The Dark Times

When I was a young artist, I guess I thought my only source of inspiration was my emotions. Not just any emotions, but my negative ones: anger, depression, sadness, etc. This may have stemmed from something my high school art teacher told me once. She told me to stay in touch with my emotions, because they seem to drive my artwork. Which it did in high school. Art was very therapeutic. Of course, I would never show my own kids the sketches I did during those turbulent times. When I got into college, I still stayed in touch with those emotions. But many art teachers pointed me in many different directions. But as I reached my 30's and had kids, my emotions changed. I don't know how many moons ago it was when I let go of most of those emotions. But for a while, I was filled with joy and inspiration and positivity. Hardly a place for dark subject matter. My taste for the macabre diminished. I haven't seen a horror movie in ages!

Then there was a point in my career where I had to tap in to those dark images to produce art for a haunted house. I found many of the sketches I created for this project. And just recently, I resolved to use them to work on a Hulk illustration. For some reason, the Hulk has always intrigued me as a character - I suppose it was his duality. Much like Jekyll and Hyde. I also like how Bruce Banner had to maintain his cool to keep the monster at bay. I found this struggle interesting because I can actually understand it: we all have to maintain some civility to coexist. Otherwise, we risk chaos. Or you could look at it as society dictating how we should act - putting us in the position of repressing our true selves. Anyway, here are some of those sketches I did. Kinda has a Wolverine pain and anger to them. Hmmmm, Wolverine....