Paint first, Think later. This is a good way to get started. But sometimes we have to wait a very long time for something less sublime to staff the picture. When the people and critters fail to appear, I realize that this is the way God intended it. We are surrounded by silent and mysterious landscapes. If only we’d listen!
This reminds me of Gulfoss waterfall in Iceland.
I’ve said it before, “Crystal Cities are what I paint when I don’t know what to paint.” This is how I prefer to work: into the moment, reacting to my materials and methods, with the confidence that some useful meaning or justification will emerge. It’s a strategy and a form of self-interrogation that relies, somewhat comfortably on a limited set of artistic variables. They don’t teach this in art school! It is borne from necessity and makes its own mysterious path.
05-05-22a
05-05-22c
04-27-22b
04-27-22a
If one pays attention to the news, it seems that humans love to fight. So many do it. We all love a good fight. But just for once (and maybe forever), I’d like to know what we would talk about and do if we weren’t preoccupied with fighting and being mean to each other. Don’t you?
04-19-22b
The war in Ukraine is close to all our minds and hearts. I try not to focus on it directly as if it were an illustration assignment to solve. But imagery arises easily when onion-domed Crystal Cities appear on my paper.
A couple embraces on a precipice above old Odessa. Their home is a target.
Welcome to the Glutton’s home. His home is very large just like his appetite. You should know that he will try to eat you too. Now that would be something to see! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
With the pandemic scrambling our internal calendars and clocks, we’ve come to rely on those shared community timekeepers to keep us on track. But it’s the weekend and the bell ringer is taking the day off. Don’t worry, things have a way of working out.
Lately, I’ve added borders to a few drawings. How exciting!
Crystal Cities are my go-to doodle strategy. Here is a smattering of some ornate ones from the past two months. I’ve been busy compiling these and others in two new self-published catalogs.
Crystal Cities 2019 By Rob Dunlavey (Published 12/2/2021 Paperback) USD25.00
Crystal Cities: 2018 By Rob Dunlavey (Published 11/10/2021 Paperback) USD25.00
Amazingly, my 2022 calendar poster is available with plenty of time left in 2021. I have not delayed and neither should you. Order one (or several) now. 18 x 24" , shipped flat & folded or rolled in a tube. Please indicate with your order; prices vary. Get it at Etsy
Think of the resources marshalled to connect this castle with the distant shore: architects, masons, stone cutters and marine engineers. They built caissons and cofferdams and stationed barges with primitive cranes to hoist and position the carefully carved blocks. Did they have any idea how sublime the rising sun would look on this day? Reflect on the mind of a seagull: the sublime is the humdrum to them.
From sunup to sundown the wrestlers wrestle. They wedge themselves into their cramped corners and defend themselves with tenacious holds. It seems that the small building itself is what keeps them from realizing victory and throwing their opponent to the floor. They grunt, growl and sweat day in and out. The birds come and go. They can’t figure it out: why do they fight?
I try to work quickly with my very limited imaginative and artistic resources. My process: 1. Deface the white paper with some color of some sort (pastels, watercolor, etc.) 2. Add birds or something to animate the scene. 3. Stand back and accept whatever comes out. 4. Don’t fuss and then move on.
Between Heaven and Hell
Prometheus or Pieta
Falling Birds
When traveling, I leave my paints at home and use colored pencils more. As usual, I was up early, this time in Brunswick, Maine at my mother-in-law’s. After brewing coffee for everyone, I settle in her favorite chair and look out the windows to her well-designed garden. And then the doodling begins.
A scrap of art paper glued down suggested a fruit bowl filled with overripe persimmons. The mantis is vexed by the cloud of swarming fruit flies. She prefers purity.
(collage, watercolor, ink)
Some examples of 19th and 20th century Mingei style wares below.
It just occurred to me, the connection between a general fascination with utility poles and the criss-crossing grid of wires and thingamajigs and some abstract grids I’ve been drawing lately. I’m so glad that mystery is solved!
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The world is filled with empty spaces. As you repeatedly divide space from the macro to the micro, the more uninhabited it becomes. Eventually, we are left with a vast infinity between atomic particles. We are more not-here than we are here.
A blank sheet of paper presents similar questions. It represents 100% possibility of containing everything known in the universe of human comprehension. A crayon mark or drop of pigment on the paper is like the initial milliseconds of the Big Bang. A flag has been planted into Chaos. Space has been addressed and a strategy will emerge and grow as the chaos slowly takes on a recognizable form. More drops and washes of color are added. Loose grid lines and organic forms further define (or limit) the universe that is forming.
And so it goes, this tension between abstraction and a representation of reality, until in my case usually, a reality forms. There is Up. There is Down. I see a Horizon and Depth. I see Light and Shadow. How predictable! But then I run from this predicament and add a bird, a figure that represents consciousness and a sense of history and even culture. This is the bird brain: an intersection of Mind and Mindlessness.
01-03-21b
01-12-21a
01-13-21a
01-17-21a
02-05-21a
Overnight, in the blink of an eye all the trees have been cut down, fires have come and the animals have fled. In the aftermath, squirrels return, disbelieving and bewildered. “Where is our home? Where will we sleep tonight? Shame on you!”
04-16-21a
06-06-20a
06-16-20b
06-26-20a
Blue and Yellow is an attractive color combination for me …and I don’t have a drop of Swedish blood in me. This color scheme is always fresh and balanced even when the core hues veer to an impure fringe. It suggests open vistas and the basic color experience of a day at the beach.
03-25-21b
03-25-21a
01-20-21b
01-01-21a
