Tree of Life and Trunk of Light

This piece was inspired (though it doesn't resemble at all) Unica Zurn. My drawing professor named her cat Unica, which I found to be a rather fascinating name, so I looked up her artwork. It is a beautiful surreal conglomeration of line-drawings and doodle-style chimera, figures, and swirls, with the occasional eye hidden Waldo-style. Her pieces are beautiful as well as a functional window into her mind (which she seemingly lost at one point). To me, these pieces seem like the Bell Jar of art. Well- if not the Bell Jar, then at least one of them.

I began with the tree of life, winding, intertwining like the lives of the living. From there, I thought that it would be nice to have it composed of human limbs as, well, tree limbs, so the leaves are actually hands, the trunk has the occasional elbow, and resting upon God's head are, appropriately, feet. From there my choices become more random. More than drawing with an aim, I drew for pleasure. It felt like stream-of-consciousness drawing, soothing to not censor myself or judge, just draw. I was going to have the telephone poles (I currently have a fascination with telephone poles) coming out of floating Boulders (Magritte style) but when I drew the boulders, they looked like strawberries, so I made them strawberries and called it a day.

This next piece is another that evolved organically as I worked on it, though unlike the previous piece, I did not go into it with the intention of free-draw. I knew I wanted an elephant the didn't look entirely realistic (I am also going through a bit of an elephant phase) and clouds. I have a developing things of happy things like flowers and butterflies coming out of unexpected places like blowholes of whales and trunks of elephants. 
In this case, the flowers act as the sun, the elephant as a light fixture in the sky, and the clouds as the reluctant anchor. This is a new style for me. I'm not sure if it fits, but I am trying it on for size, and quite enjoying the process!