I never try to find you...

I've been away. Physically, mentally, metaphorically...but I feel like I'm back now with the completion of this. Creativity comes with it's own set of Faustian terms and conditions. It drags you out to sea sometimes. Or leaves you on the shore when you wanted to get in the boat.

This is part one of two commissioned drawings and the only instruction for this one was to contain two skulls and have ravens involved somewhere. When I draw for other people I see it as a shared idea and what they had in mind when they asked for it is probably definitely very different to what I had in mind...but if you aren't specific, you get something from the recesses of my brain and this idea was already half formed, I was just waiting for the remnants to catch up. I like to weave a bit of a narrative, so it's anthropomorphic skeletons caught between life and death, with a floral vibe. I can't put it any simpler than that...

What's deceased and what's alive...

Everything you see here has come straight from my mind. The inaccuracies, the bad perspective, the anguish...yes, I claim them all! I think we've all felt like this; the thing we want more than anything, forever outside of our reach. I hope I've captured something of that feeling and also the physical sense of animate vs inanimate; here but not really; vital parts missing...I park my dark in these crosshatched shadows and laugh a lot in real life as a result. It keeps me on the straight and narrow (most of the time). Finding somewhere to keep your melancholy doesn't mean you have to hide it or hide from it. Throw it out there...it works. 

Your world has never been my own...

This is nothing new. I drew this ballpoint Raven quite a bit ago, but having no inclination to drop everything and come up with some inherently "spooky" cliché, this is the token Halloween gesture. I don't know why the Corbie has such a dark reputation. Maybe it's because they eat the recently deceased, or because they choose to dress all in black. Maybe it's Edgar Allen Poe's "Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore." Bit harsh. Or perhaps it's because nobody has ever found out why a Raven is like a writing desk. Whatever the reason, I don't like it, cut them some slack. Quoth the Raven, Nevermore...Happy Halloween.