In the 1970s, despairing over the fate of his art and his country, Leon Golub destroyed all of his paintings, wiping the slate clean. Born January 23, 1922, Golub underwent a second birth in that act, freeing himself to protest and document what he saw as the crimes against humanity committed by the United States of America. His Napalm Flag (above, from 1974) drenches the American flag metaphorically in the napalm used so mercilessly by the U.S. military in the Vietnam War. As Philip Guston targeted Richard Nixon through his art, Golub aimed more widely, targeting the whole dehumanizing process of war sanitized by the ideology of flags and nationality. From his great moment of doubt, Golub discovered a sense of purpose that would populate his art, sadly, for the next thirty years.



During the Reagan years of the 1980s, the era of Iran-Contra and Sandinistas, Golub turned his attention to the dynamics of terrorism and tourture. His Interrogation (above, from 1981) belongs to a whole suite of images of figures intimidating and torturing hooded victims. Although his figures are set in Central American conflicts, there’s a universality to Golub’s depictions that recall the brutality of the Nazis and presciently look ahead to the atrocities of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. In The Abu Ghraib Effect, Steven F. Eisenman cites Golub’s work as one of the few examples working against the prevalent ostensibly pro-torture history of Western art. (My review of The Abu Ghraib Effect is here.) Sadly, where Picasso could impact hearts and minds with his Guernica, Golub’s works never gained the recognition required to make a difference, robbed of the necessary oxygen by a media complicit in the injustices.



Before his death in 2004, Golub summed up the meaning of his work: "I'm not going to change our country. . . I'm not trying to influence people as much as trying to make a record. I like the notion of reportage. I hope that in 50 or 100 years from now my work will still be telling a record of what Americans were doing in terms of force, domination, world interest. It's not a large part of history, but it's a crucial part." I’m not sure if Golub never intended to make a difference or finally resigned himself to mere documentation, but he never stopped painting injustice. In The Black Does Not Interrupt the Killing (above, from 2002), Golub smears black paint over a scene of a gun-wielding man grasping the arm of an unseen figure, mimicking the American media’s ability to black out or cover over injustice done in the name of “homeland security” or “the war on terror.” Although Golub’s work has been nearly covered over in our time, I wouldn’t be surprised if many years from now, when the real histories of our era are written, he emerges as the Goya of late twentieth century America.

Woman, Bird by Moonlight by Joan Miro, Tate Gallery, London.

Miro was one of the most prominant members of the Surrealist movement. His artwork is filled with fantasy and color and he brings the viewer inside his fantasy world. Miro's work is said to resemble pre-historic cave paintings.

Hello! Got a quickish painty sketchy thing here. Was just messing around with a sketch in photoshop. Its unfinished, but I reckon I will keep going with this one and finish it off.

The character is based kinda on my girlfriend... well... the expression certainly is. She has a habit of pulling this really dumb lookin face, which cracks me up every time i see it. She also laughs at the same time like this: heee heee heee (slowly, and not high pitched :D)

Anyhoo, not much else to say, except....

TINY LITTLE ANIMATED PEOPLE ARE SO ANNOYING!!!! GRRRRRAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!

That feels better. Bad day at work....

Ken :D

PS: An animated WIP of this piece - I was asked in my last post how I did this. I generally save my progress of my painting every now and then which leaves me with photoshop files of different stages of completion. I then make these stages into different layers in one file, take it into image ready, and animate the layers switching on viability in sequence, then save optimised as a gif and hey presto!!! This:

Before the heavy rains, this was the western view of Placerita Creek, that I drive through each day coming and going out of the canyon. This morning the water was so high it was unsafe to cross. I thought about painting the water rushing but am fearful of it's power and not attracted to an all grey palette. Tomorrow a paint out is planned for a bunch of SCV artists. We all have our fingers crossed for a break in the rain, big fluffy clouds and a bit of warm sun.

Oil on panel, 10" X 8"

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Hey folks!

Ok, I dont do new years resolutions as such, but there are some things I wanna do this year.

Number 1 - Improve my character design. I really wanna push it to the next level.

Number 2 - Improve my caricature skills. In fact, how about develop some? haha. I am not very strong at caricature. And I was recently inspired by Joe Bluhms REJECTS book, which i got for Christmas.

Number 3 - Improve my general drawing, and improve my painting and colour skills. They all need it big time!

This image actually relates to all three things - I was really trying to push the design, style colour and technique in it. Hopefully im headin in the right direction. Ach who knows haha. Also, with my new job I have found some awesome inspiration. The drawings I am inbetweening with are simply beautiful. And the work of Sylvain Chomet has always inspired me. I love the character designs in his films, they are very caricatured, and illustrative. I think his work will probably be a big inspiration for me this year. Not to mention all the awesome bloggers out there in the blogosphere! you know who you are ;)

Oh here is an animated Gif of this image:



Hope everyone is well! Once again, thanks for everyones kind comments and for visiting. Much appreciated

Ken :D

PS: old people are great to draw! they have such interesting faces. Oh and this image wasnt of anyone in particular. Just popped oot my head.

Drapery Study for Semiramis by Edgar Degas, Musee d’Orsay

Sometimes the studies artist's do (and often never intend to publish) are the most beautiful.

I recently finished reading a great new book on my favorite jazz artist, John Coltrane (above)—Coltrane: The Story of a Sound by Ben Ratliff. What really sets Ratliff’s book apart from all the other Coltrane books I’ve read is how he not only delves into the intricacies of Coltrane’s music, but also how he places Coltrane in a larger cultural and artistic context, including the visual arts. (My short musical review: Like Coltrane’s music itself, Ratliff’s book is extremely challenging. I played an instrument for 8 years and can follow most discussions about music theory, but I labored to follow his argument at times. However, Ratliff writes well and knows the subject exhaustively. His ability to weave Coltrane’s music with popular culture, literature, and even the visual arts makes this the finest book on jazz I’ve read in years. In the second half in which he concentrates primarily on Coltrane’s influence, Ratliff manages to sum up the entire jazz world over the last 40 years at the same time. Very cool.)



I’m not sure how much of an art lover Coltrane was, but he certainly had an appreciation for artists and the struggle to create. (A 1960 photo of Coltrane at The Guggenheim Museum appears above.) In a letter from June 1962, Coltrane expressed just how much he admired Vincent Van Gogh:

I was reading a book on the life of Van Gogh today, and I had to pause and think of that wonderful and persistent force—the creative urge. The creative urge was in this man who found himself so much at odds with the world he lived in, and in spite of all the adversity, frustrations, rejections and so forth—beautiful and living art came forth abundantly… if only he could be here today.

Truth is indestructible. It seems history shows (and it’s the same way today) that the innovator is more often than not met with some degree of condemnation; usually according to the degree of departure from the prevailing modes of expression or what have you. Change is always so hard to accept. We also see that these innovators always seek to revitalize, extend and reconstruct the status quo in their given fields, whatever is needed. Quite often they are the rejects, outcasts, sub-citizens etc. of the very societies to which they bring so much sustenance. Often they are people who endure great personal tragedy in their lives. Whatever the case, whether accepted or rejected, rich or poor, they are forever guided by that great and eternal constant—the creative urge. Let us cherish it and give all praise to God.



Ratliff makes a great connection between Coltrane’s spiritual journey through music and the spiritual journeys of contemporary artists such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. The picture that Ratliff later draws of artists such as Larry Rivers, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning sitting at the Five Spot and other New York jazz clubs of the 1950s and 1960s to hear Coltrane play sparked all kinds of associations in my head. I imagined de Kooning inspired by Coltrane’s “sheets of sound” (as described by the jazz critic Ira Gitler) to create “sheets of gesture” such as The Visit (above, from 1966-1967). Of course, de Kooning painted in that style before Coltrane developed his signature style, but the interaction between these two artists just makes them individually that more fascinating. As Ratliff would agree, John Coltrane remains the ultimate crossover artist.

Henri Matisse believed that Paul Cezanne was “a sort of God of painting”—a small measure for the esteem one master held for another. Born January 19, 1839, Cezanne’s unique style created a whole new way of seeing, disrupting the long history of illusionistic realism in Western art and opening up the image space as exactly that—image. Even his Self-Portrait (above, from 1873-1876) breaks all the existing rules of portraiture, creating a recognizable face but approaching it the same way he would a still life or a mountain—as a pure arrangement of planes and colors. Without Cezanne, there is no Cubism. Without Cubism, there is no Picasso, at least as we know him, and, therefore, no modern art as it exists today. Matisse’s statement that Cezanne was God is true in the sense that he is truly the beginning. Such statements about Cezanne always make me think of the way that the old bluesmen would speak of their predecessors. “You should have heard so and so…” they’d say, lamenting the loss of such music before the era of recordings. Fortunately, we can appreciate Cezanne today just as well as those early admirers could.



Cezanne is infamous for two things: his curmudgeonly personality and his glacially slow painting style. He would paint the same subject over and over, continually searching for another way to reduce the image to its most basic elements. Fortunately, both the PMA and the Barnes Foundation own rich collections of his work right here in my backyard, including several versions of his The Mount Sainte-Victoire (above, from 1885-95, at the Barnes Foundation). To use another musical metaphor, like jazz great Louis Armstrong, the “God” of jazz music in America, Cezanne used years of technique and observation to whittle his art down to its essentials. Armstrong could say volumes with just a few notes. Cezanne could erect an entire mountain and its surroundings with a few brushstrokes.



Cezanne also revolutionized the way the nude was portrayed, particularly in his three versions of the Large Bathers, now at the PMA (shown above, from 1899-1906), the National Gallery, London, and the Barnes Foundation. When the PMA acquired their Large Bathers, Dr. Albert Barnes protested furiously, indignant that two of the three versions would be exhibited so closely. Dr. Barnes “loss,” however, is my gain. I always love coming to the PMA and looking down the long hallway cutting through the European painting section and seeing Cezanne’s Large Bathers there at the end. Of all the creative hangings I’ve seen in museums, I’ve always thought that the placement of the Large Bathers was one of the most effective. Looking down that hallway is like looking back through time to the end of the old tradition of European painting and at the beginning of the new tradition of modernism. At the center of both of Cezanne.

click on the image to enlarge the painting

Hidden Horizon 20" x 24" oil on masonite

I think I have the best job in the world. Tonight while everyone was driving home from work in a snow storm, I was able to stay nice and warm in my basement studio and paint a lovely summer landscape. Some may recognize this one. I started it late last summer as a plein air painting and never finished it. You can see how I left it (here).

This is one of my 25 challenge paintings. I am not quite sure if it is completed or not. I am at that stage where I could keep pushing paint for no reason other than I think I should, or I can put it aside and look at it fresh in a week or so.... Or I could ask all of you who read this blog. I welcome any and all critiques. What do you think? Am I finished?

The Concert, 1660 by Johannes Vermeer, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (stolen 1990).

The FBI has a website which lists stolen art and gives a description of the crime. More often than not, when notorious works like the ones taken from the Gardner Museum are stolen, they are "requests" from collectors who will never try to sell or publicly display the artwork in their possession.