MOBY-DICK, Page 178

Title: Ahab's full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted...

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
ballpoint pen and ink on found paper
February 28, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 177

Title: All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick.

7.75 inches by 11 inches
ink on found paper
February 28, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 176

Title: The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden gleamings.

10 inches by 6 inches
ink on found paper
February 27, 2010

My illustration from Quotizzle.com

Back on December 26 I posted about how I had been invited by Charlie Curran and Emily Quintero to be a Guest Illustrator on their intriguing new site Quotizzle. The concept behind Quotizzle is that of well-known or well-loved quotes paired with illustrations. I promised I would share my illustration on this blog a few weeks after it had appeared on Quotizzle but I forgot that I had made that promise. So here is the illustration I submitted to them. It is, perhaps not surprisingly, a passage from Chapter 60 of Moby-Dick.

Title: All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever present perils of life.

8 inches by 11 inches
ballpoint pen, colored pencil and ink on found paper
December 26, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 175

Title: ...it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time)...

7.75 inches and 11 inches
colored pencil, ink and marker on found paper
February 25, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 174

Title: One of the wild suggestings referred to, as at last coming to be linked with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously inclined, was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous; that he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same instant of time.

7.75 inches by 11 inches
ink on found paper
February 25, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 173

Title: No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over the widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and half-formed foetal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything that visibly appears.

11 inches by 7.75 inches
acrylic paint, ballpoint pen, ink and pencil on found paper
February 23, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 172

Title: ...a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity, which whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, had completely escaped them...

7.75 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint, ballpoint pen and ink on found paper
February 22, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 171

Title: I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul.

5 inches by 8 inches
colored pencil and ink on found paper
February 21, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 170

Title: Jollies? Lord help such jollies! Crish, crash! there goes the jib-stay! Blang-whang! God!

4.25 inches by 7 inches
ink and marker on found paper
February 21, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 169

Title: Our captain has his birth-mark; look yonder, boys, there's another in the sky — lurid-like, ye see, all else pitch black.

10.75 inches by 7.5 inches
ink and marker on found paper
February 21, 2010

More inspiration

Yesterday's piece was, obviously, a collage. I've long been fascinated by collage, but most of what I have seen in books, galleries, and online has been rather depressingly nostalgic, crafty, and ultimately dull. In a sense, that lack of inspiring work has at times dulled my own desire to create collages.

Some time ago, I came across the collage artistry of Jeffrey Meyer and was astounded. His art is incredible and his aesthetic is really bold, direct, and unique. I've spent an awful lot of time just browsing through his site and studying his collages. It's amazing work and it his been deeply inspirational to my own efforts. While I am nowhere near as skilled with the knife or at composition and artistry as Jeffrey, seeing the images he is crafting has always been a tremendous creative spark for me.

I am fortunate enough to now own one of Jeffrey's collages, called Anamorphic Gate, framed and hanging right in front of my drawing table in my blue closet studio. He has an enormous number of collages for sale, and the prices are a steal. Even better, the level of craft is amazing. My few collages generally have some loose ends, some glue bumps under the paper, and even a few sticky bits where I overdid it. The one I have from Jeffrey, framed and pressed very evenly against the glass, is flawless. If I hadn't been able to see the lines delineating the different pieces of paper, I would swear it was all of one smooth piece.

So I owe Jeffrey a debt of gratitude for inspiring my own collages with his beautiful, unsettling, and prolific output. And I encourage any of you interested in collage to check his stuff out and even buy a piece or two.

MOBY-DICK, Page 168

Title: Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls!

8.5 inches by 11 inches
collage on chipboard and found paper
February 19, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 167

Title: There's naught so sweet on earth — heaven may not match it! — as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the over-arboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes.

7.75 inches by 11 inches
ink on found paper
February 18, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 166

Title: Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it, bell-boy; Make fire-flies; break the jinglers!

7 inches by 9.5 inches
ink and marker on found paper
February 16, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 165

Title: I've the sort of mouth for that...

11 inches by 7.75 inches
ink and marker on found paper
February 16, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 164

Title: Our captain stood upon the deck / A spy-glass in his hand...

7.5 inches by 9 inches
acrylic paint, colored pencil and ink on found paper
February 15, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 163

Title: Because a laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer...

6.5 inches by 9 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
February 14, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 162

Title: The white whale is their demigorgon.

7 inches by 9.5 inches
ink on found paper
February 13, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 161

Title: "I am madness maddened!"

8.5 inches by 10.5 inches
ink on found paper
February 12, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 160

Title: "Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat's bow — Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!"

7.75 inches by 11 inches
marker on found paper
February 10, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 159

Title: "Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me."

7.75 inches by 11 inches
ink and marker on found paper
February 10, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 158

Title: "God keep me! — keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly.

9.5 inches by 7.5 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
February 10, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 157

Title: "...I'd strike the sun if it insulted me."

5 inches by 8 inches
colored pencil and ink on found paper
February 9, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 156

Title: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the horn, and round the Norway maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up."

11 inches by 7.75 inches
acrylic paint, ballpoint pen, ink and marker on found paper
February 7, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 155

Title: "Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be the same that some call Moby Dick."

7.75 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
February 7, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 154

Title: "Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?" — holding up a broad bright coin to the sun — "it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D'ye see it?"

8.25 inches by 11.75 inches
ink on found paper
February 6, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 153

Title: Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also, you would see still stranger foot-prints — the foot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought.

11.5 inches by 8.25 inches
collage and ink on found paper
February 6, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 152

Title: ...but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity...

4.25 inches by 7 inches
ink on found paper
February 4, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 151

Title: ...yet that disadvantage is greatly counterbalanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float.

6.25 inches by 10 inches
colored pencil on found paper
February 3, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 150

Title: ...vagrant sea unicorns infesting those waters...

8.25 inches by 11.75 inches
ballpoint pen on found paper
February 3, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 149

Title: ...for as the soul is glued inside of its fleshly tabernacle...

8 inches by 9 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
February 2, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 148

Title: There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea...

6.25 inches by 7.75 inches
ink on found paper
February 1, 2010