Cowboy Dragonfly Riders

I've been working on these lately as I have had several good captures of dragonflies in the field next to where I live and thought it would be cool to put some of the cowboys I have from the Reno Cattle Drive riding them. I have strange dreams, what can I say? Here is what I have created so far.

Dragon Rider

 Cowboy Bee Roping

Western Snake Doctor

I started by putting each one in a setting by itself and now I can add all these guys into one composition. I am working on one with multiple characters in it right now, I just need to find a good background. Maybe a saloon?

Published in Edge of Humanity Magazine

Thanks to Joelcy Kay at Edge of Humanity Magazine  www.edgeofhumanity.com  for publishing some of my Woody series this month! Check out the article here. 

I did a composite of some of my recent work and am happy with my production last week. 

These are all digital paintings. I recently purchased a new Wacom tablet as my old Bamboo wasn't working well. I have been neglecting my traditional painting and hope to get back to it this week.

I have been working on an image for a new digital painting and just need to work out a final idea. 

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I would like to stay with Surreal images on these.

 

 The gallery showing at Nevada Fine Arts is running all this month with two of my pieces for sale.

Modern Coyote

Turtle Island

 

Wood Spirit Series

I've been busy making wood spirits from some of the portraits I already have for my new Wood Spirits series. I need to get out the paint and start doing some paintings as well. Here are my latest including a self portrait.

Ricky kodama-sama

Ricky kodama-sama (self portrait)

Kodama are spirits in Japanese folklore that inhabit trees, similar to the dryads of Greek mythology. The term is also used to denote a tree in which a kodama supposedly resides. The phenomenon known as yamabiko, when sounds make a delayed echoing effect in mountains and valleys, is sometimes attributed to this kind of spirit, and may also be referred to as "kodama".

These spirits are considered to nimbly bustle about mountains at will. A kodama's outer appearance is very much like an ordinary tree, but if one attempts to cut it down, one would become cursed etc., and it is thus considered to have some kind of mysterious supernatural power. The knowledge of those trees that have kodama living in them is passed down by the elderly of that area over successive generations and they are protected, and it is also said that trees that have a kodama living in them are of certain species. There is also a theory that when old trees are cut, blood could come forth from them.

Wally Woodfury

I created the first of my new series of Woody today, Wally Woodfury.

Wally Woodfury

Wally Woodyfury is a woodwose or "wildman of the woods". He is a mythical figure that appears in the artwork and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to Silvanus, the Roman god of the woodlands.

The defining characteristic of the figure is its "wildness"; from the 12th century they were consistently depicted as being covered with hair. Images of wild men appear in the carved and painted roof bosses where intersecting ogee vaults meet in the Canterbury Cathedral, in positions where one is also likely to encounter the vegetal Green Man. The image of the wild man survived to appear as supporter for heraldic coats-of-arms, especially in Germany, well into the 16th century. Renaissance engravers in Germany and Italy were particularly fond of wild men.

Man Saves Nature- Work In Progress

I started a new digital work today from a dream I had the other night. I pictured a lot of power lines in a perspective grid with a tree hanging upside down from the roots in an electrical field. Sort of Matrix like but with a tree instead of humans. I imagine this will end up looking nothing like the original idea but it is fun to sometimes document the creative battle. I started with an old low resolution sky file from a storm in the Bahamas and mirrored it 2 ways, lowered the saturation and the noise to create a back plate.

Back Plate

Cowboy

I made this one from multiple images starting with a panorama for the background to allow it to be printed large. On my website this image will print at 60.00"x 39.625".  Here is the final image.

Cowboy

I made the composite image and added textures to each layer as I went.