Does an artwork need a meaning?

I guess the first thing to define is what we 'mean' by 'meaning'. By default, I tend to see the word as 'having one specific intended purpose' but other people might be going by other definitions (like using it to mean "importance" ...  eg, "my first bike had great meaning to me").


In a way this points to the fact that at some level, the symbols we call language are vague but more importantly and perhaps dangerously they are often 'NOT' seen as vague so people think they have real definition and 'meaning' when these are many times (or perhaps mostly?... or even always?) in fact blurry.


Perhaps in this way, art actually has more solid 'meaning' than the apparently direct and to-the-point abstract symbols called language. I think this because one can approach a painting without having preset abstract meanings associated with it unlike words. So making assumptions may be less likely to occur or perhaps more accurately stated, the assumptions made may have more tendancy to be seen as 'relative' or not concrete ... so people realise their"meaning" may only be relative to their point of view.


Even a simple phrase like "the sky is blue" has so many vague characteristics that it would take paragraphs to define what one meant more exactly.

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"sky" ... what do we mean by this? how many feet up does the sky start ... where does it end exactly. Are we 'in' the sky ... etc etc. If you define the sky as the atmosphere then RE WE ACTUALLY BREATHING THE SKY .... is the sky inside of us because of this? or... are we and the sky the same thing (ie, it's molecules become part of us and vice versa? Really , though, I don't define the sky as the same thing as the atmosphere. I see the sky as an illusion of vision but not a real object. Similarly , a rainbow is not a real object but is redirected light. One could say a rainbow is just another way of seeing the Sun!

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"Is" ... another word suggesting that the sky is an object and that it exists. One can see the sky as an abstract symbol though (so not meaning the same thing as the air or atmosphere). The sky could be seen as an illusionary effect created by the sun's radiation and the molecules in the Earth's atmosphere.

Hmmmm....... one could set up the following similarity;

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Sun = Artwork
Viewer of artwork = Earth's atmosphere
Resulting 'meaning' to viewer = the Sky
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If we replace the planet (one with different atmosphere), a different colour sky will result. In the same way, if we replace the viewer, a different meaning will result. The painting , or Sun, is the same but the result is different. Aren't all meanings relative then?

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"Blue"? ... Where does 'blue' actually start to become another colour (indigo ... defined as between 420 and 450 nm in wavelength). How then can we define blue. If we say it is a precise zone between wavelengths what about the colour that is right at this greyzone and our instruments have only certain precision in nanometers. In fact, it is impossible to actually have an instrument that can measure which doesn't have some zone of error (it would need a precision with an infinite number of decimal places ... although in saying this, I assume light wavelengths aren't in steps but can be any amount) or uncertainty so essentially the word 'blue' can't even be specifically defined as we cannot tell if colours very near the defined border are within blue or indigo.

If something as seemingly simple as a colour (or the even more complex sentence above) can't really be defined, how can we expect something as complex as a painting to have a specific meaning.

Well, that was most probably over-doing things a bit but I just really felt like writing about the very real relativity of language and bring to focus.

New ACEO drawings >> 2.5" x3.5"

Here are nine new ACEO's I've done... I have included the 'stories' I wrote about some of them on the auctions. They are done with Faber-Castell Pitt black and greyscale brush-tip pens and fine-tip pens as well as Faber-Castell Polychromos coloured pencils.

There are stories for several of these drawings which are as follows;

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'Pugasaurus Rex'
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The 'Pugasaurus Rex' was a large, muscular 'dogasaur' which lived during the Paw-ocene Epoch. His very large head and jaws allowed him to take large bites of whatever food he found whilst scavenging at the various primal dog parks of this era.

Noted for his extremely stunted fore-limbs, the Pugasaurus Rex relied little on his grasping arms for catching his dinner. Instead, his large bulgy eyes and sad expression aimed intently at other dogasaurs of the Paw-ocene Epoch ensured a steady supply of pity-meals to the Pugasuarus Rex. Thus his species successfully adapted to survive for roughly 10 million years.

His species gradually disappeared after an interstellar spaying and nuetering project was undertaken by an unknown highly advanced civilization from the Sirius star system. Is it merely a coincidence that they came from the alpha 'Canis Majoris' (Large Dog) system .... such mysterious elude scientists to the present day.

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Dogosaur with Tennis Ball
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This particular example of a dogosaur hasn't been classified or named yet as he was only recently discovered. He likes to chew on cars or buses or preferably extremely large green tennis balls!

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West Highland Terrier-dactyl
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The 'West Highland Terrier-dactyl' is so named due to the large abundance of fossils found in the western hemisphere and for it's preference for flying from high elevations and gliding on air currents and thermals.

The 'West Highland Terrier-dactyl' was a cunning predator whose cute appearance would often distract other dogosaurs long enough for him to swoop down and steal their food. A secondary hunting tactic took advantage of his very long tongue with which he caused much confusion for his victim when he attacked them with a barrage of licks. He was often able to steal the dinner of other dogosaurs with this technique.

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Large Footed Scotty
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The 'Large Footed Scotty' is the result of a rather unfortunate accident at the laboratory of the renowned scientist Dr. Samuel Coles. Dr. Coles was an avid jogger and was secretly experimenting on ways to incorperate human DNA from the large toe of a world-class sprinter into the material construction of a running shoe. His dream was to not only create the world's first cybernetic running sneaker but also the fastest running shoe in the world.

His dream ended when his faithful Scottish Terrier, Bob, chased a fallen gingersnap cookie into the beam of the genetic induction ray device and was converted into his current form. In the turmoil, the device for broken so Bob's chances of being converted back and having a normal Scottish Terrier life are not to be.

Ironically, Bob's newfound love of long walks - on which Dr. Coles is obliged to take him - and great speed at hopping have caused Dr. Coles to increase his running times significanty!

New "inchie" drawings >> 1"x1"

Here are 15 new 1"x1" drawings. They are done with Faber-Castell black brush and fine tip pens and their polychromos coloured pencils. Some use of their pitt coloured brush markers was used here and there too. They were done on Strathmore smooth bristol.

Yesterday I woke up with a terrible kink in my neck and upper right back. Today it's still like this and it was hard to sleep. I think before doing any more drawings I really need a better (higher) surface as scrunching over that little folding table probably had a part in my current back issue.

Digital Art Insects - Variation on a theme

I recently started some variations on a bug design within graphics software. I alter the same shapes within the drawing in various ways to come up with new variations on that one bug design. I find the process to be quite fun and full of discovery.

I started using the demo of www.xara.com 's Xara Xtreme (I do have the full version of their older XaraX which is a great vector drawing app) for making the shapes and exported as a .PSD file to open in www.ulead.com 's PhotoImpact 10 (actually owned by Corel now ... we'll see if they don't terminate this program in the future or not).

I've since designed a new but similar  'Insect 2'  design and have 2 variants based on that.

I've put the 'Insect 1' designs first 5 variants as 'single copy' limited edition archival ACEO prints (ie , 2.5" x 3.5" size 'Art Card Editions and Originals') on ebay so I'll see if they are bought. I decided to offer these as only one copy. This is like doing an actual digital art as an original in a way since I won't print more than one.

1" x 1" >> Inchie mini drawings

Recently I decided to start doing some 1" x 1" square drawings for ebay. To my surprise they seem to seel fairly well and the average price goes up from 99cents to a more reasonable level. The highest end price has been $10.50! I just wish I got this price per square inch for   18"x24" painting ( = $4536 in total)!

Most of these have been dog breeds and some cats but perhaps I'll try some new topics soon. My whole love for the 'variation on a theme' ideal serves me well in such pursuits ... I could no doubt do thousands of these littl drawings over the years to come and each one would contain some interest in discovery.

I like using coloured pencils for colour in these as they are small enough that one doesn't have to spend a lot of time colouring.

I wonder what buyers do with such small drawings. I feel that if I collected such things I'd frame them under glass all together as a group. One could also keep them stored inside photo albums or similar things just to look through every now and then.