The best fine art blog on the internet by Darren Daz Cox - the greatest artist in the world (and so are you!). Surreal oil painting, drawings, illustrations, sculpture, art history, tips, tricks, quantum physics, it's all here, and full of big pretty pictures to enjoy!
Painter, Poet, Positive Soul Darren Daz Cox, now in Pekin Illinois!
You might know me from
Keansburg, NJ - Dearborn, MI Peoria, IL - Carbondale, IL Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Columbus, MS Repulse Bay, HK - Exeter, UK
"I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people." Vincent Van Gogh
I am the blueberry that you saw
in that big old spiderweb
I dangle in random absurdity
like some strange poem you might have read...
My Best Poem
how precious are dreams
that logical themes
quote facts in attempt to deny you
that magical day, when you can say
I believed!
and that's why they ARE true!
Thesis Statement I like art, I do art,
I do art all the time,
I do alot of art
and when I'm not
sometimes I write a rhyme!
LOVE IT SO MUCH! Sand 'tween my toes
and minimal clothes
make for fun in the sun
yeah you know it!
but the seashore at night
is a sensual sight
as the moonbeams
sow love seeds for poets!
Time Time is a weird thing
goes sooo slow when yer
waiting for the bell to ring
goes fast on Christmas
and sunny days
and when you're in love
it compresses and strays,
time is elastic
and sometimes like glue
but it's never wasted
when I talk to you!
Artists
all great artists seem full of doubt
there is too much inside
and not enough out
but each piece of art
makes someones day,
perhaps our souls
need it that way.
kharmalade
Would this have made
a good last day?
did I accomplish
any kharmalade goal?
did I climb some sunsetted peak
by the bay
to placate my expectant soul?
no, but i did take a second
to look around
like that dude
with his own Iron Chefs,
and in that infinity portal
i'll go as a mortal
suspecting it's all for the best....
SOMETHING GOOD
I remember something good
back when days
unfolded like
a grand adventure should.
I don't want to just fit in
be functional like some machine,
I want a purpose
need the wind
to blow the scent of fortune
on my skin.
Are you of that small percent
who cannot fold
who will not bend
who takes a soul and strips it bare
not because you can
but because it's there... ?
You Is You
You are you and that is good
you may not be what they say you should
or be that which you cannot be
and you wouldn't want to be like me
but I see you as you and so
if you see me unmasked say "yo"
"what makes Me me is all unique
what makes us Us makes us complete"
I Artist i sometimes wonder
if it is so
that I am an artist
simply because i say so was I born with talent
to write or to paint?
a prodigy perhaps? there's no doubt that I aint not a leader or lackey no big money schemes but an artist resulting from having big dreams they say visualise what you want to be regardless of what people say and all will come true quite possibly maybe some happy day!!
THE DANDYLION STAR Amongst the speckled field of black
I saw the dandylion star
it winked at me and I winked back
and sent that wish up far,
the other stars looked more like gems
like diamonds stuck in tar,
but I liked the mellow
glow of the yellow
wonderful dandylion star.
like crystal fish the others sit
cold like a platinum bar,
but how can you miss when you make a wish upon the dandylion star?
WE TWO STARS We two stars
burn so intense
without pretence or fuss
and what would we say
if somewhere far away
someone made a wish upon us?
for the darker the night
the brighter the light
that shines for every face
so get up and stay
in the vast milky way
and add your light to the space!
Michelangelo’s Last Judgement fresco in the Sistine Chapel
I have proven to myself that I can paint big with my 20ft by 10ft oil paint mural in the Speakeasy Art Center and gallery in Pekin Illinois. Now I wish to go bigger and really expand the ideas I started. Here is a detail of my current work that you can see on the third floor of the Speakeasy Art Center, across from the courthouse in Pekin Illinois (there are many other cool artist’s there too with lots to see but please don’t disturb their work!).
Pekin Illinois trippy mural at the Speakeasy Art Center July 12 2010 by Darren Daz Cox
I’ve been working on some smaller paintings with the idea to have something I can sell but you can’t get the detail in a small work that you can with something huge. It is nice to share art and allow people to own something that I put time and effort into. Below are some of my current small works that will be available to whomever wishes to own them for a modest contribution. I figure I’ll sell my small paintings for $99.00 US which is a sum most anyone with a job can afford and will appreciate in value as my work gets more and more noticed.
Angel of Ambiguity oil painting by Darren Daz Cox
Angel of Ascention oil painting by Darren Daz Cox
Fern Faerie oil painting by Darren Daz Cox
These oil paintings are obviously unfinished but I work on as much as I can without forcing the work. If it becomes a chore or a "job" then it doesn’t turn out well so I take my time and slowly build up a picture while I think good thoughts! It is important to me that the quantum intent associated with my art is of a positive nature and while that has no apparent relevance in a world where scientists cannot measure such things it is very important to me,,,
As heard on the Wayne R. Miller and Laure "The Hot Finance Lady" Feld radio show on WMBD 1470 AM this freezing sunday morning, Peoria is experiencing a Code Red, which is a weather emergency they found out for us. It’s bloody cold alright! There is a half inch of ice on everything and it was minus one degree when I took some pictures this morning, but you can’t beat the sight of sunlight through ice on a trillion branches!!!!
Lake of the Woods lake (just outside of Dunlap Illinois), first day of winter 2008.
My internet was down yesterday so I didn’t get to post this sketch I made recently so here it is now!
Peace Angel pencil drawing enhanced in Pshop by Darren Daz Cox.
**Note to self, check out the Picasso and Matisse prints at Lakeview Museum in Peoria Illinois****
The greatest masters have never done pictures "out of their heads." is a quote from The Painter in Oil, by Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst who was pretty strict in his opinion of how an artist should paint the figure, directly from a live model or suffer artistic failure!
I challenge this closed-minded thinking and propose that you can get better results by working "out of your head".
Parkhurst was also a student of arguably the most proficent painter of all time, William Bougereau. Being proficient however doesn’t necessarily equate to "good", after all, most people don’t know who Bougereau was but most everyone has heard of Vincent Van Gogh and a majority of them consider Van Gogh to be a "good" painter.
Van Gogh sold so few paintings because most art patrons in his time expected work in the neo-classical/accademic style of painters like Alexandre Cabanel. Cabanel, like Bougereau, painted with a technical perfection that had echoes of Renaissance master Raphael. Raphael will forever be beloved and stand as one of the greatest masters, so why not seek to reach his level of perfection? When you work from a live model and know all the techniques to make a 2d picture look 3d you can produce some stunning paintings, but you have to add in the human factor to be considered "good".
I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don’t care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. – Emile Zola
Poor old Cabanel and Bougereau were only upholding the ideals of masters like Raphael when they blocked the Impressionists from the salon, they thought they knew what was "good" based on an idealized perfection that could only be achieved through superior craftsmanship. But craftsmanship alone is not enough for things to be regarded as good.
There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman.- Emile Zola
I think that the sketches Michelangelo did ‘out of his head’ rank among his finest work, here is one of them.
MICHELANGELO di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
(b. 1475, Caprese, d. 1564, Roma)
The Fall of Phaethon
c. 1533
Black chalk, 41,3 x 23,4 cm
Royal Library, Windsor UK
Michelangelo made many erotic drawings for Tommaso dei Cavalieri, including the Rape of Ganymede, The Punishment of Tityus and this one with Phaethon being zapped by Zeus for his reckless behavior.
This is a drawing that Michelangelo drew for pleasure, a drawing with real passion and stands as sweet example of non-accademic proficency, perhaps Parkhurst had never seen this sketch at the time of writing his book?
Another example that counters Parkhurst’s statement is arguably the most famous and referenced figure drawing of all time, Leonardo DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man. No model was used for that one!
I suggest that if want to stand out of the crowd and shine then seek to be good at what you do rather than to be proficient at what you do. This is not mere sematics. Proficiency encourages work that seeks to reach an ideal, an ideal is a generic concept and generic concepts don’t grab you by the heart until they are made specific. Making something specific requires that you make your stand, get off the fence and lay your cards down etc etc. You can be romantic but you don’t truely know what love is until you take that leap and risk having your heart broken.
The first time people saw Michelangelos fresco of god as a rugged old man with white hair it captured the imaginations of all who saw it, but a thousand variations on the theme later the idealized concept of god as a white haired man loses it’s punch no matter how well it is painted.
Thomas Kinkaid’s lighthouses and sunbeams show the concept of god in a different but far more popular way these days and while Kinkaid is not highly regarded as an innovative painter he did take that leap to make his art specific to something rather than just follow the idealized concept of ‘pretty art is good’. Take that leap, find a step off point before reaching ‘perfection’ and don’t be afraid to pull an idea out of your head.
this one is oil paints on a wooden panel, soon to have oil glazes with rich colors oooh! I need to redo her ear though, funny how it’s easier to see the mistakes when i look at an image rather than the actual peice hmmm…
Darren Daz Cox, now in Pekin Illinois!
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