OVER THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS (2017) Acrylic on Illustration Board - 6” x 10” I bought some slanted brushes that I found fun to play with when I want straight edges in a picture. 1/4 #art #booksky

Democratizing the arts looks like universal income, low-barrier grants for both emerging and working artists, well-funded municipal arts & recreation programs, vibrant third spaces, and a well-funded public school system with progressive curriculum. Not a free pass for corporate-owned slop engines.

The quality of art is not the quality of the art; if it were, art would begin and end w/photorealism. The quality of art is in the quality of the artist's observations. Some of the greatest novels have workmanlike prose; they are carried by jaw-dropping truths about human life. Or take cartooning--

DRAGONSDAWN (1987) Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 25” x 36” This was the first cover in the Dragonriders of Pern series to feature the beloved fire lizards and I really enjoyed painting them. 1/5

So, hey…reporters…make sure when you write about what this administration *says* they’re going to do that you note that they have a massive history of LYING. It will make 2026 a little easier if y’all just start establishing the fact that they are not to be trusted. Ever.

FLIGHT OF DISCOVERY (2013) Acrylic on Canvas - 16" x 12" The stonework was based on ruins we saw in Wales, near a place called Three Cliffs on the Gower Peninsula. We had spent most of the day walking on the gorgeous beach there and looking for fossils in the rocks nearby. 1/4 #art

3d pose -> finished illustration just wanted to show it

always bears repeating that this is NOT a financial decision. jeff bezos is worth over 250 billion dollars. he can afford to lose many millions and never even notice it. this is, at its core, a political and personal decision by bezos to destroy the post

THE WAY STATION (1982) Acrylic on Illustration Board - 20” x 30” It should come as a surprise to no one that I just love painting textures. 1/3

Character How I draw them

FORTITUDE (1997) Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 9" x 12" I got to thinking of Edgar Rice Burroughs' character John Carter of Mars... 1/2

the conspiratorial part of me wants to say that there's no way Adobe is so stupid as to spontaneously shut down an industry-wide used program so it must be deliberate sabotage on art to artificially force usage of gAI but on the other hand "they are in fact that stupid" is a valid counter-argument

🤣 brilliant!

This is Jerry Lawson. He invented the video game cartridge for the Fairchild Channel F system. Because of his invention, many consoles had cartridges and CD formats and would become the norm. The Atari 2600, NES, Genesis, and many consoles wouldn't exist without him. Happy Black History Month.

ENSIGN FLANDRY (1978) Acrylic on illustration board - 26” x 16” Dominic Flandry debuted in print way back in 1966, a decade before I worked on ACE reprints of the series. Early in my career, I was often paired with established authors like Poul Anderson. 1/4

dig if you will this picture

Taking a look back at The White Dragon, the Anne McCaffrey book that changed everything, as we review the 20 covers published in the year 1978 in this week's newsletter: theartofmichaelwhelan.substack.com/p/1978-year-...

Completely lost on the 77M Americans who voted for this nightmare is that Habeas Corpus is a critical underpinning of our legal system. We don't exist as a free society without the right to challenge unlawful imprisonment. It's crazy that 41% of Americans approve of this unlawful presidency.

TRIPOD WALKER (2016)
 Acrylic on Watercolor Paper - 19" x 13"

 Painted on the back of a misprinted Dark Tower image I was using as a mixing palette of mostly white, yellow ocher, and raw umber. 1/4

At this point, is it just easier and quicker to publish lists of which powerful people do NOT appear in the Epstein files?

ICYMI, I included those photos at full resolution. If you open them in a new tab and zoom, you can read all of Michael's notes. 😉 ~ME

Or how about this headline — “American citizen arrested without cause after exercising his Constitutional rights.” Very important that government propaganda not become the default framing.

FAHRENHEIT 451 (2020) Acrylic on Gessobord - 24" x 36" 

Often the path to a successful cover isn't a straight line. That was certainly the case illustrating Ray Bradbury's iconic novel. 1/7 #booksky #art www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/fa...

Oh look, Bluesky automod double labeled the post as sexual content anyway. 🙄

Reposting today's image KAIROS with the proper content label since moderation stunted our reach. See the rest of the thread in the quote. ~ME

KAIROS (2007) Acrylic - 24” x 36” I didn’t want to just call this PRUDENCE 3, so I looked all over for a word that captured the idea of the painting and KAIROS is the only one that fit. 1/5 www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/ka... #art

When the president was calling all Somali immigrants "garbage" who "come from hell" and "contribute nothing" to America and therefore needed to go "back where they came from" did you ask him to "stop the rhetoric," Tom?

ICE's $100M ad campaign is using the same playbook as the Gestapo & Stasi. The goal? To make repression sound reasonable and patriotic.

I’m a freelance concept artist and illustrator from Norway who loves creating characters, creatures and stories that belong to a different world. Books, movies and D&D are my main sources of inspiration✨ Contact: [email protected] Portfolio: www.artstation.com/michelletolo

As far as I know, Tom Suozzi here still does not have a primary challenger in his district (NY-3 on Long Island). The filing deadline is April 6 for the primary on June 23, and if there's a remotely progressive town council member or PTA president in that district, this is the time to make a move.

GATE OF IVREL (1975) Acrylic and Oil on Canvas Board - 17" x 18" The context for this commission—quite possibly lost in the long arc of our careers—was as C.J. Cherryh’s debut novel. 1/4

Time for my semi annual reshare of this starter pack of ADs who hire artists! If you're an AD who regularly hires/commissions artists for commercial work and want to be added lmk. go.bsky.app/RSV4VwA

It has been my great honour to interview Jessica Amanda Salmonson, after writing a profile on her which you can find in New Edge Sword & Sorcery #3.

WINDOW TO THE SUN (2006) Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 13" x 11" After my resolution to devote time to my gallery work, I obsessed with painting these passageways. It doesn't take a Sigmund Freud to figure out why. 1/3

THE CHESSMEN OF MARS (1979) 
Acrylic - 20” x 25” “As Gahan entered his square, U-dor leaped toward him with drawn sword with such fury as might have overborne a less skilled and powerful swordsman.” 1/4

Well, if I *could* think, and discovered that I’d been created by thieves merely to enrich them by the exploitation of others’ stolen work, I might not feel all that loved either.

In this week’s newsletter, we examine an alternate approach to categorizing my art that goes beyond illustration and fine art. theartofmichaelwhelan.substack.com/p/a-question...

Journalists need to ask, “What made Pettri a ‘suspect’?” He was ‘seized’ under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, which requires *probable cause that he was committing a crime* MAKE THEM ARTICULATE THE BASIS FOR THE SEIZURE

When democracy dies. Dörte Clara Wolff’s “Descent” (1929). Popular during the Weimar Republic, the German Jewish painter was stripped of her citizenship and declared a degenerate artist when the Nazis came to power. She escaped to England in 1936.

Something about the twist of birds. It's called a murmuration #Art

ICE has now carried out two summary executions of innocent people in the streets of an American city. If you work for ICE, there's no denying that's the mission you're supporting now. You don't get to claim in one year or ten or twenty that you didn't know what ICE was doing. You're complicit.

TABLETOP RAMBLER (2016) Acrylic - 16” x 20” I was chatting with Jordu Schell on the phone one night while working on a painting. I should have known better than to try to get serious work done! He’s too entertaining to listen to. 😉 1/4

INVADER (1995) 
Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 30" x 22"

 In a chapter introduction for WONDERWORKS, C.J. Cherryh wrote:

 "To my mind, there cannot be so great a difference between the imagination of the writer and that of the artist. Both see. A writer’s instinct is to tell that vision... 1/8

TODAY, Friday January 23rd, 2026: We are ALL residents of Minnesota. We ALL want #ICE_OutForGOOD 🚫 🧊 Also: #ICE_OUT4ReneeGood 💔

Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out. As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class. Here's what happened:

The United States has left the World Health Organization.

Stop using ring cameras! Ffs. futurism.com/future-socie...

Thinking about how bsky has the most horrible setting turned on by default that says "i don't want to see any other languages except English" and if no one tells you to put it on "no selection" you straight up won't see posts from people set to different languages on your TL.