NOTE

- I just sent out a group email to all EBDers. If you didn't receive one, let me know in the comments section. I sent the emails to the addresses used for sign-in on Blogger. Some don't use those as their primary address, so I thought I should make a note of it on EBD.
Carry on.

Gondarr Dire

Double-Rot Schism

So, as those who've been around these parts for some time know, I'm kind of a terminally confused guy when it comes to making art. I like so many different things,and enjoy making all different kinds of images, but I'm also all too able to decide that whatever I'm up to has some kind of essential flaw to it; If I'm making noisy, raw looking stuff, I'm not drawing the clean, refined lines that I like to make, when I draw some grotesquerie or another, I'm thinking about how some genuinely beautiful ornament should be in its place, vice- versa, etc., etc..
I'm always maybe a little too concerned that I'm not looking at what I'm doing objectively, unable to come up with a measure outside myself.I can obsess over some tiny aspect or concern in a drawing and later realize that it made no difference whatsoever . Myopia isn't exactly the hallmark of good work, I don't think. But maybe that's more interesting than anything else?
And I worry over motives: What am I trying to achieve, exactly? Is it simply a matter of pleasure in making marks on paper? Should I try to wrap up actual concerns in my drawings and present them to the viewer? Does that come off as didactic? Does it eschew the genuine confusion and uncertainty that I hold when it comes to everything I've ever thought? Am I even capable of presenting concerns in any real way?
Maybe this is normal. Maybe that's why artists seem to be a little alienated.
But I write this cause I'm interested- and it might be a little indulgent, I realize- in what you guys think of my various approaches. The great thing about blogs like this is that if any of us feel that need for getting a feel of what others' think of your stuff, we can do it here. I don't get that in my daily life. My girlfriend pretty much tells me everything I do is great and none of my good friends are that interested. They like beer and guitars and Bill Hicks. Like most normal people, doing little drawings in your spare time is seen as a pleasant little diversion.They like it when I draw huge tits with metal logos on them.Thats my greatest hit with these goons ( I love 'em, but yeah).
On a really basic level I wonder if I've just lost the passion.I imagine guys like Matt and Aeron hunkered down in their caves, knowing exactly what they want to do and doing it, engaging with drawing in a way that I did at one point, where I just shut stuff out and did it.

Samples:


-Click to Engorge.( each of em)

Decrepit Cupids

Vague Introduction

Hey,
I was invited to post in here thanks to Luke. We had a bit of a debate on my livejournal and upon checking out this blog I find it to be interesting indeed. I guess I could say that I have been making art throughout my life but it's only within the last two or three years that I have really taken a serious interest in it. I would say that my art focuses a lot on how I perceive the outside world to be and there are a lot of lone peasant characters pictured in my art. I stay at home quite often and wouldn't consider myself to be very social,well in real life anyway. Listing influences and citing my favorite artists is something I will leave to another time. I have been published by Nieves Books,Cederteg Publishing,Shoboshobo Books as well as Andthedragon. Doing a lot of group shows and getting my work into various magazines is what encompasses a lot of my time when it comes to art. I have done some work for bands and small labels,mostly noise oriented experimental releases and artists. When not making art I am reading,drinking,listening to albums,sleeping or working a boring office job.

*NOTE:Almost everything I do is on standard sized paper 8.5 x 11 or 11 x17 but sometimes I make an exception.
-Matt Lock

Doctor's Referral

Just a quick mention of a new post at my site - not my own work but a collection of old medical pics - if only because I figured some of you might be interested in this sort of imagery.

Have a look.

Face Dancer

This ink was originally inspired by the "Face Dancer" from the Dune series. As I worked, the ink took on it's own direction. I was trying to express it a little bit differently then, let's say, the Hollywood vision would be. Having said that, I feel like I want to make more of these and improve on them.

paradise

Beasts!

This weekend I'll be done with a project that has taken the past year to complete. Many of you will probably be checking it out in a book coming out in the not too distant future. It began as an exercise, became an obsession, and soon it will be done. I'm finally going to be able to get back to color work, specifically colored pencils and painting, but the vast series of india ink creatures was a fun ride.

Buried By Time..

So I spent a few hours this morning coloring this guy on Photoshop. I was groggy, for reasons I'll explain later. Like me at my last shit job, Photoshop "Unexpectedly Quit". Wasted hours. I even tried out some new techniques that seemed to be working pretty well. Not sure if I'll even remember how they went. I also cleaned up some of the line work using Photoshop.
-So what you see here is a raw scan.
I mentioned to a new friend who's also a drawer that I do that - fix stuff on PhShop- and he looked at me like I just told him I think the new Nickelback album is pretty sweet. I felt some weird sense of shame for a second and then came-to; This drawing is for print. It's not meant to be hung anywhere. The guy is kind of an aging punk/indie type guy, so maybe he carries some bias form the glory days of "diy", that indie ethos. What do you guys think? Is it "cheating"? I used a non-repro blue pencil on this thing and I loved it.You can have a mees of lines underneath everything, but it gets washed out looking under your eyeballs as you ink.You could call that a form of cheating if you took the line of thought to it's logical end.
He does pretty good art though. No web presence to speak of. He does a kind of tattoo flash thing mixeed with UG comics of yore.

***********
I mentioned to Aeron quite some time ago about "drawing with fire."
I kind of wanted to keep it secret, imagining some big reveal.You have to understand that I was really absolutely sick of looking at and applying black lines of ink on white paper. I wanted something distinctly different. I'm not big on painting.I don't have facilities for etching,and it needed to be drawing-based, etc. At some point it hit me: Woodburning. "Pyrography" is the actual term, which sounds pretty cool, I must say.
So I looked into it and a week or so later I bought a Woodburning set-up:




It was sort of expensive, yeah. I enjoy it a great deal, but it takes some getting used to.It's a really bizarre feeling to burn these perfect lines into wood.
I haven't finished any so far that I think are very good. Here are a couple of attempts:


-This one I pencilled out and I like it okay, I just don't know how to finish it. I was experminting with the various "nibs" that came with the set during this one, which wasn't a great idea. I was a little too eager, maybe. If you refer to the pic of the kit, you'll see those tubes with the red caps. Those are the "nib" ( actually called "tips") containers; lines of various thickness, different "shader" type tips, etc.
The process, when done correctly, is actually a lot like tattooing: Pencil on paper, transfer paper, apply it to wood, etc.
I haven't done it all the way through yet, for a number of reasons.



-This one quickly devolved into a sketchbook page on wood. It's a good way to learn what not to do.
I plan on doing a lot of this over the summer. I'm a little reticent to describe exactly where I want to take it, but roughly speaking I think I want to do a kind of ornate/decorative/ geometric kind of thing, with a certain rawness to it.I've even thought about finding ways to age the wood after I've burned on it. I want it to be some kind of arcane artifact or something.
Most people who burn do a kind of craft at the cabin thing with it, a lot of bad wildlife art. The more contemporary guys I've seen who burn ( I was kind of dismayed to note that a number of contemporary artists do woodburning, hate to say.) do a kind of ironic play on the crafty cabin thing.Not at all what I'm after.
I have already planted the seed in a friend of mine, a guy I grew up with who came home to MN for a visit a while back. I think he posted some pics on his blog ( If any of you guys skateboard, you might now who he is.). You'll have to scroll, I imagine. He's burning on old leather bags, which is pretty cool.*
You can also use various color wood stains and even watercolor on woodburnings, something I'll definitely explore this summer.

That's if this guy doesn't chew the shit out of my wood:


-We just got him yesterday.
I'm trying to squeeze in too much info here: My significant other and I just bought a house. That's why I haven't been posting much. We moved in maybe 3 weeks ago and it's been pretty chaotic. We couldn't help but immediately add to the chaos by picking up the little monster at the pound yesterday.( Did you know they put microchips in dogs at the Humane Society nowadays?) He's a Boxer mix of some kind, probably with a generic Retriever or something.
This is why I didn't sleep last night. I'm hallucinating right now from lack of sleep..
You guys got any name suggestions?
He enjoys running awkwardly on hardwood floors, pooping, and looking unutterably cute. I wonder if, in a parallel universe, that Earths HP Lovercraft wrote about things so cute they destroyed minds?

********************************

Did I mention that I'm pretty psyched on EBD right now? We've got great new members and one on the way that I'm a big fan of. Tonight I'm going to work on a banner, and I invite any of you who're interested to do the same.We'll throw up that code
that cycles through the banners.

* I just scrolled through his photo blog a bit and couldn't find the image in question.I know it's there, but you're in for some serious scrollin' if you want to look for it.

*********************

In Lieu Of

Hi Everybody.

Welp, here's a silly self-portrait in lieu of anything more substantive... just something to post for the time being.

Hope you all have a pleasant weekend... I've had about 15 cups of coffee so far today, and I'm about to top that off with some gin. Good times!

32

I turn 32 today. I like getting older quite a bit as it gives me more of an excuse for my uncontrollable patriarchal nature. My wife got me the new big Gary Panter book, which is pretty amazing, really makes me happy to look at it. My sons got me a high quality American flag, made in the USA. Awesome, the neighborhood i live in isn't exactly American flag country, so i enjoy sticking pins under people's bottoms in whatever way i can, especially if it is a morally & culturally complicated way. I checked out a couple of Bosch & Brueghel documentaries & books from the library as i'm heading in that direction. I think i'm going to start working on my traditional style of drawing & painting & even trying out some of that ergot influenced Dutch Mastery. I found a fun little key to Boschian symbolism which i'll reprint here, just for the hell of it.

Pigs = false priests; gluttony
Fruit = carnal pleasure
Rats = lies against the Church; filth; sex
Fish = false prophets; lewdness
Closed Books = futility of knowledge in dealing with human stupidity
Flames = ergot poisoning; fires of Hell
Flying Monsters = hallucinations of ergot poisoning sufferers; devil's envoys
Keys = knowledge
Lutes and Harps = instruments for praise of God and pursuit of earthly love
Breasts = fertility
Mussel Shells = infidelity
Black Birds = unbelievers; death or rotting flesh
Knives = punishment of evil
Rabbits = multiplication of the race
Eggs = sexual creation; key symbol of alchemy
Ice Skaters = folly
Funnels = deceit and intemperance; false alchemist or false doctor
Strawberries = fleeting joys of life, love
Owls = great learning
Ears = gossip
Spheres = alchemical apparatus

I'll have to develop some sort of similar symbolic group for my pieces, because it's alot of fun. Here are a couple of older pieces i don't know if i've placed on this blog. The first is a man to cut out & pose using brass brads. The second is a poster/calendar i did for the esoteric publisher Wonderella. The poster/calendar style is most likely the direction i'm developing next.

Bubble Gutz

One of a strange species from Hob Bob, the bubble gutz come in all shapes and sizes and have translucent bubble like bodies. They absorb random wildlife unfortunate enough to get stuck in their bubblegutz.

the six "Virtues"

SCIENTIST RIDS THE WORLD OF THE EVIL CURSE OF THE VAMPIRES

Here's a few solid tracks from my favorite Scientist album, with one seriously awesome cover. I love the idea of these guys chasing Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstien, The Wolfman, and a horde of zombie creeps out of the swamp by the power of fat ass dub reggae beats. Eat some dub you undead mothers!


Scientist - The Voodoo Curse

Scientist - Your Teeth In My Neck

Scientist - The Corpse Rises

boxing machine helmet

Color!

I just started messing around with color. I'm adding a sequence to the book I'm working on that will hopefully look completely different from the rest of the book.

A Note of Introduction

Hi All.

My name is Jeffrey Meyer and I was invited by Luke to join the blog - thanks to him for thinking of me and thanks to everyone else for all the great art you've posted here. I've been reading "Ducks" for about a year now, I guess, and I'm really impressed with everyone's work - you all have such distinctive, accomplished styles. It's very inspiring, so I'll do my best to contribute work equally interesting... I hope. I recognize many of you from various places online, in particular the Comics Journal message board.

To be honest I haven't been drawing regularly for about three years now; from about the ages of 15-30 it was like a religious obsession for me, but then one day I just sort of... stopped... there were all sorts of reasons (and excuses, I admit) but I found myself very frustrated with my abilities and my imagination (and, of course, lack of success). So I began to make collages to amuse myself. After a couple years of this, I was surprised to find that not only was the process of making art enjoyable again, but I was actually impressed with the results - it's remarkable what happens when you have no expectations about the finished work, and you don't have to exercise your hands and eyes like an athlete. Of course I'd like others to be as impressed as I am, but I understand collage is not everyone's cup of tea... Funny, though, good drawing is still my favorite medium to look at, there's just something about it that really grabs me, and I have the utmost respect for people who draw well.

At any rate, I'm not sure what kind of work I'll be putting up alongside all of yours, but if you'd like a look at some of what I've already done, please visit my site here.

Nihilistic English Bubblegum

This is an old Sex Pistols interview record, just a fan product to make some extra money off of, but the cover is so perfect. The Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm Mclaren pulled a Warholian avant garde underground art/cultural event as commodity before the Sex Pistols even had a chance to properly dissolve & become part of history. With Jamei Reid executing this larger vision, you've got something quite weird & quite wonderful.

The Great Rock&Roll Swindle is seen as one of the most terrible movies ever made, but i just love it. It's so English.

Crunchy Beats!

One of the crunchiest beats known to mankind was made by none other than John Carpenter.

For more extremely crunchy beats, play the first track on here by Luke Eargoggle. And if you're still hungry for another bowl of captain crunch beats, play some Mos Deaf and Massive Attack - I Against I or Whodini's Haunted House of Rock.

And then there is possibly the crunchiest beat driven song in the world..