Portrait of Sean

Treasure Chest

Pen and Ink homework from a while ago. 

Don't ask me what is with the proportion of the various objects to one another, I just copied it. 

Apocalypse Citycape

This one was also slightly innovated from the reference photo.

Ninja Castle

This was just homework for a class one time, I strayed slightly from the original reference.

Jaunting Car

This was my very first attempt at anything in pen and ink, before I took a class. Turns out, it was pretty intuitive.

Four of the Same

These four pictures were the result of an assignment for my Creative Drawing class a while ago. I was supposed to draw the same character four different ways. So we have a centaur, an elf/fairy thing, a giant, and a dwarf with no knees. 

Portrait of Sara

The Shrieking Eel

Mountain Scene Painting

Quick painting after my first few painting classes. 

Frog Fairy

A series of pictures I did several years ago. 

Werewolf Art Thou

A werewolf wearing a kilt and glasses, collecting bugs to put in a jar. 

Forest Stream Painting

Physical Intelligence

Talking about “Physical Intelligence.”

So here’s Google’s definition of intelligence.

in·tel·li·gence

inˈteləjəns/

noun

1. 1.
2. the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

The word intelligence is typically used in reference to a very specific realm of knowledge or skill, but here I have chosen to modify the noun with the adjective “Physical”.

So I’m talking about the ability to acquire physical knowledge and skills.

Or you could also think of it as “Doing smartly”, as opposed to “Thinking smartly”.

It seems to me that physical intelligence is discounted much of the time, and not given its proper weight as an essential aspect of personal growth.

I have been struck recently by how low the average physical skill and awareness seems to be in the general population. And I’m not just talking about fitness levels.

Simple procedures or tasks that to me seem like they should be intuitively obvious are bewildering and fumblingly executed by person after person.

For instance, in my experience blacksmithing I’ve had the chance to watch many different smiths or aspiring smith of various skill levels work.

And I can’t help but notice how few people seem to grasp what should be the most fundamental of skills in this discipline- hammering.

It’s a relatively complex motion I grant you, with multiple linkages involved in a coordinated relationship. Still, it’s swinging your arm, not rocket science.  And yet I watch so many people struggle along, fighting their own bodies and tools, for years sometimes.

They don’t seem to be able to tell that they aren’t using the strength of their muscles and the inertia of their tools effectively. Or if they can, they can’t correct the problem.

What’s missing here?

There are multiple things involved in this problem, but I’m addressing the fact that they just aren’t familiar and comfortable with their own bodies, or with the tools which should be an extension of themselves.

Having spent a very small percentage of their time and energy actually living in their bodies, people are uncomfortable with their own physicality, and find their own body awkward, unweildy, and alien. And because they are so out of touch, even beyond the discomfort of stretching physical limits, there is a discomfort with the unknown.

In this digital age it is easier and more common than ever for people to be out of touch physically.  You may find many who are skilled perhaps at certain derivative realms, technology, computers, what-not…. But lacking awareness and competency in the most basic of realms- the physical world.

Now I grant you, those who regularly engage in active and physical activities, such as sports, are is much better shape, no pun intended. But despite how big an improvement this is over sitting at a computer, I would still point out that many or most sports or things of this sort are games. More in touch yes, with your own body and others. But you play according to arbitrary rules made up by humans, not the rules of the physical realm and nature. Retaining a level of removal from physical reality and the way things really work.

It hasn’t always been this easy to disconnect from physical reality. For most of history this particular set of realities has been painfully felt, and inescapably understood by the general population.

Most available occupations were physical activities, and a laborer was judged primarily by the skill in his body and hands. Scores and scores of people down through the ages have been required to push their bodies to the limit in their everyday lives. Many essentially spent their bodies, just plumb wore them out in doing physical work.

This is an end of the spectrum we rarely see today, the spent body, as opposed to the atrophied one. Neither of these extremes is good, and I’m not advocating one over the other. The desire is health, and balance.

No matter what your natural bent when it comes to physical activities, the reality is that EVERYONE is a physical being.

So regardless of your fitness level or aspiration, get to know your body the way it is, right now. Know what you’ve got to work with, and Do Smarter. Work to gain Physical Intelligence.

Or at least learn to use a hammer, please. I beg you.

Peek-a-boo

Another painting from several years ago before art school.

Potluck Painting

A pre-artschool acrylic painting from several years ago. XD She's supposed to be friends with the fish, but family members have insisted it looks like he's her potluck dish :P 

Untitled

In the night

In the dark

When you dream

All is stark

And the curtain parts at last

In the place

Where you are

You hear a voice

So bizarre

It's guttural cloying words

You wish for warmth

And relief

Still you dodge

Phantom teeth

And you quail in the clinging mist

You seek escape

And you flee 

But those frights

Were not me

Behold the demon, Thou.

Portrait of Aubrey

Kill the Housefly

I killed and I slew
With every stroke the carnage grew
Broken bodies all askew
I crushed them in my might

I hunted them in my domain
Their evil limbs to crush and maim
And my own I now regain
From black and slavering beasts

With every swat and every swish
I liberate both food and dish
With every blow I grant my wish
That these flies should fly no more



So, this evening I was hunting flies, as the number in our house had grown a little ridiculous. And inspired by my cunning, I wrote this after I had severely dented the population.
And now, thanks to social media, I have made it available to buy on a t-shirt in my store on Zazzle.
http://www.zazzle.com/kill_the_housefly_carnage_shirt-235704576053436703

Portrait of Josh

Portrait of Esther

Portrait of Sam

Portrait of Jake

Portrait of Alicia

Untitled

Your teachers offer you nothing
Bringing empty and powerless words
Speaking much, but not the one thing
That could help these wandering herds

Woe to the blind and confused ones
And Woe to the hungry who leave
But fire and death on the chief ones
Who see, and while knowing, bereave

There is no love in a leader deceiving
There is no hope if the end is not told
There is no faith in all of this scheming
We're offered nothing to which we can hold

Now they are ready and ripe for deception
Lacking wisdom or tools to discern
Having been gutted by their own election
They'll fall away, and so they shall burn

Portrait of Daniel

Portrait of Christine

Our Own Lens

Each of us views everything we read, see, think, and feel through our own lens.

You can no more escape this fact, than you can escape your own self.

However, there is much to be said for becoming aware of the tint of your own lens, and the lenses of others.

What do I mean by “lens”? I’m talking about the particular way each person views the world. Every person interprets and processes information in a unique way determined by their training, worldview, beliefs, life experience, personality, class, ethnicity, cultural background etc. Everyone comes with their own lens. Almost all of the various lenses can see at least a piece of the truth accurately. The goal is to have the best one possible, to see the truth as clearly, and completely as possible.

Writings transferred from one group to another leave the context of their birth, and enter a realm where a completely different context, or lens, may be applied to the same words, resulting in radically different meaning than the author who wrote the words intended.

This is why there are so many different interpretations of the messages in the bible out there.

As a generalization, all of us who read the words said in the Bible today, have a distinctly “Westernized” lens through which we filter the meaning. However, the writers and readers at the time the Bible was written did not share this same cultural background.

This disparity means that all or most of the cultural context of the words and messages the authors wrote have been lost in orthodox interpretation. This loss of the original lens can greatly muddy the message the author intended to convey.

But despite this difficulty, the message is not lost. We have simply to reconstruct, as best we can, the original lens through which the words were meant to be viewed. The true interpretation is what the author meant by what they wrote.

Much as it would simplify things, no words are absolute. What with translations between multiple languages, cultural attitude, expectations, and history of the time, it is not as simple as just “believing what it says”.

It requires a larger overview to attain a balanced and cohesive perspective. The words in the bible are true, and they have been given to us that we may know and understand them.

But you cannot take the belief that the bible is true to the point of thinking the meaning of individual verses should transcend the lens you cannot remove from over your own eyes.

If you do not gain the context of the rest of the scripture in interpreting individual verses, you add the coloring of your own lens as a substitute.

There is a right way, and it is reading searching for what the apostle believed and taught, you are not free to “take your own interpretation” of the words.

If you go the wrong way, you suffer the consequences of believing lies. Which is an entire other discussion by itself.

However, attaining the correct lens, or even any lens different than your inherent one may be more difficult than it at first seems.

You must comprehend a fundamentally different way of looking at things. And then actually be able to imagine that you believe them, and process material in that way.

This takes maturity, practice, and substantial research to build for yourself a complete and realistic foreign lens. And there are additional barriers to transcending your own lens than the difficulty in the process itself.

Few people stand on their own two feet when it comes to what they believe to the point where they have overcome the human desire for belonging, and trusted entirely to God and the truth he has revealed. It is most common to rely on the sense of security that can be gained from belonging in groups like church, their family, or another social circle. This is a phenomenon to be aware of, as it means that the average person stands to lose something, should they change their beliefs to anything not congruent with the group-think.

This is the most natural thing in the world, but it is also immature. If we are ever to grow beyond the point of children, we must become self aware. And take conscious responsibility for our lens, regardless of the consequences.

Matthew 10:34-36

34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn

a man against his father,

 a daughter against her mother,

a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—

36     a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.

You must believe what the apostles believed.

Do the work to view the words of the author through the lens they intended.

Victorious

Pencil sketch from a while ago.

Doodle

Doodle in pencil.

Flower Hair Lady Painting

A pre-art school acrylic painting.

Bayonet Latch

Completed this custom order today. A guy sent me a bayonet, and had me make it into a door latch for him.

Pen and Ink House

 This was a short homework assignment I had for a class one time, done in pen and ink- in case you couldn't tell.

Gator Sketch

This is a quick sketch I did for time a while ago- so long ago that I don't recall how MUCH time, but you can see I never quite finished it.

Watercolor Pencil Pattern

This was basically just having fun with a set of watercolor pencils that was given to me several years ago. You can see I attempted to use every color, and then superimposed another pattern with a wet paintbrush.

Railroad Spike Tomahawk

This is the first tomahawk I've completed. Still a few bugs to work out of the design, I'm planning on doing lots more tomahawks/hatchets in the near future.

Portrait of Po

Carbon graphite pencil portrait. Completed 6-12-2015.

Lizard Colored Pencil

This was my first colored pencil project I completed about three years ago in art school.
I'm here to tell you, those spikes were a pain.

Knives

These are the first two knives I completed in the bladesmithing class I took at Oaks Bottom Forge.

Blade #1. Hunting knife forged from O1 tool steel, black walnut handle, measures about 10 inches long.






Blade #2. Paring knife forged from O1 tool steel, pearwood handle, measures about 7 1/2 inches long.