Dance à Deux (watercolor/ink on paper)

Lysergic Landscape (pen & ink on paper)

This is one of my very first drawings. I won’t even hint at how long ago that was. I used to use a rapidograph, one of those dreadful technical pens that clogged up if you didn’t use them on a daily basis. Extra fun - you got to spill indelible India ink all over the place when you tried to refill it. This was before the widespread use of felt-tip pens. Actually, I loved my rapidographs. I think I’ll go up in the attic and see if I can find them.
I have another painting that REALLY fulfils the Balloon theme, but since I used it for an earlier IF post, I figure it’s disqualified. Be that as it may, here’s a link to Murble for those of you whose curiosity has been piqued.

Pretend (watercolor on paper)

Many strange sights to see along the paths in the land of Pretend . . .

Unbalanced (pen & ink)

Wise (color pencil/watercolor/digital)

I am convinced that dolphins are wise creatures. I once had a very strange, lucid dream where I came across a fur-covered dolphin swimming next to me in an azure sea. He was very friendly and invited me to his tiny tropical island for a cup of tea, which I gladly accepted. We then sat chatting for hours during which this incredibly wise dolphin explained to me many of the secrets of the universe. I was totally enthralled. I mean, who wouldn’t be? And it all made beautiful, wonderful sense.
When I woke up the next morning I couldn’t remember a single thing my furry friend had told me. No matter, it still left me with an intense feeling of peace and well-being. Ever since then dolphins have held a special place in my heart.

Wave (digitally manipulated photograph)

I like to mess around with photos I’ve taken and digitally alter them to the point of being totally unrecognizable. The software I have is pretty primitive – kind of a limited palette, so to speak. This image was generated from Moss Troll #3.

ArtSparker, Illustration challenge # 2

Anthony was amazed when he looked out the window and observed Jacques Tati catching falling stars in his own backyard.

Challenge and basic illustration courtesy of ArtSparker (http://artsparktheatre.blogspot.com/)

Repair (pen & ink on paper)

Island (watercolor/digital)

Clutter (mixed media/assemblage)

This piece is composed of an assemblage of junk, garbage and found objects scavenged from a vacant lot. Afterword I fiddled a bit with a photo of the actual constructed piece, jacking up the contrast, etc. A perfect way to spend a Saturday . . .

Memories (digital/mixed media)

Mccarroll & His Cat (pen & ink on paper)

Every morning Mccarroll got up early, put on his crusty wool sweater and fetched fresh milk for his buddy, the cat. Mccarroll, with his cigarette and coffee, the cat with his milk; it was their little morning routine.

Canned (mixed media - used cigarette paper and ink on paper)

Okay, this is going to require some explaining. Many years ago I was living by myself in Vienna. Due to circumstances that need not concern us here, I was poverty stricken at the time and extremely so. I was also a smoker of cigarettes —a vile, health-destroying and expensive habit that I have since managed to rid myself of—; a key part of this little anecdote. I smoked roll-your-own tobacco, both because it had more taste and it was cheaper. Plus it was lots of fun to roll them. As my money situation approached absolute zero I began saving my spent cigarette butts in an empty coffee can with a red plastic top. When I finally couldn’t buy any more tobacco I opened the can, unrolled the butts and rolled new cigarettes out of the ‘leavings’. Sad but true. I then put these recycled butts in the can for round two. This went on for a couple of days until I finally smoked the last cigarettes, recycled I don’t know how many times. The tobacco was jet black and dripping tar and resins. . .
In the can I had all those unrolled cigarette-butt papers; for some reason I kept putting them back in there. Maybe I thought that tobacco would spontaneously regenerate, I don’t know. It didn’t. In any case I sat there in my flat without food, without tobacco and, much worse, without beer. Austrian beer, which is my favourite. Pure torture. To amuse my sorry self I decided to compose a picture out of my used cigarette-butt papers. I had no glue, so I used a mixture of flour and water, which, if I remember correctly, I ate afterwards.
What this is a picture of I will leave to the viewer to decide, but I would venture to say that ‘Canned’ would be an appropriate title.

In The Comfort Zone (pencil on paper)

Fat Cat has more than enough, Poor Cat has nothing . . .

Hollow (pen and ink/digital)

What others mistook for convoluted he recognized for what it was;

there was nothing there, he was merely hollow inside.

For interested parties, here is the unfractualized 'Hollow'.

I wanted to use Wasted, but I have already posted it earlier at IF for the topic Wasted.

Worn (pen & ink on paper)

He should have worn something when he answered the phone.

This is a little cartoon I did for a university paper. A young man living in the student apartments was complaining after a cleaning lady surprised him au natural when he hopped out of the shower to answer the phone in the hall. The moral of this story is that you should never be naked because there are cleaning ladies lurking about everywhere.
Extra points if you can guess what ‘det mannlige lem’ is. Scandinavians not allowed to participate.
Btw; I did another cartoon when the cleaning lady replied in the next issue. If anyone is interested I can post it, too.

Infinite Hall Of The Starmaker [IF: Mysterious] (Digital)

At The Gates Of Death (digital collage)

Here’s me floating (IF: drifting) before the Gates of Death. Yee-hah! Wave to Kali as we get sucked into the vortex of eternity . . .
Studious Return of Son of Incogneato visitors will note that this is the selfsame me found floating in deep space, featured in the introductory post to this blog. What can I say, I like to travel to exotic places.

Cracked (pen & ink on paper)

When I was a little kid I used to spend most of my school day doodling battle scenes as my teachers droned on in the background about, well, whatever it is they drone on about. So it’s not particularly odd that I continued to doodle battle scenes when I got older since I basically never really grew up as such.

This is an ancient pen and ink that I found stuffed away among some other ancient things. It’s from my ‘geometric’ period when I used to fiddle about with a rapidograph and technical drawing templates. How – or why – I mange to hold on to this stuff after all my wandering about is a mystery to me. Nevertheless it does seem to fit the IF bill this week, so there you are. Who knows, maybe I’ll do some new stuff soon . . .

Contagious (pencil on paper/digitally treated)

No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health . . .
- Charles Caleb Colton