yes indeed. It's after 6:30 in the AM and I'm still packin for my trip to Chicago which begins in two and half hours. I've spent the last six hours or so taking digital pictures of whatever works I've found lying around my parent's house, where I've been visiting since Christmas. Accidentally. I got the crazies, and wanted to sleep for three quarters of every day since, and thusly canceled my cross-country rambling plans. Ah well. I'm glad I've taken the time to finally put some stuff up here; I started the account almost three weeks ago and until today I only had one piece up; it was a good one, but still. I finally got some comments, which has been mind-bogglingly cool. I've still got a few old pieces that I'll put up; I've got slides back home waiting for a healthy tongue lashing, and then I may get around to putting up brand new work, since I've got a couple projects fit for picking. Can't wait.

A significant project on the horizon is actually a comic book piece, but I'll paint the whole thing on one large panel, or several uniform, page shaped panels, displayed as a whole, in black and white. I've been unconsciously working on this one for about ten years now, so I'm excited. (To be fair, the idea in this incarnation is only six months old) Anyway, I mention it in case people actually read this, and perhaps are personally into comic book art, or know of some decent mentors, because I like peer inspiration. Hopefully I'll have a healthy enough body of work up here soon for folks to intuit what kind of stuff will fit my vision, but I'll take what I can get. All I know is, the work will be unique, though grounded in established technique. I always want to push it further, even if I fail. Bad habit, I guess. I'd rather only do one piece every six months and have it be a complete deviation from similar work, than put out a piece everyday that looks like anything else. I think. I don't know, since I've never been so stable as to put out a piece everyday, I might actually want to try it....

LOL

Anyway, thanks to all the folks that jumped right on the comment wagon over here, and anyone reading this is definitely encouraged to take a stab or two at it. I really value insightful criticism, and I honestly don't care about hurt feelings. I haven't developed a sense of what this whole deviantART thing's about yet, but I see some awesome potential here; it could be like a fucking online art school if we wanted. So take your jabs if you will; tell me what YOU would've done, or show me even. I've been a "professional" artist for, I don't know, let's say... four years, and I've learned one thing about myself concerning professional art--it's a lifestyle for me, not a vocation. I haven't sold more than a handful of pieces, and I still want to paint, so I know it's not about money or respect. It's about art, and energy, ideas and inspiration. Hope. Life. Beauty. Joy. Sharing. So dig.

On that note, I should mention my views on alteration of my work--go for it. If you can improve what you find with your nifty light box, by all means go for it. You might want to contact me to see if you can get better images than what I've put up, because I cropped all of these in Microsoft Paint, just to make it easy, so most of them have been cut in half from their original size. I'd like to see whatever you make anyway, so either way, get in touch.

Damn. I've written a lot. Sorry. Laters all.