Jim O'Neil's photos

The fleeting moment built upon the past days and nights and hopes and dreams we cast In to the nonexistent future tense and seeking to make sense of why and when and how but now... But now, now. Watercolor and inktense pencil on 9" X 11" 120 lb., Canson paper

and... this is the tiger sodapopped (photoshopped is a copyright protected word), the colors inverted (whites become blacks, blues become reds, etc.). Oddly while I was painting the tiger is shades of blue, I was seeing this image as well. Hum, maybe I've spent too much of my like in photographic darkrooms looking at negative images! :-) By the way, in this, the year of the tiger, this tiger is a mere cub and hasn't earned his stripes yet, the year's still very young....

In the forest of the night.... I suspect everyone in the world (ok, almost everyone) is familiar with William Blake's _________ THE TIGER Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder and what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand and what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee? Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Wlm. Blake _________________ Started out working wet on very wet, applying the Prussian blue straight from the tube, mixing it on the paper and tipped the paper to establish the basic shape. Normally my winter palette leans toward softer pastels (as do the winter lit vistas here). watercolor on 9" X 12" cheap watercolor paper.

Just thinking where's I'd like to be.... Wind off the lee shore Crossing the bar is easy Leaving safe harbor acrylic on canvas panel, 16" X 20"

This is about as high as the sun gets this time of year, not high enough to peep over the trees. However we're gaining over 6 minutes of sun a day so, soon, soon!!

Nope, I wasn't outside long like this! I decided to take out some garbage and also to snap a shot of the sun at it's highest on this 17 Janunary 2010!

My reply to EDMs challenge 257, 'Draw a house plant'. I wonder if 3 wall flowers count??? ;-) Crayola markers on newsprint, about 25" X 37"

From last night's drawing session. All charcoal except for the (pen and ink) details in upper left picture. on 11" X 14" sketch paper.

I've at least ninetyeleven things I really need to get done today but it's far more fun drawing! At one time I collected antique padlocks so here's one. pencil and colored pencil on 8 1/2 by 11 scrap paper

As I'm still intrigued with Claudia's pose, I've been working on this version of it. The title: Claudia's pose is tense, dynamic and, I am sure, excruciatingly painful if held for any length of time. -Yet she nails it and she holds it! Also the paper and media I used are absolutely unforgiving. The paper so absorbent and fragile there's no lifting of a color once laid, the mediums mostly too transparent to hide any earlier mistakes, I told Claudia, in a comment in the Occidental Orient post, that I was working on this and subsequently figured I'd better finish it before I screw it up. Hardest part of painting is knowing when to stop! :-) This is mixed media on 8.5"X12" handmade Japanese washi, paper (Made in the shop/factory on Shikoku Island that you may have seen in an earlier photo here on my site.) Mixed media: Yarka watercolors, Dewent Inktense water soluble pencils, Caran D'Arche Neocolor II crayons, KohI-Noor woodless color pencils. ...and... the hardest part of writing about it is knowing when to stop too! I wanna 'splain why I chose to sit Claudia on a avocado puke green throw tho it jars with the other colors big time... and how the picture changes under different light sources & how etc., etc., etc -but I'll shut up...now.

Last year I talked about trying to paint watercolors outside at -20° F., -but didn't do it. Well, today, inspired by a post in EDM about sketching in the cold, I gave the watercolors a try. The temperature is -30° F> (-34°C.) today. I put on my parka, arctic boots, wool gloves, grabbed a sketchbook some pan paints and a pan of vodka (instead of water) and headed outside. Using my woodpile for an easel, I found my greens mixed quite well with vodka at that temperature but the blues and crimsons just wanted to stay in the pans. I was surprised that my brush stayed quite flexible throughout the 20 or 30 minutes that I was outside. The cold and vodka does seem to lead to softer, less vivid, colors on the paper and the way the colors diffuse is quite different from normal. No, I didn't drink the vodka! ;-)

So after I finished some sumi-e, having ink that I'd ground left over I sketched out a pose that my friend whom I've never met, Claudia, a model in NYC (& a real sweetie, if I was only 40 years younger and she was 3265 miles closer! :-) ) had done. Sketching with the sumi on 'rice' paper. Subsequently I laid in some washes using Yarka pan colors. Then after mounting I subsequently subsequently pushed the colors and saturation using iphoto's editor and then in pixelmator (Not using Photoshop, -hence soda popped rather than photoshopped) just to see. Hey, it's fun! & there's at least 4 word plays in the title....

My daughter asked me to write (draw, sketch, paint?) this kanji for her office. It means reflection; reconsideration; introspection; meditation; contemplation, -according to Jim Breen's online Japanese/English dictionary (A most excellent resource, by the way.). To mount the finished kanji: I dampened the paper, carefully brushed out any wrinkles and flattened in on a stainless steel surface, dampened the mounting sheet and applied paste to it, laid it carefully over the rice paper brushing out any air bubbles, lifted the mounted sheet off the steel underplate and dried with an old, large, photo dryer. 9"X16" "rice" paper mounted on Bristol board.

This gives some idea of just how thin this "rice" paper is hence the need to mount on heavier stock.

So! I fixed my (Kawasaki) Mule, couldn't do anything about my frozen shop boiler problem tonight so I went to my life drawing session. Charcoal on 11"X14 sketch pad.

Fred Hatt, an amazing NYC artist had a post on drawing backs on his blog today. Subsequently I paid special attention to the model's back tonight. I was pleased to have this angle of the model, even tho it was only a 10 minute pose. Pen (Micron 05) on 11"X14 paper.

For some reason this pose made me think of carnival. Portfolio water soluble oil pastels on 11"14 paper.

So! Here is my friend, Mariko, hard at work on her 元旦 ,gantan, New Year's day kanji. Yea, yea, we make quite a mess, -but it cleans up easily!