If you’re in the Tampa Bay area, and you’re looking to satisfy your carnivorous cravings, I’d suggest you try Boizao, a Brazilian Steakhouse. www.Boizio.com It’s a fine dining experience with fire roasted cuts of beef, chicken, pork and lamb, on skewers and all you can eat without bursting your stomach. They balance it out with a fresh, gourmet salad, cold cut and sushi bar. Desserts are also to die for, but I skipped that part as I have to watch my figure. But I did have about 4-5 plates of food since artistic creativity requires lots of quality fuel.

…is what describes the art of George Grie. Neo-Surrealism is defined as an artistic genre that illustrates the complex imagery of dream or subconscious visions in irrational space and form combinations. I find his art mesmerizing with the perfection to details, coloration and the way he portrays his subject matter with the neo-surrealism infusion.

Chilly holiday weekends are the perfect time for catching up on movies and doing some artwork indoors. I caught the new TRON movie and thought it was visually stunning with the costuming and fight scenes. But I was bored with the storyline as I dozed off quite a few times in the theater. DISTRICT 9, which I never watched before, proved to be more entertaining than TRON. The storyline was bizarre, which kept my attention, the blood and guts of aliens and humans was visually fun, acting was well done, and loved the foreign accent – I think it was British?

And on my vampire painting, I added more red toned highlights. I think I’m finally past the halfway point.

I was more nice than naughty this year so Santa gave me presents to further inspire me upon my artist pursuits: 1) the Twilight movie “Eclipse” 2) The Action Bible , autographed and illustrated by Sergio Cariello, who is famous for his work with both Marvel and DC Comics 3) National Geographic’s Simply Beautiful Photographs. What more could a gothic artsy comic geek ask for?

The holidays and life in general have been distracting me from much progress on my painting. But I finally made some headway. She’s finally looking more Asian and has the paler vampire flesh tone. Asian eyes are actually tricky as I kept making them Caucasian looking time after time. An Asian artist that has a hard time painting Asians…funny.

Have you heard of Brazilian artist, Gil Vicente?  Well, the world leaders have.  He uses the world leaders which he finds both distasteful and disappointing as the “models” for his giant sketches, execution style.  I personally like the way this man thinks, but I wouldn’t be gutsy enough to display it publicly as an art exhibition.

Gothic fantasy art is a mixture of two genres. First there was fantasy art, depicting mermaids, dragons, gryphons etc in a rather romantic style, and then Gothic fantasy art which may best be described as a dark type of fantasy art. However historically we can say that Gothic fantasy art began in the mid 12^th century in France, and came into its own in the works of Hieronymus Bosch in the Middle Ages, who painted fantastical scenes of hell and the last judgment to decorate churches. These were particularly gothic, although ere not described as such at that time as the term came into being in the late 18^th century with Gothic architecture and literature. The best known Gothic novels are arguably, “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley and “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe. These were dark fantasies, of the kind the Brothers Grimm made famous, in what became books of fairy stories for children.

Today Gothic Fantasy Art can be seen in art galleries, on posters, postcards, T-shirts, mugs, and numerous other items. It is a form of art often used by tattooists, as it features the usual figures of women, angels and fairies, but gives them a more sinister appearance. Tattooists entwine their female figures with Celtic symbols and serpents and they take on a darker meaning than “mum” which figured on many tattoos in the past.

If you have read Tolkein’s trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings,” then you will be familiar with Gothic fantasy art as most illustrators of this trilogy have used Gothic fantasy art to illustrate this work of Tolkein. His other works are not as dark or sinister and “The Hobbit” would be illustrated with fantasy art, but not that of the Gothic variety.

In Gothic fantasy art the central figure might be that of a beautiful naked woman, with demonic wings and serpents entwining her body, or she might be holding runic or Celtic symbols which appear to be occult. Often the female figures are set against a black or dark blue background or one that gives the viewer a feeling of foreboding.

Gothic fantasy art may also be seen alongside erotic art in galleries, and would appeal perhaps to those who have darker erotic fantasies of their own. Often there is a dichotomy in works of this genre as the beauty of the female figure is offset by a lurking evil which may be intuited rather than being graphically portrayed.

This kind of fantasy art has been around for more than twenty years, but has become popular since 1990. There are many female artists who paint with oils on canvas in this genre, as well as males. This shows perhaps how the feminist movement has moved to admit that women can be demonic, as epitomized in Fay Weldon’s book “The Life and Loves of a She-Devil” which was published in 1983.If you go to an exhibition of Gothic Fantasy Art, you may find it interesting to guess the gender of the artist, and do a little psychoanalysis of your own.

I finally started adding the oils the the vampire chic tonight…but of course I forgot to bring home the white tube from the office.  So I did what I could without the color white. As you can see, she currently has yellow teeth, yuck!     I guess I need to make sure I have a spare set of each color both at work and home from now on.

Have you ever looked under a microscope?  If you have, you would discover an amazing, fantastical world right below your nose.  I recently stumbled upon some breathtaking microscopic images of  life subjects at  www.olympusbioscapes.com .  I’d say it’s a conglomeration of freakish science and art at its finest.  Below are some of my favorites.

At the battleground in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province, Musa Qala, where war against Taliban rebels occurs,  graffiti of both the Taliban and  the U.S Marine Corps decorate the walls.  It seems the “art of war” could be to use art in war.