A Wacky Painting for Wacky Times

"Scarborough Fair and Tentacles" (AKA "Pandemic Pandemonium")
(c) 2021 by K.K. Remus
Gouache on paper 

This is my latest painting, inspired by the need to create something wild and colorful.  It's my reaction to being cooped up in Weird Ville for too long.  It was therapeutic to create, and I also find it therapeutic to view.

This image will be featured on the cover of the magazine, Hay Happenings, a publication concerning the Scottish family of Hay.  For more information, see http://www.clanhay.org/

Some viewers have told me about images they have spotted within this work:  a spaceman, a butterfly, a football player, sea creatures, birds...  It has also been interpreted as both an undersea and outer space landscape.  

What do you see?

 

Everything Works Out/Has a Cost

"Everything Works Out/Has a Cost"
Pen & Colored Pencil on Paper, 11" x 14"
by KK Remus (c) 2020

IT'S TRUE!  Everything works out, and everything has a cost.  These two truths hit me hard within this last year, but they changed me for the better.

The drawing above illustrates, if you will pardon the pun, that everything does indeed work out.  I began with no concept of how the finished product would look.  All I knew was that I wanted to build a composition around the two phrases, arranged in "crossword puzzle" fashion, with one shared letter between them.  I chose "R" as the common letter, but I could have chosen "S." That would have would have led to a completely different drawing, but it would have worked out!

I could give many more examples--gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, grief-inducing, potentially life-threatening examples--of how everything worked out this year, but I want to keep this short and focus on the drawing.  So, let's move on to the "cost" part of the equation...

The only real "cost" of making this peice was time. I already had the materials. I spent two to three hours per day over 4 days.  Maximum time: 12 hours. Each hour filled me with joy and freed me from distress.  

Furthermore, this time expenditure did not prevent me from doing anything "more important."  This was exactly what I needed to be doing.  If I got tired, or didn't know what to do next, I put the sketch book away, knowing that the next time I picked it up, I would know what to do. Faith and the love of art guided me.  

The benefits far outweighed any cost. The final drawing makes me happy.  I hope it makes you happy too!

 

Twelve Paintings in One

"Twelve Paintings" by Karen Kay Remus (c) 2018
5.5" x 7.5," Gouache on Paper

Here's my most recent painting, alternatively titled, "Twelve Dimensional Tic Tac Toe for Extra-terrestrials."

Last week, while working my (non-art-related) day job, I showed a client some of my artwork.  She said--and I've heard this at least a hundred times in my life--"If you can do that, why are you doing this?"

I answered, "Because the ability to create art does not directly translate to a lucrative career." This is the fundamental question and answer of my life.  

By the way, if you're just tuning into this blog, do not be fooled by the title.  I freely admit that I am just a pretend "genius-billionaire."  I chose the title simply because it was an outrageous claim that I found humorous.  I also chose it long before we had a POTUS who claimed to be both of those things.  

OIY!  This current POTUS is driving me and most of my fellow Americans INSANE.  He is anything but a genius, and I seriously doubt he's a billionaire.  Currently, I paint to escape the pain of living in this bizarro sociopolitical climate.

I have been paid for my creative work, but not enough to live on.  If you'd like to see some of my other artwork, please visit:  www.karenkayremus.weebly.com

Thank you!

The Continuing Saga of Zid Vs. Foo

"Fix On Foo's Face,"  by Karen K. Remus, Copyright 2013, Pencil On Paper, 8.5" x 4.5"

(Please see previous two posts for maximum dramatic impact)

"Uh Oh" The Picture & Story (Continued)

"Uh Oh"
by Karen K. Remus, Copyright 2013
Colored Pencil on Paper, 11" x 14"

Thus continues the illuminated manuscript begun yesterday, 16 November, Year of Our Lord 2013...

To get the full impact, you must read yesterday's post first.  I'll wait while you do this.  When you are ready, please proceed to this post.

Foo is just minding his own business, using the concentrated power of his fore brain as a tractor beam to pull Moon Number One slightly closer to Planet Urk.  This will benefit the planet itself and its inhabitants by creating a larger cyclical tidal bulge, thereby improving planetary circulation and reversing the growing problem of global stagnation.  Foo recently won the prestigious "Norg Nurk Pish Pie" for having discovered the problem of global stagnation, which, left unchecked, would destroy all planetary life by 100 S.C.-- and its solution.  For three straight solar cusps, he has been working non-stop, 33/13,  just to get the moon to budge one centeenth of a centa-ween, and it has taken every ounce of his strength and concentration.

His work is almost finished--just a couple semi-cusps to go--and he's about to yawn rainbows of relief, when suddenly, he detects the ominous low-frequency buzz and musky melted-hair odor of his arch enemy, Zid.  He spots Zid in his lower right peripheral vision, just sitting there.  Grinning.

How long has Zid been sitting there watching me?  Foo wonders.

Two years. Thinks Zid.

I keep forgetting we're in different time zones.  Thinks Foo, launching into a full blown, crest raising, fang-bearing panic attack.  I'm supposed to have some protection here.  At this point, I cannot afford to be distracted.  Or eaten.

To be continued...

PS:  I showed this image on a big screen in an art class recently, and one of my students said:  "That looks like an amusement park gone horribly wrong.:  Another student said:  "I see golgi bodies."  For those unfamiliar with cellular anatomy (the student was a medic/I'm a BSN), "golgi bodies" are part of an apparatus within a cell that transport proteins).  I LOVED both comments equally!  I love how everyone can look at an artwork and see something completely different.  It's MAGIC!

"Uh Oh!" The picture and the story

"Uh Oh!"
by Karen Kay Remus, Copyright 2013
Colored Pencil on Paper, 11" x 14"

The situation depicted above should be self-explanatory if I've rendered the drawing accurately.  A picture paints a thousand words, right?  Are you picking up on these words, or do I have to spell them out for you?  If you get it, then stop reading when you see the next period.  If not, then read on and be enlightened.

Here we see two long time adversaries, Zid and Foo.  Foo is in the upper right hand corner having an anxiety attack.  You can see this from the way his eyes bulge and his mouth opens in a grimacing scream of fright.  When he shuts his mouth, and rests his eyelids, he somewhat resembles an earth creature known as an ostrich, except that he's 70 feet taller and has useless forearms as opposed to wings.  He is also much more colorful and has bristly stubble instead of feathers.  He is also much smarter than an ostrich--or a human being for that matter--and all he cares about is science, mechanics, and the mechanics of science.  He's a thinker, not a fighter.  He solves problems rather than creates them.

Zid, in the lower left hand corner, is Foo's diametric opposite.  Well not exactly.  That is to say, he is very smart, but all of his smarts go into cunning, predation, and getting what he wants at the expense of others.  To Zid, Zid is the only thing that matters.  When Zid looks at Foo, he thinks, "tastes kinda like crab."  He ate Foo's brother.

These two creatures are residents of the planet Urk, a gelatinous, gaseous, colloidal giant.  Sort of like Pluto, but bigger and with solid chunks of  matter and gas bubbles trapped in mush--sort of like tapioca.  Unlike Earth, the creatures of Urk live INSIDE the planet--not on top of or within the outer crust.  Urk has no atmosphere.  Urk IS the atmosphere.  It's like a big cell, and all of the material and life forms dwell within it like "organelles," except that they are just as independent as you or I--or think they are.

Some creatures are bound to live inside Urk, like fish are bound to the water on Earth.  These are the Inurks.  Some Urklings can actually leave Urk's surface and travel through the vacuum of space, like birds flying over Earth, or human scuba divers entering the ocean--except they don't need artificial equipment if they're only out for a light year or so.  These are the "Inandouters."  Zid is an Inandouter, and he's got it in for Foo.

To be continued...

Snake Eyes

An Original Painting by Karen Kay Remus, Copyright 2013

Created on "Paint"

...and on the fifth post, Karen Remus, Genius Billionaire said, "Let there be COLOR!"  And there was color, and it was good.  And it surprised the crap out of her, because it only took about 30 minutes to create the entire composition. 

Where does the belief come from that anything worthwhile has to be hard?  I used to believe that.  In fact, I also believed the converse: that anything easy cannot possibly be worthwhile.  Therefore, I grew up thinking that everything that came easily to me was worthless:  art, music, writing, humor, acting...basically, the ARTS in general.  Therefore, I tried to develop the abilities at which I sucked.  That strategy was rewarded by society, but after several years, it nearly drove me insane.

To make a long story short, I got over it, and I started pursuing things that I really loved.  Career transitions are challenging, but they're not impossible.  I'm here to tell you that if you're good at it, you love it, and it's legal, then DO IT!  You'll make yourself and everyone around you much happier.

By the way...  Today I stretched a 48" x 30" canvas that will become the REAL PAINT version of the digital creation above.  If it's cool on the screen, it will be that much cooler in creamy, colorful, gloriously messy PAINT.  Someone will buy it, and then I'll do another one.  That's how it works.