Clown #2 - May - Romeo

I had so much fun conceptualizing, roughing in, and painting this chap, I can't even describe it sufficiently. And it was fast. Mind, there was some of the usual annoyance in arranging the in-progress documentation and scanning process, but that is essentially of no importance here.

Suffice it to say, this love-struck, doomed fellow was out of nowhere, and - on a thoroughly uncreative late night, near the end of April - I got my Clown II.

For those who are centuries behind the times, Romeo drinks poison and dies at the end of his brief but torrid romance with the infamous Juliet...So here you go: Romeo

And almost fittingly for the romantic holiday, happy May 1st!
C3 - June 1st!

Mairin-Taj

April Fish! Poisson d'avril! Pesce d'aprile! Aprilvis! - #1 April Fools

In an innocent browsing through attics and closets - not my own - the gears clicked serendipitously upon the instant when all the imperative ingredients for inspiration were ripely gathered, and so here begins CLOWN - A Madcap Credo - The way of wise fools and punk pierrots, romantic rogues, butch mavericks, and reinvented femme fatales; the indivisible soul, the willing rapscallion. The artful bad-ass.

This is a monthly dalliance with the concept above, cataloging saturated sneaks into the epic of the painted personalities humanity has reinvented for centuries. Consciously or no, with wit and wisdom, the Clown is a conviction that can underlay even the most stoic of masks.

Clown #1
Who's the April Fish near you this month?

In Canada, France, Italy, Belgium, and other countries, to pin a paper fish onto a friend's back come April 1st - without them knowing - is to mark a 'fool', a 'fish', a 'gowk' of the day. They are someone unwitting or slow to change, someone behind the times, someone clumsily aloof.

But how much of a fool is the fool willingly 'fished', willingly owning the name and the game, being wise to choose the joke, taking the laughter as his reward, not his degradation? They are no longer slow to catch up, but ahead of the rest, and reminding us of our moment. The ultimate nonverbal quip.