Selections from a series of planetary and fixed star watercolors commissioned by the Star+Snake Artist Retreat Center in Center Harbor, NH. After several years of working strictly from ancient textual sources like Picatrix and the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, I chose to augment the textual approach with the practices of channelling and automatic drawing. Blind pencil drawings were skryed for imagery which I then developed into paintings. Sometimes traditional imagery remained in the fore, while other pieces veered toward abstraction and surrealism.
The name of Antares, the core star of the constellation Scorpio, is usually translated as "rival of Mars" (anti-Ares) or "equal of Mars." To draw out this essential nature of striving and rivalry, I chose to mix orange-reds and blue-reds, two modes that clash despite being bound under the same category of "red," the color of Mars. From the automatic drawing I skryed the image of a three-heart, a symbol of excess passion and drive, and combined it with the beady and calculating face of the scorpion. The outer ring of the tondo is purple, as Antares is said to partake of the natures of both Mars and Jupiter.
Serpents, poison green, masks masking masks.
Manilius in the Astronomica says that Procyon bestows "not hunting, but its weapons. To rear keen scented whelps...to produce nets and hunting-spears tipped with strong points." As the stellar herald of the Dog-star Sirius, I created a creature that is both a fox and a hound, surrounded by the tools and spoils of the hunt. Procyon's three-pronged sigil (in the lower left) suggested the three eyes.
Bounded by a septagon, the image of Venus plays with her consistent bird imagery and the idea of love as a chain or vinculum that can bind both for good and for ill.
A bird is one of the images for Spica given in Agrippa. This rooster image emerged very organically during the automatic drawing process.
One of the most abstract images, Arcturus presented itself during skrying as a radiating cluster of colors, fronds and semi-sigils.
Automatic drawings were undertaken blindfolded and in a darkened room after a meditative interval. Here I've highlighted in blue pen the shape that emerged to me as the sea-creature in the final Deneb Algedi painting. The descending column of crescent shapes along the left edge became the sigillic scrawl that curves along the right border of the painting.
A series of painted sigils based on the paths of each traditional planet through the essential dignities and debilities of the zodiac.
This painting shows the watery strength of the Moon and her influence on plantlife. She is exalted in Taurus (lower left) and rules the earth triplicity by night, represented by the Lunar herbs mugwort (in Taurus), poppy (in Virgo) and sage (in Capricorn). Her 28 phases, or mansions, ring the outside.
AcrylaGouache on wood panel
12x12
2017
I represented the path of Mercury, the planet of eloquence and trickery, with a string of intricate knotwork winding through the zodiac. Mercury rules and is exalted in Virgo, the green pattern along the left, and rules the air triplicity by night, and dissolves into a tangled blue mess in Pisces where it is in detriment and fall.
AcrylaGouache on wood panel
12x12
2017
Delicate, peaceful Venus, symbolized by the color green, joys in the 5th house and finds her exaltation in Pisces (lower right).
AcrylaGouache on wood panel
12x12
2017
The Sun rules Leo, the warmest, brightest sign, and finds his exaltation in Aries when the day grows longer than night. He joys in the 9th house of prophecy and divinity.
AcrylaGouache on wood panel
12x12
2017
Passionate Mars is strong in both fire and water, ruling Aries and Scorpio. He is exalted in Capricorn and finds his joy in the 6th house of woe and troubles.
AcrylaGoauche on wood panel
12x12
2017
Jupiter, the great sanguine star, rules Sagittarius and Pisces and is exalted in warm, nurturing Cancer in the 11th house of rising hopes.
AcrylaGoauche on wood panel
12x12
2017
Dry, malefic Saturn, the slowest planet, rules the coldest signs of Capricorn and Aquarius, and is exalted in the just sign of Libra, joying in the 12th house of prisons and suffering.
AcrylaGoauche on wood panel
12x12
2017
Custom birth charts. Based on a full traditional analysis of planetary placements to highlight the most powerful points of your chart.
A new Moon in Aquarius with Mercury and Venus, against the backdrop of the constellation Pisces.
AcrylaGouache on wood panel
9x12
2018
Waxing Moon in Aries against the stars of Pisces, with the Sun and Venus in Aquarius.
AcrylaGouache on wood panel
9x12
2018
New Moon in Gemini conjoined to the star Aldebaran.
AcrylaGouache on wood panel
9x12
2018
Jupiter rising in Leo with the Sun, Mercury and Mars in Gemini and the midheaven in the 3rd degree of Taurus.
AcrylaGouache on wood panel
12x12
017
