This one’s probably not as safe for work as the others. But I’m dealing with quarantine and a variety of other things I won’t bring up now and I reckon I’m just more willing to share this side of me and my artwork than usual. Hopefully everyone who can’t handle that Bruce is gay and likes guys is already out of my life (Hi Glenn!), or has already defriended me on Facebook (Hi Burt!), and this is about as brazen as I get artistically anyway.

He’s looking out into a bright sunny dawn, from inside a darkened old stone building. This is going to take some more work than the others, so probably won’t be finished with it for several days. I actually have to spend most of my awake time teleworking until the weekend.

Well this one’s done…

I think I’m really warming now to the advantages of digital media. And I’m actually getting comfortable with the tactile feel of drawing on a glass iPad screen. I didn’t think that would be possible.

Probably start another one tomorrow. That’s a Jackson Pollock bandana he’s sporting. In color while the rest of him is grayscale because I do that mixing up color and grayscale when it works for me. Have I mentioned how much I hate that damn hanky code?

If you were to ask me why I’m doing these just now, and if I was still religious, I’d refer you to the morning headlines and the daily death toll, then point to this one and say that beautiful guys are my proof that, despite everything, God is good. Well I’m not a believer anymore and haven’t been for decades now, but I can still say they’re my proof that life is good and worth living despite everything in it that makes you hurt. Like the daily death toll from COVID-19. Like Trump and his death cult republican base. I very much need these proofs.

In my worst jags of cynicism and pessimism I never expected to see the human depravities I’m seeing now. Not even during the AIDS plague when they were all but openly rejoicing in our suffering and dying. They’ve gotten worse since then. So I draw beauty. When the abyss stares back into you, answer it with beauty.

Doing another one….

No go-go boots this time. I’ve moved on.

These are coming out of me pretty easily now. I seem to be doing more work than usual at the kitchen table lately. Possibly because the iPad is easy to use here whilst snacking out. More probably because the basement isn’t really a good place for an art room as its only light is from the ceiling fluorescents. But I have no other place in the house to put it. There is no sunlight. And the bar is way too nearby. That’s really not a good atmosphere to be creative in. Unless maybe you’re a detective novel writer.

The kitchen seems to be my hangout when I’m not teleworking. But I’m beginning to appreciate why Van Gogh once said it was either paint or go mad. But then he went mad anyway, so there’s that.

I’m going to make his bandana a tie-dye just to confuse everyone…