This illustration in on sale on ImageKind here.

7″ x 10″ watercolor on 100% cotton arch

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island in the midst of black seas of infinity and it was not meant that we should voyage far. Some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the relevation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents.” –H.P Lovecraft, “Call of Cthulhu”

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This piece is a present for Doug’s birthday, as well as Illustration Friday’s topic “wrinkles.” It is The Great Old One, based on H.P Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos .

You can read more about why he loves this genre here

It’s really a reminder that everyone gets old, even the Great Old One, and that eventually when he wakes, the world will end, everyone will go mad, so we may as well enjoy life before the night comes.

How existentialistic are we? heheh

Friends are coming to save her from the trap of being sheltered in a cage. But then the question becomes, can they save her from the mysterious creatures lurking in the dark woods?

Details:

This illustration is on sale at ImageKind here.

We went sailing on the Eastern Shore and stayed at a Bed & Breakfast. This is the view from our balcony

Alfons Mucha is one of my favorite illustrators from the Art Nouveau genre. While researching for inspiration for this week’s topic, I came across a Camel (cigarettes) print advertisement in my vogue magazine using a similar illustrative style as Mucha’s. It struck me how much of an influence he has in the commercial illustration world.

Our amaryllis, Fred is blooming again this year. I thought he was dead last fall and stopped watering him and almost threw him away. Lo and behold, he started growing a stalk a month ago. I felt guilty and put him back where he was, with lots of light and plenty of water.

3-24-08

Seeing more buds blooming

3-25-08

Fred blooms some more today

5″x5″ watercolor

Better late than never. . .Inspired by David Foster Wallace‘s speech from a few years ago where he related this story: There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.

If you haven’t read the speech, you should. It’s inspiring.

While I find humor in a fish desperately trying to pick up an umbrella being weighted down by water (without realizing what water is), I find it disheartening that it’s trapped in its own environment. Like how we are trapped in our “day in and day out” – how easy it is to be on our default setting, and miss the most obvious truth of all.

Illustration Friday has been an opportunity to make me think, appreciate, to take a whiff of fresh air and look outside of my day-to-day trenches of adult life.

The capital T-Truth can be heavy, takes a lot of effort and will power to accept, but at least a certain kind of freedom can be realized, even if it’s the ability to choose when to give up.

“The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

“This is water.”

“This is water.”

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime.” – David Foster Wallace

“In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death.” ~ Sam Llewelyn

Acrylic on paper 8″x10″

I wanted to paint flowers and beautiful butterflies but since orchids are one of my favorite plants in the garden, I opted to paint this particular one. This variety is called “Dendrobium Junceum” from the Phillipines. Growing slightly above sea level, it is subjected to very high temperatures and humidity. It also requires very bright sunlight.

If you notice carefully in the center, the labellum or the lip resembles the shape of a butterfly. No doubt to attract insects or other pollinators. However, I feel like hitting two birds with one stone with this illo, flower and insect!

If you’re in the DC area, the annual orchid exhibit at the botanical garden is opening now til April 13th. For more info