I Haven't Really Blogged Much For A Few Months. I've Had A Few Health Challenges That Demanded I Just

Inspiration.

Daniel Torres.

Inspiration.

Still watching this youtube channel about what I can only describe as "Dark Classical art" and this one absolutely floored me because I was unaware of it and I want to share it because it changes my perspective on this artist completely.

You might be aware of Louis Wain. If not by name then by his art. He's the artist behind that series of cat drawings that slowly became more and more abstract and bizarre.

This series of paintings of cats are often labelled as a visual representation of Wain's deteriorating mental illness and schizophrenia. Even more so often labelled as "a tragic display of a painter's failing battle with schizophrenia."

The paintings look like this and were painted around the very early 1900s.

Ok got all that?

So here's the thing.

Although Wain did suffer from a mental illness that was strong enough for him to be institutionalized, his mental illness was never diagnosed with clear certainty. Although "Schizophrenia" is so heavily applied to him based purely on how his series of paintings LOOK, despite actual specialists widely disputing this. On top of this, although he did paint the kaleidoscope cat portraits during this time, it was not the only things he painted, and he was quite capable of painting "normal" pictures of cats.

The Kaleidoscope Cat portraits are more images of him experimenting with colour and shapes, something the Smithsonian themselves state on their website.

Wain had actually made his entire living painting whimsical images of cats, often for product adverts, before he was incarcerated and was actually a very beloved artist at the time. When his friends learned of his incarceration, they started a collection of donation money to help transfer Wain to the Bethlam Royal Hospital instead, one of the best mental health facilities of the time. Even the Prime Minster of the time donated, and they raised a large amount of money across England to help him.

4 years later, Wain drew this as his final image which he released publicly

I knew all about "the Schizophrenic cat Guy" but he had always been presented to me as some tragic case of an artist going mad and his skills and work unraveling as he went insane.

Which is why I wanted to share this information which was new to me. And because I think it's important.

Inspiration.

Kali (Gerald Brom)

I've been quiet about my work for a while. Mostly because I've been practicing some techniques. And I’ve still got a long way to perfecting those techniques, BTW. I just thought I'd share... Mahjeena Jahrool Of all the Mahjeem, Jahrool is the most enigmatic, and the least mentioned, character from the old stories. Yet, she was likely one of the most gifted Mahjuti practitioners to have ever lived. At least, that’s what the word was in every tavern from Purush to Kusht. The truth was a little less impressive, though quite unique, in its own way. Jahrool had a blue Azuranium crystal ball. And with that ball she could see into the spirit worlds and the subtle sub-worlds beyond. And she rarely, if ever, liked what she saw. Still shot from the upcoming animated Oracle Deck, The Mahjuti Cards

Inspiration.

Jean Baptiste

The process of creating a huge graphic novel like Veil of the Gods hasn’t just involved writing the story, sculpting the characters and preparing the digital artworks. I’ve also been creating typefaces. This was a hobby of mine 20 years or so ago. In 1996 I designed the font for my little book- The Moon on the Lake- published by Random House. Then I typeset the whole book with it. I mention this because it’s such a pleasure to have an excuse to build new typefaces. The graphic novel is full of them. Indeed these various typefaces are integral to the story… Here’s the proof page for two I finished today. They’re inspired by Tibetan scripts.

When it rains, it pours. This is the scene from Veil of the Gods I'm working on today...

The older you get the more you realise there are constant signals being sent to you if you're awake enough to notice them. It's as if Life were sending you clues wrapped in little ripples of chance. There are messages everywhere begging you to decipher them if you'd only take notice. Books fall open at pages that bear sage advice. A coin will appear on the road at your feet tempting you to explore a side-street. A conversation with a stranger may offer you all the answers you were looking for, even though the stranger had no idea of your questions. A song will get stuck in your head. And that song leads you off on another adventure. Theo Metaxis chose to live his life according to these messages from the world around him; to be guided by fortune. And for a long while this system worked perfectly for Theo. Now he's gone missing. And his disappearance is sending ripples through the world in a way that would probably make him smile if he knew about it. Here's my character study from Veil of the Gods for today. 

The Magician- the Mahjee in the world of Veil of the Gods- sometimes needs to look inward to create the most potent spells. I'm commencing a short but much needed break from computer screens and social media as of today. But I'll be back.