Going in a few different directions...

Howdy once again. So what's this? I'll get back to you in a minute.
First-- what happened to my "drawing-a-day" project? Short attention span-theater, I guess.
I'll get back to it-- but I'm more in an idea-hunting, sketch-phase just now.
But I have a few drawings I didn't post before-- so let's get those out of the way first.



























Some of these look like they might one day "star" in their own painting-- who knows?
So I have been trying to hunt for some new ideas to paint-- I finally bought a new sketchbook-- and, I'm not going to bore anyone with ALL my mental meanderings, but here's a few that I think show promise...
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(these are supposed to form one composition...the "target" at the far right of the left sketch is the same as the one that surrounds the girl in the right sketch)
(yeah, I been thinking about circus side-show banners...)

This is an idea that's been kicking around for a bit. It's based on an old toy box (the fox magician and rabbit, only I found another rabbit I wanted to use-- Disney's Oswald-- "the lucky rabbit"-- who actually pre-dates Mickey.) Anyway, it continues my circus-themed exploration. I transfered the drawing onto a 4'x4' panel,
but before I could dive in and start painting, I got another idea...

and began tranfering it to another 4'x4' panel, this time first laying down a thin base color-which always helps, but sometimes I get impatient and lazy and transfer my drawing just onto the white-primed panel, creating more work for me later on...
So-- what are these pictures about? I'm not telling.
No, they are continuing my idea to combine several commercial and "popular" forms of art (poster art, label and advertising art, children's book illustrations, comics and toys, etc.) mixed with some cross-cultural fertilization (Chinese New Year's posters, in the case of this second set) to tell a story. What's the story? I'll get back to you on that-- but I'm aware that I am trying to lighten up some.
OK-- well, you'd think I had plenty of starts here, but then I got another idea... remember this painting I did last year...?

I've been thinking about diptychs (and triptychs) again lately. I've also been thinking about the idea of expressing a sense of spirituality with paint and painting. So I've been thinking of India and that brought me back to the bottom half of this painting. Then I found this picture in one of our books...
here's a detail...
and so, that got me to this point last night...
It's also 4' tall, by about 3'. Where does it go from here? I'll get back to you.