This is the eighth year of illustrating for the Siren Music Festival and I went with a half land/half sea composition. Props to Jon Keegan for encouraging me to go aquatic. The Creature from the Black Lagoon makes a strong showing this year but then again he does have centuries of passion pent up in his savage heart – so it sort of makes sense. Click on the image for a larger view.

This is the second version of the art posted previously, but now I painted it on canvas. I haven’t bought a wood panel yet, so i tried to do a similar effect with sandpaper and modeling paste

Testing out a new Lamy pen.

To the best of my knowledge, these are the last pictures I shot on 35mm film. When we were living in Los Angeles back in 2003, I grabbed my trusty Yashica T* loaded up with black and white film, and Julie and I set off to explore the haunting Salton Sea area, about 60 miles to the south-east of Palm Springs.
We had heard it was an interesting place to visit, but we weren’t prepared for the things we would see: An artificial mountain built of mud, paint and car tires as a monument to God’s love (Salvation Mountain), entire neighborhoods, buildings and vehicles devoured by pink alkaline slurry, sulfurous boiling mudpots, defunct hotels from the 1950’s heydays and a dead, smelly sea.
If you are ever in the area, be sure to make time for a visit.