more watercolors...

 "Up Unity to the Rabbit & Poultry"

 

"Up Unity to the Rabbit & Poultry" by Nate Dray

watercolor on paper, 16 x 22 inches

 

 Nate Dray at North Water Street Gallery

 

So here's a thing. Grateful to Jeff Ingram of the North Water Street Gallery in Kent, Oh. for setting this up. Jeff was actually the first person to show one of my pictures in a gallery outside of a school event way back in 1999...or was it 1997? Either way, great guy who runs an excellent community arts organization called Standing Rock Cultural Arts. 

Check them out online at: https://www.standingrock.net/

"Copy of Klee's 'Vogel Garten'" 

mixed media on newspaper on cardboard, 31 x 40 inches.

I love Paul Klee. Brilliant designer. Unsurpassed stylist. A very special human being. I worked through the better part of his notebooks and Bauhaus lessons and while I'm not saying it was a complete waste of time, it was almost a complete waste of time. Not sure if he was a hustler or was sincerely attempting to document and explain his process in earnest technically, but the teachings amount to a whole lot of psuedo-intellectual hot air. Couched in exclusivity jargon and fancy terms for brick-simple concepts, the bulk of the materials aren't worth the time for a person trying to improve his or her craft. People claiming his writings on Art are on par with da Vinci are lying or confused. Whereas da Vinci informed generations of not just artists and craftspeople but also engineers and technicians, Klee's writings are thousands of pages the end result of which can be better internalized by understanding the golden mean and a brief survey of his artist's statement/manifesto. Or better yet, study his pictures. I imagine it was a combination of needing to justify his approach and teaching position, keep pace with the intelligentsia fashions of pre-Great War Germany and fill time when asked to speak publicly on his work that led to his prodigious overly complex prose. That or he was sincere and extremely neurotic. His math exercises take the student on long tedious journeys of arithmetic that end up illustrating principles that if not patently obvious or intuitively graspable are demonstrable by considerably more direct and simple means. That and they aren't particularly helpful to a person trying to improve his or her design powers.

Regardless, he's great. My favorite of the...whaddya call it? Was he Cubist or Expressionist? Whatever. I'm glad he defies classification. That's a hallmark of Quality, in my humble opinion.

Oh, also, like Klee, I made this frame by hand for the painting and the mat area is part of the painting itself. Note that the original is around 10.5" x 15.5" whereas my loose interpretive copy is a bit bigger at 31 x 40 inches. It hangs in my home above the landing on the stairs.

 "The American Schematic"

watercolor, ink & gouache on paper, 15 x 20 inches

"One of the Watcherwoman's Clock-Trees"

ink on paper

Illustration of a type of tree found in Lev Grossman's book series "The Magicians."

"From Star Trek's 'Mirror Mirror'"

--Sort of revisiting the theme from "The Enemy Within." 

"Just Outside Town"

Album's new album "Majestic Silvereye" was long in the making. It's amazing thrash-rock-metal-pop (whew!). Getting great reviews and— to totally use a grand cliche— an instant classic.

Get it on itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/majestic-silvereye/id1036318347

Check it out on google play: https://play.google.com/store/music/album/ALBUM_Majestic_SilverEye?id=Brf5dsgmw3mrpyi4wrcu53i53ii

Recorded over several months at Mindrocket Recording Studio in West Middlesex, PA— the album is an epic technicolor guitar saga.

I did the artwork. It was an honor. :)

New comic for August, 2015. Debuting at Steel City Con, with cartoons from Nate Dray, Robbie Vegas and Doc Springer. 

"Kitchen of Tomorrow" 

by Nate Dray

watercolor on paper

"Eaten By Trees"

 by Nate Dray
watercolor on paper

Deadly Nightshade. Saving and taking lives for a very very long time.

In 1977 a company called West Coast Games published a small run of a solitaire adventure board game based on “The Hobbit” called “There and Back Again,” designed by John Williams. It is rare, ugly and unlicensed.  I really like it.

(These two images are from boardgamegeek.com.)

Even though the map isn’t used much in the game - I redrew it.
Trying to capture an early 80’s Avalon Hill - Dragon Pass- sort of feel - and just doodling.

- Nate Dray

For more info on this game check out the Board Game Geek entry:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6833/there-and-back-again

For more on on Tolkien board games see these sites:
http://www.freewebs.com/tolkienboardgamecollecting/
http://www.boardgame.de/tolkien.htm

This is the latest comic. 

This issue centers around paleobiologist Sherman Marsh's attempts to recover a missing time probe in the swamps of the Carboniferous epoch. Also includes several short bits: a Winston Churchill cartoon, Sir Camel-Trot and the Pugilistic Princess, and gonzo anthropologist William. S. Carlson returns.

"Into the Weird Wood"
- ink & watercolor by Nate Dray

My new comic is out.

Epic Earth #1 for Sale - Epic Earth #2 Summer 2013