Ignacio Trelis Copies Cefalo Painting in Spain!

Spanish artist, Ignacio Trelis sent me a birthday greeting with this picture attached. It's a street painting of my piece "Starsheep". What an incredible way to be honored on my birthday! It's incredibly accurate too. Wow.

Coffee Sludgescape #4

A small village or encampment on a hill with smoking chimneys.

A village on a hill with smoke from chimneys.

A village on a hill with smoke from chimneys.

Coffee Sludgescape #3

A search party traveling right to left across a snowy landscape with tall pines in the background.

Images in my coffee sludge

I've been finding some incredible apocolyptic compositions in the sludge at the bottom of my coffee.  They only appear when I'm not looking for them or trying to make them, though.  The first one is some kind of a frozen forest or cave, maybe fire patterns, and the other is either something from Dante or a council of cloaked people and beasts with staffs and torches.

Iconoclast

This is a recently completed piece, inspired mostly by paintings of Abraham and Isaac.  As the Bible story goes, God tests Abraham's by asking him to sacrifice his son on the altar.  When Abraham's obedience proves his faith in God even above the love of his own firstborn son, God sends an angel to stop the knife.  God then tells Abraham that his descendents will be as many as the stars.  This is an obvious foretelling of God's sacrifice of His own son.
Rembrandt's painting of this subject has always been one of my favorites, as well as others on that subject.  I have long wanted to do a painting based on this idea, but was disturbed at the thought of my son posing for it.  In a very small way, doing the painting actually puts me through a similar psychological position as Abraham, as obvious as the actual differences in circumstance may be.  He actually thinks the painting is very cool, but it's still hard for me to look at.

My painting is not meant to be a literal representation of the story in Genesis, but more of an allegory about the relationship of an artist to God and family, and the difficulty of correctly placing those priorities.  "Love ceases to be a demon when it ceases to be a god" is a quote from C.S. Lewis's book, "The Four Loves" that kept returning to mind.  The cartoony knife is actually painted by my son, which in a way softens the threatening look of the knife, but I kind of liked the idea of his own drawing being the instrument used in his sacrifice.

I noticed while painting my self portrait that I looked like the laocoon, another father figure,  but much more tragic.  Even the green cloth I am tangled in reminds me of the sea serpent.

I did not want to represent the angel in any kind of conventional way.  I've always liked how Giotto's angels had upper torsos, but from the pelvis down were just kind of a smear.  Fra Angelico's Mocking of Christ has always been one of my favorite paintings.  It is unfinished, but I've always enjoyed the strangeness of the floating hands, and have wanted to use that somehow in a painting.

Ripe Figs, Dragonflies, Swimming, and Grilling In the Rain

I have still been painting this weekend, but have forgotten to photograph my progress. I've had such a beautiful weekend that it's been quite a distraction. My son, Aslan has a new talent of catching dragonflies. He waits outside with his thumb in the air, and they are strangely drawn to land directly on his thumb. When he wants to keep one, he simply clamps down with his forefinger.

We've set up the pool, and have been swimming and grilling all weekend. The figs on our fig tree are ripe for the picking, and we're making all kinds of things from fig icecream and grilled figs to fig cobbler. I simply must share with you what we had on the grill today. Here we have lamb kabobs with lamb raised by our friend, Ragan. Not shown are the burgers made with free-range buffalo. We have potatoes on top, fig kabobs basted in pinapple juice and cinnamon, which tastes remarkably like roasted marshmallows, and unbelievably delicious roasted pineapples. More pintings for you next time!