about the stability of the medium on the finished canvas, in effect, ensuring the historical legacy and possible re-sale value of the piece?

I think it is far easier to make a painting that will last for centuries than one that will ‘decay’, if you follow the tried, tested and taught rules!

I visited the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) in NYC (New York City) a few weeks ago and as always I was stunned by the seemingly permanant beauty of the paintings. Sure Pierre Renoir was using essentially the same type of quality oil paints that we use today but even the egg tempera (egg whites with pigment) on wood panels from the early Renaissance looked fresh and new, not to mention the Roman encaustic pieces, heck that’s pigment in wax!

Is elmers glue mixed into thick acrylic paints going to decay sooner than a traditional painting? I doubt it, here’s an ‘abstract’ one  from about six years ago that has been on my walls consistantly and seems identical to when it finally dried, and bear in mind the paint was about a quarter inch thick on the canvas when wet!

~* Snorkeling in Truk Lagoon – acylic on canvas 8×10 inches by Darren Daz Cox*~

But I didn’t consider the future when I made this one, it is a "quantum painting", my intentions, my thoughts, my memories are all part of this piece, wether anyone else can see it or not. When Yoko Ono put an apple on a ladder in her show, did she consider April 2008? No, the art existed then, now we have the memory. In the case of this painting, the main part was it’s creation and the joy I felt while watching the metamorphasis as it slowly dried from random paint into a picture. What’s left is a memory of a memory and the paint on the canvas!

Truk lagoon is a cool place – go visit!

~* Truk Lagoon circa early 80′s- photo by Darren Daz Cox*~

 Sometimes ‘quantum art’ doesn’t leave any tangiable traces yet still exists, the final painting by paul Gauguin for example. When his young Tahitian wife finally died, the last memory of what it actually looked like was probably lost forever because she burned their home down, with his final painting on the walls, right after Gauguin died.

I imagine it – therefore it exists.

My favorite painting

My favorite painting is the one I can’t see
somewhere on the walls of a hut in Tahiti
the last mortal act of a soul so completely
absorbed in itself that it reached majesty.
Those tangible dawbs that remain should inspire
us all to strive for our truth
I know what my favorite painting looks like
even though there is now no proof.

~*Darren Daz Cox*~

Probably the most famous, or infamous painter who’s work has self-destructed from not following "the rules" was Albert Pinkham Ryder. You might know him from his The Race Track (Death on a Pale Horse) painting. A.P. Ryder was brilliant, one of my favorite artists and a total quantum painter! Like GG Allin, A.P. Ryder did his art for himself first and then for the rest of the world even if that was a very small world.

Sometimes the process of making the art is the art and what everyone else sees is simply the ‘left-overs’. Was Woodstock just the concert? Consider the act of painting as a form of meditation and a game while it is being created and not necessarily a methodical series of steps to make a completed product.

 So should the artist be concerned with longevity of the painting? Yes, if he intends the art to be for others, but no if it is quantum art (as quantum art exists outside partially outside of space and time!).

Work thou for pleasure; paint or sing or carve

The thing thou lovest, though the body starve.

Who works for glory misses oft the goal;

Who works for money coins his very soul;

Work for the work’s sake, then, and it may be

That these things shall be added unto thee.^[1]

^{Poem by American Illustrator and writer Kenyon Cox}

Yea! I got my studio time at the Art Alliance (Redbank NJ) today! and tomorrow I’ll submit some paintings for the new exhibit with the concept of ‘fauna’,  which is totally what I paint!

I was hoping my new oil paintings would be dry enough but I just couldn’t resist that last layer of color arrgh but no mind, as Bob Ross says "we don’t make mistakes, we have happy accidents" – Bob Ross rules!♥

I got a new plant today, well three herbs in a pot, I love mint! I also got a crystal pyramid from the New Age Center store nearby to the Art Alliance! Here’s one of the paintings I’ll enter tomorrow, I went crazy on the frame with gold leaf flakes and glitter haha! The concept is to have the owner of the painting put something in the frame so the horse is looking at it, like a feather or a photograph, I wonder if anyone will think to do that? Imagine how much of a focal point something red or pink would be with all that gold and green around it…

The other one i put a little pic of in the sidebar cos i will work on it some more tonight and photograph it tomorrow!

I’m really excited about having some studio space, it’s been a long time since I shared an area with other artists, but i remember how that creative energy inspires me. here’s an old poem about an art building i wrote (actually i scratched it with a metal stylus on a found sheet of lexan and made monoprints with florescent tempera paint added as the inked sheet of lexan went through the press!)

The Art Building

the art building at night

is a glorious sight

full of mayhem and wonton destruction

the building at day

is a dismal display

of a brain without form or function 

the quality of line

aint seen all the time

when the hangovers shadow

the lecture, but the time

when the mind is churning sublime

some ART is produced,

YEAH, YOU BETCHER 

(thanx to Carrie, a fun, dedicated artist…)

Amongst the ferns 

amongst the ferns -

shaded deep within

the redwoods power

and timelessness

the sunbeams kiss your tinted skin

and the gentle air

breathes a new caress

rabbit quiet and squirrel still

we twitch and smile

and breathe and glow

tho’ we’ll be gone ‘for winter’s chill

this spot will remain,

too warm for any snow

♥

It was totally warm today, almost 70 degrees here on the east coast!

Just a note for you SecondLife historians and fans of the tiny avatars, Wynx Whiplash was an art student at that art building at the time I wrote that poem!

~* Simplicity by Darren Daz Cox *~

Mega thick acylic paints with elmers glue (standard white glue) squeezed into the wet paint! I like to experiment with art materials and found that the glue in acylic paint really makes some great effects! Texture can be a wonderful thing!

The border on this acrylic painting called "The Family" was done with the crackle glue effect! This jpg however has a digital edge effect on the outside which distorts it somewhat. It was my first in an ongoing series of canvases with a frame or organic border painted as part of the design.

There was a lot of nice art with animals in it at the Art Alliance of Monmouth County in Red Bank NJ last night! The themes were "Fauna" and "Inspired by Seurat", both of which were well chosen for variety and quality I’d say.

There was also a batik demo (given by the amazing Colleen Lineberry) in the studio in the back which inspired me to make some fabric hangings with wax resist art in the future! Hopefully there will be a workshop!

The two acylic paintings below are a diptych called "Innocence and Experience" (in homage to William Blake one of my main inspirations!).

The young horse, to your left, suggests an expanding world, a fresh glistening dewy elastic springtime, the old horse suggests a world that is shriveling up, withering, dry but still full of life, and the composition points upwards to suggest a spiritual connection.

Here I take the ‘frame as part of the motif’ design to the extreme! In both paintings the frame uses more suface area than what it contains!

I started to make horse paintings because of the quote attributed to  Leonardo DaVinci "If  you can draw horses you can draw anything".

~* all art by Darren Daz Cox  *~

and just because I love his positive messaged folky blues-funk, here’s a Biff Brown song (right click to download the mp3)

Judith Slaying Holofernes (1614-20) Oil on canvas 199 x 162 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

art by Artemisia Gentileschi (July 8, 1593 – 1651/1653)

  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.

“Now the great winds shoreward blow, Now the salt tides seaward flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.” Matthew Arnold (English Victorian Poet 1822-1888)

I bought three kinds of "gormet" sea salt and a couple of glass jars and sat them in the sun with rose quartz chunks and various magical things! There’s pink chunks of 250 million yr old Himalayan salt, light grey chunks of Celtic sea salt from Europe and big white chunks from New Zealand and Australia! Pyramids channel energy from torsion fields according to David Wilcock and he claims they allow a variety of amazing things to manifest such as ESP. So I sat my quartz pyramid on each jar in the warm spring sunlight and thought good thoughts and voila magic salt! Even if you don’t believe in magic you’ll love unrefined sea salt, it’s a lot less harsh than factory salt and healthy too! I added a scandalous hint o’ the liquify filter on that photo hehe!

~*Allegory of fishing with white feet for Deena
acylics and glitter paints on canvas by Darren Daz Cox*~ Salt is rocks that you can eat put it on your broccoli trees crystals are magic and take it from me the best kind of salt is from the seas!
~*art and poetry by Darren Daz Cox*~

 I refuse to pigeon-hole myself into a genre of art so I make some non-objective art as well as abstract art. To the masses, the two words are one and the same but they mean two different things. Abstract is based on a thing, such as an apple, non-objective is not based on a thing, such as Jackson Pollocks’s drip paintings (he wasn’t painting a ‘thing’ he was painting an idea/feeling/experiment etc).

This first one is non-objective, it isn’t a thing, it’s just an organic flow of lines and color. My brain wants to make it into something like a man or a floating brain or something but it is not intentional, any more than seeing a bunny in the clouds is intentional.

"It’s in your brain" oil and acrylic with markers on canvas board 8 in x 10 in by Darren Daz Cox

Below, is an abstract painting of two people with some apples.

"Abstract Apple Eaters" oil and acrylic on canvas with markers by Darren Daz Cox

 I’m still adding layers of oil glazes to a dozen or so canvases, it’s a slow process but extremely satisfying as the pieces fall into place, here’s my studio with some of the canvases that have dried enough for the next layers of paint!

In the Keansburg NJ art studio 2008 and below is an acrylic painting that may or may not be finished hmmm.

I painted on this for hours yesterday, it evolved in many strange twists and turns, I’ll finish up the waterfall part soon, I’m not sure if it has any meaning, perhaps it is like a cloud where your imagination invents things to see in it..

Waterfall under the moon by Darren Daz Cox 24×36 oil/acrylic/tempera on canvas

~all art by Darren Daz Cox~

Texture and shadows are your friends! 2D art doesn’t have to exist in one state, by adding areas of raised texture and moving the lighting around you add new dimensions to the work!

All three paintings on the table have been in an unfinished state for a year or more but I have thought of them and look at them everyday. This is the quantum effect, my intentions affect the work.