He's not a Saint, He's only a Mister . . .

Happy Mr. Valentine Day!

WinterFest

Simpler days and ways from exactly 100 years ago. It's nice that somewhere, somehow we can still do this kind of thing today, hopefully without having to buy a ticket or pay a fee.

Hermann Stockmann — WinterFest — 2014

Dusty

How many times this has happened to me when I've gone to clean the bookshelves! No wonder my books are all so dusty...

Coles Phillips

Sensual Exotics

This image shows up all over the place, but I can never see it too much. Many of my favorite paintings of the '20s and '30s are sensual exotics—color saturated and contrasted color temperatures.

Rolf Armstrong

People All Over the Web

Parts Unknown

Oh, this makes me want to simplify my life and move to parts unknown. I don't know the painter or the year, but I feel like I've been there in some other lifetime.

A Winter's Day

Quite a bit of yummy color for a winter's day . . .

Juegos de Hiel

Heads Up

Before you think I'm getting too sentimental in my old age with my postings, here's a pretty splash page from 1942 by Charles Biro that should keep us feeling heady.

Full disclosure: I don't think anyone actually lost their hat-holder in this story, thanks to Crimebuster and his monkey. 

I jes' love the old comics.

An Old Chestnut

Here's an old chestnut . . . roasting on an open fire?

By now it seems like every man, woman and chile in the world must have seen everything that Mary Engelbreit ever conjured up. Then again, perhaps there are some new comers to the scene, so this graphical message is for them.

©Mary Engelbreit — Believe

The Kid in Me

Holiday comic covers like this one by Daan Jippes are so appealing to the kid in me. And it's a good reminder that now's the time to find your tree, if you celebrate that way.

Daan Jippes — Walt Disney's Christmas Parade #2 — 1989

Slap Him Out've the Air!

Comic book artists have an undeniable talent for telling expansive stories in confined areas. Imagine putting all this action into two small panels and giving it believable perspective and superb rendering. Many comic book artists are graphic geniuses. The graphic genius of these two panels is Russ Heath (I don't know if the breakdowns are by Heath or Joe Kubert.

Tahiti — It's a Magical Place

Ghoul Friend

I've only recently discovered the new Mickey Mouse animated shorts for TV.  I think they're pretty cool, in their own way.  I'm a bit surprised that the Disney Studio is okay with some of the premises and jokes in these shorts, but l think by doing so they are gaining back some audience, like me, that they lost a long time ago.

I'm not into the zombie thing that is going around, but I like this set-up shot of Goofy for one short called "Ghoul Friend"— good for a Halloween posting I think.

© Walt Disney Productions and their appropriate designees

Portraits!

Portraits! I paint portraits! If anyone would like to commission a portrait of a special someone (and that could be you, by definition), now is the time to start the process in order to be shipped in time for Christmas or the other holidays.

Email me for details and costs.

Portrait artwork © 2013 Thomas Haller Buchanan

How Often?

How often do we get to see the Christ Child AS a child, not a newborn? Not that often.

Margaret Tarrant 

Epic Scene

Knud Andreassen Baade 

Scene from the Era of Norwegian Sagas — 1850

Furor Poeticus

Have you ever thought much about 'automatic writing'? Otherwise known as psychography, it's writing 'which the writer claims to have produced from a subconscious or maybe a spiritual source without awareness of the content.'

Similarly 'inspiration' 'refers to an unconscious burst of creativity in a(n)...artistic endeavor.' 'In Greek thought, inspiration meant that the poet or artist would go into ecstasy or furor poeticus, the divine frenzy or poetic madness. He or she would be transported beyond his own mind and given the gods' or goddesses' own thoughts to embody.'

Hmm. Every once in a while, I sit down to a blank sheet of paper, sharpie pen in hand, clear my mind, staring inward through the paper to a bare room, painted white (but with no light on), filled with white noise and a hint of Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk in the dark while humming to himself. Or something to that effect.

And then I draw. I draw without thinking, without stopping, without being aware of what I'm drawing, mostly without taking my pen off the paper. All in 30 second intervals. 

This drawing is one recent result. Hmm, 'given the gods' or goddesses' own thoughts to embody...' 

Anybody have a good anger management class to recommend for the gods and goddesses? 

Close Your Eyes and Dream, Dream, Dreammmmmm

Boy, here's a dream I haven't had in a couple of weeks.

Moritz Stifter — Allegory of Dream

Under the Sea

Under the sea sets always make a great location for fantasy drama.

William Shackleton

Glow

I'm a sucker for images that have some sort of glow in them.

Charles Courtney Curran — 1913