July 11, 2013

New Look

A friend of mine has graciously been helping me get the hang of this wordpress thing. I’ve spent all evening tweaking the appearance of my blog, taking his suggestions and following his instructions. There’s a lot more going on with wordpress than blogger ever offered.

Honestly, it’s kind of frustrating trying to figure it out so I’m glad I’ve got someone helping me along. I know I don’t have many followers right now but those of you who do happen to stumble onto my page, please go check him out too.

http://taliasworld.wordpress.com/

About bonefishdesigns

I hold a BFA in printmaking and drawing from Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, WV. Drawing and illustration have always been my passion and I make my living teaching people how to draw and paint. Currently, in addition to my work as a lifeguard, swim instructor and an art teacher, I'm also an apprentice to a tattoo artist and have done quite a bit of flash as well. I started this blog more as a way for me to keep track of my thoughts and inspiration, resources and references but I'm more than happy to welcome you to it with open arms. View all posts by bonefishdesigns

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 11th, 2013 at 1:23 am and posted in Miscellaneous Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Take a Look
Stay in the Know

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address:

Join 424 other subscribers
I May Not Know Art But I Know What I Like

still a work in progress

This one’s about neck stretching, which is still practiced among various African tribes as well as the Padaung Kayan tribe of Burma (refugees to Thailand). They start adding coils to a young girls neck when she’s about 4 or 5 and gradually increase it w/age to create the long necked appearance that the older women command. While it seems extreme though, it’s actually an optical illusion. The purpose of it is to obtain a graceful swan-like neck. However, the coils actually act to compress the collar bones and spine, which end up growing at a lower 45 degree angle then an average human but the coils cause no lasting physical effects and can be removed and often are when the Kayan aren’t acting as a tourist attraction or aren’t participating in any tribal traditions.

a gift for a friend

Chinese foot binding The tradition has it’s roots in the Sung Dynasty, around 1100 AD when women at the emperors court believed to be beautiful they needed tiny feet so they began binding the feet of their children starting around age 2 or 3. The bindings were so tight that they would break the bones in the feet forcing the toes to curl under and thus they would walk on their broken feet. Often, not able to walk very far, they would result in crawling. One of the earliest “Cinderella” stories comes out of 13th century China w/the moral of the story being the prince loved her b/c she had the smallest feet in the kingdom so only the slipper would fit her.

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, in the “weighing of the heart” scene, the deceased stands on trial before Osiris and the rest of the gods while Thoth (the Ibis-headed god) pleads his case before the court while his heart is weighed against Ma’at’s Feather of Truth. If his heart weighs less than the feather then he was a good man and is allowed to pass into the afterlife. If his heart is heavy w/sin, then it is tossed to the Devourer, a Chimera-like creature and eaten and he’s doomed to an eternity in darkness, unable to pass on. Similarly, the butterflies represent how fleeting beauty is, how everyone’s doomed to wrinkles and grey hair and, following the ancient Greek tradition, a representation of the soul (“eyes are the window to the soul”), or the true person hidden behind the make up/plastic surgery. Long story short, I used the idea of the mirror, Ma’at, and cracks in the facade to represent admitting one’s faults and embracing your little quirks and imperfections while the butterflies represent a person’s true self and how fleeting beauty is.

In Egyptian mythology, the scarab was a self-creating god Kephri or “one who comes from the earth”. In mythology, Kephri, the scarab, was responsible for rolling the sun across the sky every day and thus was also seen as a version of Ra, the sun god.

Work in Progress

European corseting, which was designed to enhance a woman’s overall figure but the effects were just as physically disabling. The corsets, under the rule of Britain’s Queen Victoria became a way of protecting a woman’s virtue (she was very strict in her code of decency), and along w/the heavy weighted skirts and restrictive sleeves of the victorian era gowns, were quite cumbersome and there are many documented cases of women fainting from cinching the corsets so tight and also causes displacement of the internal organs through the restriction of the rib cage.

spiders. . . eesh. . .

ritual scarification which occurs in many African Tribes as well as in Papua New Guinea among the Sepik River tribes. The reasons for such body modifications vary. In the New Guinea tribes, the boys (and some men), fast for a period of days in preparation before being cut along their backs, the cuts are then anointed w/special goopy stuff that makes it scar and when the scars heal into keloids, they resemble the backs of a crocodile. However, in order to pass the initiation, they have to lay there silently, w/o crying out, during the whole process, in order to be welcomed into the tribe as men. Alternatively, tribes in Africa cut up their new born babies faces in ritual scarification as a way to safeguard them against blindness and other eye diseases while still others use them to prove the strength of a tribes men to endure pain and the ability of a tribes women to endure childbirth. And still others consider them a mark of beauty, like the lip plates worn by other tribes.

dry point etching illustration from a hand bound book of poetry

I did this as a gift for a friend last year

This is actually a jewelry display board, she clenches my jewelry in her mouth!

a zombie girl character I drew for a friend

rough sketch for a commission that didn’t work out

dry point etching diptych

it was believed that you could put people under a spell by burning a candle made from the mummified hand of a theif

tattoo flash work in progess

rough sketch of a commission that didn’t work out

“Nirvana” Work in Progress
On the Last Episode. . .
On the Last Episode. . .
Bonefish Designs

Bonefish Designs