Nosferatu

Nosferatu!

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When my kids were little we watched a lot of Spongebob. We were at ground zero, catching it when it first aired. The surreal humor, the timing, the writing that both adults and kids could appreciate? It was magic. To later find out that the series was inspired by the Ween song “Ocean Man” made it even more amazing.

I had been meaning to do this tribute to the episode “Graveyard Shift” (S02E16) Where at the end, the lights start flickering and the crew of the Crusty Crab wonder who the culprit is, only to find out it is Nosferatu!

It’s just so out there. What kid is going to know Nosferatu? I loved it. So here is my tribute.

Baby, it’s cold outside

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I’ve had the idea for this piece for a while – it was inspired by the Lofi-beats to study to girl, but walking outside in the snow. Originally I had headphones or earmuffs, but I went in a different direction. overall I like it, but I feel I could have done something different with the background. It looks better as a print, but I don’t know if it’s print worthy – at least not a full-size print.

Baby it’s cold outside.

I worked on this through my winter break, while I battled a severe cold, possibly RSV. Weeks later I’m still not recovered from it. This was done all digital with Clip Studio and a Wacom Tablet

Yuck

ART AND PAIN

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I used to think that pain was the driver of art. When I was a teen, I thought my art was a product of suffering, but come to find out it was a RELEASE from suffering.

Fast forward, I am an adult nearing 50, and everything hurts. I am now realizing that the physical pain is a blocker to my creativity. I’ve got arthritis seeping into my joints, making just moving around a struggle. I sit down to create art and nothing comes out, at least nothing worth anything. And I know not every piece is a winner, but everything just seems like crap. Physical pain + clinical depression = no art.

So how does one break out of this? I tried to do a piece based on a friend of mine’s character, but the whole thing came out crappy and uninspired.

Yuck

I mean, the dude is a skull and I couldn’t do anything imaginative with it. I posted it and it was met with a collective “Meh”. And I agree, it is “meh”. So that was a failed experiment. It was done with all digital and maybe that’s the issue? I’ve become addicted to it for sure, but I really haven’t mastered it. Most people seem to like the look, but I had a friend comment on the sterility of it and I have to agree.

Even sitting the way I used to causes pain. I wish I knew the secret to channeling pain into creativity, but the combination I have seems to have the end result that I don’t want to do anything. I think I just have to stop being hard on myself and when the creativity comes, it comes. After I did the Salem show this year it took me so long to recover that I didn’t do any shows for the rest of the year. I just signed up to one in April of next year, so assuming I get it, it will be the end of my rest period.

I guess inspiration will come when it comes. There’s no easy answer. “Existence is suffering” they say. “Life is pain” they say. I wish I could make some good art out of it, that’s all.