Heroes and legends -

"The King and His Castle"
digital collage & painting by Mick Mather

"... there was a castle called 'Doubting Castle',
the owner thereof was 'Giant Despair' ..."
- John Bunyan

Relativity?

"Sisters III"
digital collage & painting by Mick Mather

"... sisters never quite forgive each other
for what happened when they were five ..."
- Pam Brown

Drink from my cup -

"The Chalice"

digital collage & painting by Mick Mather

"... leopards break into the temple and drink the sacrificial chalices dry; this occurs repeatedly, again and again; finally it can be reckoned upon beforehand and becomes part of the ceremony ..."
- Franz Kafka

Only the name -

"The Spanish Man"
digital collage & digital painting by Mick Mather

This post began as a digital collage that I was more than happy with now that I think about it. I took it into another set of filters just for fun and to see what would happen. After that, another editor was pressed into service with the smudge tool that I'm learning to like more and more and finally to a third for the final result. Somewhere along the line I began tweaking, dozens of them, to get the rough hew of his features just so. In the end, this b & w version trumped all of the more colorful versions. Oh yes, I almost forgot, I couldn't help but think about Susupetal's recent vacation to Spain. So, this one's for you, Susu! :)

When the passion's gone, then what?

"Life is Strange I"
digital collage & painting by Mick Mather

For a variety of reasons driven by any number of conditional circumstances, there are times when the wind just goes out of your sails. For the creative, artistically driven individual that suffers through such doldrums - just like everyone else by degrees - what is one to do? For me, you sit down with a blank canvas (a digital space in my world) and bring anything you can to that place and get to work. Tonight's post took the form of a handful of elements that were arranged as one might do with a traditional collage - albeit created digitally. With a few twists and turns to supply a digital background before moving to the secret array of filters and manipulating software, the end result was utter failure. Not a good thing to happen considering the mood and tenor of the times. It was a mess and I had nothing to lose by going one more step. So, taking a terrific tip from my very good friend, Mary Stebbins Taitt, I attempted my second "smudge painting" (you can see my first effort here - sorry I didn't mention this one earlier Mary). Using the smudge tool in one of my favorite photo editors. I began blending and softening and playing around until ... BAM! Here we go, here it is, this is what I'm talkin' about! As I sat with this, pondering, reviewing, touching up the final areas and looking at it again, all I could think of was an old album by The Doors, Strange Days. Yeah, strange.