A bit more detail on my art & life background
What follows below is a work in progress.
I started as a child, like many, just doodling on paper with pencil and pens. I did this for many years, well into my teenage years, with no ambitions beyond doing it as a fun hobby. As my teenage years encroached, I shifted interest towards music and at 18 bought my first guitar. I almost completely dropped visual art cold turkey in favor of music and things stayed that way for many years. I returned to visual art in my mid-30s, went to art school and almost completely abandoned music just as I turned my back on visual art at age 18. Since then I've flip-flopped back and forth between the two. My main media have been drawing with graphite and pen & ink; painting with acrylics, gouache and watercolor; drawing with pastels and oil pastels. I dabble in photography and have done a bit of sculpture. I've also done a few outdoor paint pieces.
As a child I lived in Asia - for a time in Japan and then Hong Kong in the early to mid 70s. In Japan there was no entertainment in English. But that didn't stop me from being dazzled by the amazing Japanese animation and live shows aimed at kids. I remember watching Mazinger Z, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (later imported to the west as Battle of the Planets) and probably some others that escape me. I didn't understand a thing. But that meant my mind struggled to fill in the rest. I mention this because it opened my mind into viewing art & entertainment as being a fluid thing that may require the audience to meet it halfway and fill in the gaps - or not. It's ok for art to leave you hanging in an uncomfortable inconclusive state - sometimes.
It's worth mentioning comic books as it dovetails into this topic somewhat. Up to my mid-teens I was a big comic book fan. Unfortunately, not living in the western hemisphere meant that comics were relatively scarce. This made it difficult to read any comics that had a continuing storyline from one issue to the next because while I may have found issue 43, I more than likely didn't have issue 42 or 44 - it's possible that I would only have issue 37 or even no other issues at all. This again plays into the idea of appreciating art where I don't have access to the whole story and simply enjoying what I have in its incomplete state.
Due to my flip-flopping interests, my knowledge of comics is very inconsistent. There are large chunks of time where I was doing other things while the comics world marched onwards. I am still playing catch-up and likely will never fully get there. I no longer have much interest in any superhero content, despite enjoying some of the recent blockbuster movies. So as far as actual comics goes, no spandex for me. It's possibly important to know this because chunks of my art derive from my comics background and it's also possible that I will make explicit reference to comics content in the future and it helps to know the place from which the comments come from.
What follows below is a work in progress.
I started as a child, like many, just doodling on paper with pencil and pens. I did this for many years, well into my teenage years, with no ambitions beyond doing it as a fun hobby. As my teenage years encroached, I shifted interest towards music and at 18 bought my first guitar. I almost completely dropped visual art cold turkey in favor of music and things stayed that way for many years. I returned to visual art in my mid-30s, went to art school and almost completely abandoned music just as I turned my back on visual art at age 18. Since then I've flip-flopped back and forth between the two. My main media have been drawing with graphite and pen & ink; painting with acrylics, gouache and watercolor; drawing with pastels and oil pastels. I dabble in photography and have done a bit of sculpture. I've also done a few outdoor paint pieces.
As a child I lived in Asia - for a time in Japan and then Hong Kong in the early to mid 70s. In Japan there was no entertainment in English. But that didn't stop me from being dazzled by the amazing Japanese animation and live shows aimed at kids. I remember watching Mazinger Z, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (later imported to the west as Battle of the Planets) and probably some others that escape me. I didn't understand a thing. But that meant my mind struggled to fill in the rest. I mention this because it opened my mind into viewing art & entertainment as being a fluid thing that may require the audience to meet it halfway and fill in the gaps - or not. It's ok for art to leave you hanging in an uncomfortable inconclusive state - sometimes.
It's worth mentioning comic books as it dovetails into this topic somewhat. Up to my mid-teens I was a big comic book fan. Unfortunately, not living in the western hemisphere meant that comics were relatively scarce. This made it difficult to read any comics that had a continuing storyline from one issue to the next because while I may have found issue 43, I more than likely didn't have issue 42 or 44 - it's possible that I would only have issue 37 or even no other issues at all. This again plays into the idea of appreciating art where I don't have access to the whole story and simply enjoying what I have in its incomplete state.
Due to my flip-flopping interests, my knowledge of comics is very inconsistent. There are large chunks of time where I was doing other things while the comics world marched onwards. I am still playing catch-up and likely will never fully get there. I no longer have much interest in any superhero content, despite enjoying some of the recent blockbuster movies. So as far as actual comics goes, no spandex for me. It's possibly important to know this because chunks of my art derive from my comics background and it's also possible that I will make explicit reference to comics content in the future and it helps to know the place from which the comments come from.
