The Fine Art Blog of Daz and Holly

 Yea, it’s an honor to share my art with you again after a brief period of uncertainty! Here’s a sketch I intend to make into a ‘lowbrow’ oil painting! Pencil sketch soon to be an oil painting!

Models include Buddy the bird and Youdle the bear and my guardian angel.

You can download the bigger size on my Flckr account Gobzine  if you wish!

 I’ve done a lot of different art projects recently, in no particular order…

Darren Daz Cox with finished oil painting "Allegory of Imagination" colorized with oil glazes!

Available for sale and will hopefully be displayed at The Speakeasy Art Gallery in Pekin Illinois.

Prairie Princess drawing by Darren Daz Cox. Just a random sketch.

you can see a bigger version and can buy a print etc of this one at my DeviantArt site!

Gold Fish Angel by Darren Daz Cox – in progress!

Piano Girl – oil on canvas and glow in the dark paint (in progress) by Darren Daz Cox

Piano Girl – oil on canvas and glow in the dark paint (in progress) by Darren Daz Cox

 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

So I rented a corner in an old crumbling building called The Speakeasy gallery in Pekin Illinois. It’s located right across from the courthouse on Court Street! I’m on the 3rd floor with some other cool artists (go up the stairs in the corner in the bottom gallery turn right and go up again!).As you can see from the pic I have started some paintings that are 9ft high and 6ft wide, two panels that size in my corner! I have another space right next to this where I will do another oil painting on the wall approximately 10ft high and 9 feet wide, wow! Scale can be an awesome factor in art! On the scaffold I feel like Michelangelo painting the Sistine chapel!

Here is me, Darren Daz Cox, in front of the work in progress "Allegory of an Artistic Inspiration".

 Here is the original pencil sketch I drew as a starting idea. I wanted to show "inspiration" in an allegorical form, the angel grabs inspiration from "heaven" and throws it to the girl painting. The girl sleeping is sending her inspirational dreams up to heaven or the collective unconscious etc. It is a loose concept with plenty of room for exciting things to happen, like the dragon who just magically appeared!

Sketch for the walls of The Speakeasy Gallery in Pekin Illinois by Darren Daz Cox

In case you just found this post randomly, here is the next phase of the mural!

and here is the most current version! I need to take a better pic but you can see how much detail was added!

and now I am working on the next section of wall so the whole thing is getting to the size of a Thomas Hart Benton mural yea!

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!

 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

A person suggested that creativity was personal yet art should consider the needs of others. I say No.

I have to say that art has no responsibility to anyone except it’s maker. Jackson Pollock didn’t heed the responsibility to make art that was ‘understandable’ or helpful or informative or  even ascetically "good" (to the majority of people at the time) yet he became one of the most famous artists ever.

Social responsibility changes over time and what one generation takes for granted another frowns upon or makes illegal. Girls used to get married at 13 and so if you painted a child bride back then it was a normal genre scene, now it is either a fairy tale painting or some psychological split with reality, perhaps in a criminal way. Balthus would never make it into a gallery these days because of current versions of social responsibility, yet his work is in the Met right across from a Gauguin painting.

A hundred years ago if you painted a certain leaf of the cannibus plant you were probably a botanist or illustrating a historical thesis, perhaps on the founding of America, a proud patriot and could hold your head high *ahem* in society, but now if you painted the very same leaf  society says that you are probably a druggie and will be automatically labeled and catagorized, guilty by association at the very least.   That same leaf art is now  "harmful to society" see what I’m saying here? The art is still the same exact art but society decides who YOU are for making it.

I don’t think that society should have any influence on art, art is art and if others like it that’s great, if not then it is still art and just as valid a persuit as any other thing, perhaps one day others will appreciate that art but there’s hardly a prerequisite for art to be considered "good" or "acceptable".

Did Vincent Van Gogh have a responsibility to give up his ‘crazy dream of being a painter’ and become a productive member of society instead of a "leech" when it was obvious that no one outside his friends appreciated his art?

Society is like your mother, or a friendly guidance counselor, it wants you to do "well" for your own good, for the good of society but unfortunately it only considers the short term. I think Van Gogh would have killed himself sooner if he had given up painting and became a church janitor, which would probably be the only job he’d feel comfortable doing!

Society is healthy when people are allowed to "fail" in the short term because in the long term those failures might just be our proudest accomplisments, heck the US government itself used Jackson Pollock’s ‘action paintings’ as a ‘weapon’ in the cold war (because the Soviets were so proud of their ‘realism’ and therefore ‘behind the times’ etc).

~* The cat in the Tree – illustration by Darren Daz Cox*~

If someone trys to tell you that your art isn’t showing ‘social responsibilty’ you know what you can tell them to kiss!

Youdle is over 30 years old, which makes him a senior citizen in terms of the life of a teddy bear, oh sure there are antique bears but most of them are not alive with the magic that only a child can animate them with. Once the child stops believing then the bear becomes just a pile of stuffing and fabric ready for another person to give him life. Youdle was brought to life in the UK then shipped to Hong Kong in a packing crate and again, years later in a box to Peoria USA, he has had a lot of surgery’s and his ears have holes where Sonja, well, I don’t even want to know what she did to his ears but they are worn clean through.

Youdle is my sister’s bear, the last surviving member of the time when there were many animals that had personalities, and while she is very much a responsible grown up she still has that connection with her childhood when Youdle was born. Now her daughter is enjoying the magic of Youdle! I’ve owned Youdle.com since 2004 and this is it. Youdle doesn’t mind. This post is dedicated to Jean aka Cheerful Monk as I think she understands, at least her recent blog post made me think so!

And Youdle believes that the purple squirrel is a miracle rather than a freak of nature as miracles are more fun!

Youdle Bear – Youdle.com "love is the answer!"

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!

Wow, another painting is finished! And I only started this one, along with the Springtime Maiden two years ago haha!

Ok, so I have to sign it and finish up the frame but it’s done. I found some really nice dried pressed flowers on sale for a dollar at Michaels and had a thought of adding them onto the painting in the abstract yellow blobs – but I will refrain, it’s done dammit! This next one which I have now titled, is almost done, just one more layer or so on the dress and maybe some shadows in the foreground, but I’m entering this one in the next Art Alliance of Monmouth County art show on the 30th of this month so it’ll be dry and done too!

Everyone loves the surreal paintings of Salvador Dali and while I’m not quite as technically proficient as ol’ Sal yet, it is a total thrill to be able to paint something in that genre. I am quite proud of the sculptural forms in the background, one day I would like to sculpt them! Just in case you think I’m on a little ego trip, this is what I was drawing in High School, and then in the air force right before I went to college to become an artist. I had never painted a landscape or drawn a female figure that didn’t look like a Neanderthal cross dresser on PCP. Oh by the way Neanderthal Cross Dressers on PCP aka NCDPCP is the name of my new punk band, a punk band so hardcore that we’ve already broken up before we recorded anything or played a single gig! But yeah, being an artist happens in your mind first and anyone can learn to make 3D objects on a 2D surface, that’s a learned skill like riding a bike or playing "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath on guitar. The Italian Renaissance spawned hundreds of painters who learned realism like people learn a foreign language today. It’s easier if you start young and are immersed in it but pretty much anyone can do it. You don’t have to be ‘good’! It’s not a contest!!! Being an artist is like being in a punk band, you are because you say you are, you don’t need a record label or fans or talent, you just need the will to be one and you are.

"Love is leaf like" pencil on paper, sketched at work with the intent to inspire and spread joy, approximately 3 inches by an inch or so, by Darren Daz Cox – super mega awesome cool American artist from Planet Earth.

The title is from the brilliant Minutemen song "#1 hit song" in which the lyrics say (in their entirety).

"On a back of a winged horse, through the sky pearly gray, love is leaf like, you and me baby, twinkle twinkle, blah blah blah E T C"

It’s a perfect punk rock song that (most likely) was a response to the cheesy love songs that top 40 radio churned out in the mid 1980′s. It’s not that cheesy love songs aren’t ok it’s just that art done to inspire rather than to make money is generally better. (making money is cool too if it is a side effect of the inspiration!)

This is a sketch from a series of little pencil drawing I do at work and recently have been giving to my friend Marisa (she gives people her origami so I send the creativity back with my sketches).

It’s more of an honor to have someone put my work on their desk than to have someone buy something (thanks to all of you at my job with my art on your desks btw, it makes it a pleasure to work with you all). On a related note, I made my first ever art sale a few days ago haha, weirdly enough by a good friend, Geno, who used to work at my job, who noticed I had a print of my sunset animals www.flickr.com/photos/gobzine/2575324379/ for sale at Deviantart (I’m not even sure if I have my current address on that account, oh well!)

Thanks Geno, it was an honor to have you knock me out of my ivory tower of unsellability….

I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration and pretty know know how it works for me.

Inspiration is either a momentary coolness observed or a happy memory reflected upon.

Sometimes art can spontaniously happen without inspiration though. Here’s a  drawing that I’ve had floating around my desk at work for a while that happened spontaniously!

"Glitter pen landscape" glitter pens on cardboard by Darren Daz Cox

Origami sailboat and bat and a giant squid! Collage of three cool artists work.

My friend Marisa made the origami sailboat and the origami bat! They sit on my desk at work, so does the giant squid drawing by my friend Rick!

I scanned them in and added some liquify filter random goodness! It is awesome to have creativity around you and I appreciate it so much.

oh, I almost forgot, that noted old grouch Wayne R. Miller on his radio show this morning was heard to announce that he is literally against culture in Peoria Illinois. Wayne stated that he never went to Lakeview Museum and was completely against the cent or two extra tax proposed to "Build The Block", a huge new showcase museum complex on Peoria’s riverfront (that is appparantly just waiting on a little more public funding).

Wayne, for God’s sake, culture is what makes a city into a community. YOU, Wayne R. Miller are culture, how would Peoria be without your radio show? Please consider that a few cents tax on whatever you like to buy in Peoria, alcohol, red meat, guns, whatever, is totally worth it for the inspiration it will bring, who knows, maybe you can teach some classes on radio broadcasting or something, get involved my friend as we need you!! I don’t think Laure is against kids getting culture!

and for the coup-de-grace, here’s Scott tranchitella’s sketch of me haha!

Not your diamonds or parts of your anatomy, your rocks, the ones you found on the ground, in streams, on the beach, in rock shops, you know you have them why not show us on your blog?

That big chunk of rose quartz I found at the top of a mountain near Pueblo Colorado. My bear and seal sculpture is in front of the painting! Art and scuplture by Darren Daz Cox.

 Below is a rock and a grey cat and his dinner!

Acrylics and tempera paints on the back of a wooden dry erase marker board.

 I really am proud of this one. It seemed so silly until i finished it, years and years after it was started, and now it makes me happy.

Completely random it evolved into a narrative and changes with the light source due to the glitter paints and textures.

I’ve been really really focusing on the quantum intent recently. A few days ago i was listening to a podcast of a recent Coast to coast Am show, one that I had apparently not listened to a few months ago as it had been synched to my ipod and they were discussing "Frank’s box".

For those of you not familiar with the concept of ‘Franks Box’ it is essentially a radio that has been tweaked to scan randomly through different frequencies with the net effect of grabbing a bit of sentence here, a bit of music there and making a sort of audio collage from what is being broadcasted in real time on am and fm.

I was therefore listening intently when my car radio seemed to be losing the signal from a channel playing a song I love as I drove home in the hope that my intent to experience a "frank’s Box" type message might come through now that there was a chance for a mixture of signals.

Quantum intent works well in conjunction with some kind of random system, if you know about the Princeton eggs then you know that their random generating functions get less random when people are all thinking about the same thing such an an incident like 9-11 or that terrible tsunami.  (it’s a little more complicated than just that but trust me, intent and randomness are linked, you can see this in quantum theory where potential is actualized by the observer).

So there I was driving down rural hwy 8 and I looked out my window up at the sky and saw a halo around the full moon which was totally beautiful, since I was driving I only took a quick glimpse before i went back to looking ahead down the road and suddenly right as I was marvelling at the sight I just saw, the radio station crossed with another and a guy said "appreciate it"! (I was listening to Joe Walsh’s song "lifes been good" at the time.

No kidding, It’s very satisfying to have a ‘David Wilcock moment’ especially after just listening to his last podcast which was the finest yet. I don’t know if I’m more in synch with everything or the world is synching to me but so much of what David Wilcock mentioned on his last audio blog meshed exactly with my own life. And it’s extra cool to have someone who is from a similar background as me take these things seriously.

I’ve had more incidents of synchronicity/random coincidence/physic guesses etc etc in the past month than in the many years before since I’ve been consciously studying synchronicity.

"Inspire, be inspired and appreciate" – Dannion Brinkley (describing the meaning of life)

Below is my take on reality, don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense, just read it if you want to.

We can’t possibly know the ‘answer’ while we are mortals, if we did then it would ruin whatever reason we chose to be mortal in the first place.

We do have the free will to uncover the truth that we are all the one infinite creator and hating each other is literally hating ourselves and the love or hate we project affects reality,  not just in physiological or psychological ways, but in actual material changes in matter and energy.

Time is not a fixed linear stream – we just perceive it as such. Study after study has shown that while sidereal time is the most observable manifestation of time it is not the whole story.

90% of our DNA is NOT ‘junk’! If we are divinely created then ‘God’ wouldn’t have created nonsensical DNA, if we are merely a biological fluke then there would be plenty of evidence by now for what the ‘rest’ of the DNA does if life is only a biological function.

There is also an idea that we are not complete and must scramble and study and even suffer to ‘graduate’ to a higher state, but I propose that this is not so. We have been programed to believe, perhaps by observing the biological world, that we must grow, expand, fill up as much space and claim as much territory as our own, but rarely is it suggested that we are  complete to begin with.

Is a caterpillar not already perfect?

Does the caterpillar spend it’s days working hard to become a butterfly because the butterfly is a ‘better’ thing to be or does it enjoy being a caterpillar while it can?

Our imperfections are what makes us delightfully unique mortals, we find pleasure in these biological casings and revel in our free will, but we are all one person and while you might be a genius bringing joy to millions or you might save a million lives, you’re no better than that guy watching tv and drinking a beer with his best friends truly appreciating the moment.

There is only one moment (time isn’t just yesterday today and tomorrow, you just think it is!) so if you are sacrificing the moment for ‘the future’ you might be missing the point! Find something to appreciate right now, be thankful for that which is right in front of you. When the universe presents you with a challenge don’t put that challenge off because you think you’re working for a ‘greater good’. There is only right now!!!!

I was thinking about the purple squirrel who’s been seen inspiring kids in the UK with his purple fur and decided that he was painted by an angel and put on earth to remind us how magical things really are! Oh sure, I know you might be hesitant to believe that a squirrel could be born purple and perfectly healthy, but do it anyway. There’s way too much negativity in this world and we need more purple squirrels scurrying around to make us appreciate how awesome and amazing life really is!

Purple squirrel angel painter with Youdle the bear and a random cat fine art by Darren Daz Cox!

To those who discount the purple squirrel (yes there’s a real life purple squirrel out there) as some unfortunate victim of mans wasteful nature and poo-poo miracles as something that only happens in fairy tales, or worse only happened in the Bible thousands of years ago I say take a look around and  try to look for the good things rather than the grim.

Of course it’s a miracle, even if the vehicle of the miracle was indeed some discarded toner or printers ink, the fact that the squirrel survives and inspires is the important thing.

Reality is not fixed, science was wrong, E equals MC squared is not the whole truth (and never was). The Newtonian version of reality as being fixed and logical is just not the case. As much as we apparantly need to cling to something solid and unchanging, the real truth, or the truth closer to the real truth is that reality is malleable, and not just malleable by random forces, it’s being changed by our consciousness. Take a good look at the purple squirrel – as we invented him…

“There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.” – Deepak Chopra

The guys at the Speakeasy Gallery in Pekin Illinois properly divided up the studio spaces allowing me another 10ft x 10ft piece of wall to work with. I set about making sketches for the huge canvas that I nailed to the wall and primed. Here is the (almost) current phase of the painting. As soon as the second coat of primer was down I started with charcoal and then oil paint.

Here (below) is a detail of the painting next to the new one, it shows the dream energy coming from the girl’s pineal gland!

Painting at the Speakeasy Art Center 353 Court Street Pekin, IL 61554, across from the Tazewell County Courthouse.

Here (below) is the sketch I did yesterday for the painting.

There will be a bird eating a worm on a lotus flower and faeries frolicking on the giant ferns! Here’s a sketch I did before the last one and one more after that which is probably NSFW but it is in the genre of H.R. Geiger..That is pretty much all the work I did to prepare for the painting!

"Origin of the universe" fine art by Darren Daz Cox