MJCarty art: The 90s collection

MJCarty art from the late 1990s: A small selection of drawings and paintings I did towards the end of the last century.

It has been a long time since I did a blog post with any of my art in it. Indeed, it’s been much too long since I last did any art, save for the occasional sketch.

It seems that my artistic side was much more active in the closing years of the 1990s. Going through some old papers the other day, I happened upon a number of drawings and paintings that I had created in those final years of the 20th century.

I thought it’d be interesting to compile some of them here. I have just now made up the titles and notes that you see below. There’s no further information from the time on or about any of these pictures (save for the fact that I actually wrote the date on one of them). Which (if any) is your favourite?

A moment to contemplate

Deep green conversation

I think I was probably trying to paint an Oscar Wilde-esque character engaged in deep conversation. For much of my time doing art in my schooldays, I would get bogged down spending hours on the minutest of detail. This picture looks as though I was trying to break that habit and create something as rapidly as possible in the moment of inspiration.

Purple fish

A doodled fish in a rather fetching shade of purple.

Seriously done with all this

The lined paper strongly suggests that I doodled this during a less engaging moment at whatever job I was working at the time. The expression may or may not convey something of how I was feeling at that precise moment.

Fiery blob

A rapidly-done painting attempting to convey the very reality, the very essence of what we can only surmise to be a distinctly fiery blob.

Deep green robe and hair towel

Pierced by your gaze

Speedy and minimal pen-and-ink work with a surprisingly precise line.

Odd patterns

Patterns or shapes that can only be described as odd. A compass must have been involved in creating the curvature.

Cocktail party moment

I’ve always loved scratchy black-and-white shading in illustrations, as hinted at in this speedy doodle.

Bottle service

A tiny wee painting of a bottle, and the only picture here with a date: Sunday 27 April 1997. What might you have been doing that day, gentle reader (if you were on this earth then, of course)?

May you be nothing but kind today, to others and to yourself.

May today be nothing but kind to you and yours.

IMAGES

• All art by MJCarty. In the 90s.