Rhetorical Square

@rhetoricalsquare.bsky.social

399 Followers 559 Following

Autistic, queer, quadrilateral. I scribble mostly things not meant to be seen. No AI, I make my own messes.

Landscape with pond, mountain, and fossils. A giant skull. It could be raining.
Up high in banana tree. Something like that. In this version, Sam protects the smaller creatures while the tree implores the moon not to bite.
Ghosts of many animals, layered.
Blue sky with clouds. Arch, ash, and bystanders.
A burned out city with toxic water, electric sky, and ghosts. Third in a series.
A dark path through woods with grave markers and ghosts. Second of a series.
A river, woods, and buildings in bright and muted colors with ghosts. First in a series of three.
A person wearing a blackv-neck sweater, head exploding with topography and intrusions.
One thing I know is the yellow grass. Another is a narrow entryway forbidden to many. Everything is alive, even, especially, the moon. A scribble of mostly purple and blue characters dressed in thick black lines.
Oh my. Everyone has become a Rhinoceros, even the trees, the houses, the stones. I'm never going to change, I promise you. Welcome to another defective reflective pool.
Flailing and blubbering, mouth full of fruits, surrounded by everything broken and piles of unfinished business, don't call her a monster, okay, until you've been there yourself. Off white character on black background with green, blue, and gold fragments.
This is from the same sketch as The Agonies, posted yesterday. I often make multiple pieces from the same sketch, sometimes with very different results. This one has a beach with waves and dark blue sky and a bunch of other shapes.
They don't know their own names and only want to share their strange beauty and their stories. Brightly colored figures of undetermined number and false species.
A sketchy white creature in front of a purple tree, surrounded by unlikely vegetation and friends.
Petra is i the process of becoming. The purple dog and scattered faces are no match for her scribbled fury. Mostly green and yellow with dark green Rorschach splatter.
Scribbled yellow creature and friends.
The insides had been excised, the shell filled with color. It was for a celebration. I know it is late now and I don't have the heart to break. This wasn't meant to be done by one person, hard boiled or scrambled.
Green and yellow figures on an orange/red background with lots of specks in the air.
A sketchy face rising from or drowning in blacktop. In front of the face is a small slug.
An abstract walks into a bar. It's name is Fran.Thirded, closer to square, square, square (nearly I said), mammalian, doglike even unless you see caves in which case yes definitely. Just for fun, she says, as if we might do this for any other purpose.
An yellowed old map with drifting and cracking face. The word "fine" is to the right of the face. Brown, yellow, white, and green. Location is everything.
The words can be seen but not said. They gather in corners, dusty boxes, body parts, pineapple, leaving marks like prisoners counting down the days. I open my mouth and release a trail of scribble like snail slime.
Landscape with sketchy animals, red sky, and moss.
This isn't anything and is meaningless. Is it? Isn't it? Did it mean to look like this? I have no idea. Colors are purple and maroon with some yellow and pink on a dark bacground. Some parts are lit up like neon and they are abstractions but you can read them as faces and if you're like me you can't help it. Something about a bug and a mirror, architertural fonts and fishing gear for the future. Neoclassical paisley noir and planet of the apes. Revisited. Visited? No. Never.
Automatic drawing that reminded me of an oyster but also the skull of a horned animal surrounded by faces, some more hidden than others. Green, gold, brown, and white.
Lines and shapes and creatures and faces composed of gasses and floating. Mostly blue and purple with green and orange.
Imagined and accidental creatures entangled and emerging on a dark background.
Another pileup of faces. This one looks like it's made of thread and possibly incomplete. One creature at the top might be working to finish it up. Green, purple, and pink.
Purple, green, and mustard brown lines and shapes repreenting imagined and entwined creatures and faces.
The creature is green, composed of string, and worried. Possible responses are vague and many but words are embargoed indefinitely.
Undefined to poorly defined creatures hold a rally, complete with campfire refreshments and obligatory speeches. One of the leaders seems to have something imprisoned in his teech.
A swirl of purple and pastel implying many life forms. A landscape, an invitation to somewhere else.
Shirley, in black, needs to go first. Her offering is two peels. The one trying to jump line is a bird-winged or rabbit-eared, one-eyed facemonger. A large and calm amorphous green figure blocks his path.
Blurry or blocky, or stringy or scumbled, the guardians wait for a birdlike shadow figure to cross over. Orange, magenta and yellow with areas of blue and grey. Foregrounded, the shadow takes its time.
I want to call it purely abstract but the faces won't let me so lets say water and rocks as well as the ghosts of many creatures. Blues, greeens, and greys mostly.
Owlish character and friends on blocky backgroundwith tangles and swirls. Mostly greys and golden browns.
Cabbages and things. Abstract landscape in portrait orientation with a giant fuzzy bug breaking through bricks and surounded by cut/sliced/shredded purple cabbagees. The executioner is busy today; please take your number and wait.
A light green, dark green, blue, orange, and tan mess of distorted faces, animal shapes, and lansdscape features.
A collage of faces and animal figures in white/mint/teal/black.
I was thinking about chow mein noodles when the the blues started drifting in. Now I don't know if I am the ghost or they are. All pleas clawing at indifferent airs.
Still shot of the entire gang getting away with the goods. Disbelievers in negative space, they see themselves as rescuers of empty potential. This is how we honor our origins, explains the Kool Aid.
A confused laundromat or an old-fashioned "beauty parlor," perhaps The Golden Hairpin in 1972 but I'm not saying for sure with a ghost or two and miscellaneous clutter. Gold, brown, green, and white shapes.
Eyefish in their native habitat of chaotic skywater. Green, blue and black with yellow and orange.
An abstract landscape with fog and faces. Mostly green and grey.
A green bell pepper with carrots, snakes, and faces. Green, purple, orange, and white. Belle may be moving from one continent to another.
A blob with thick appendages, face full of ghosts and demands. Grey, with white and light blue on black background. Rising or sinking, the blob guards a sketchy stairway.
Two young faces. One seems over-embossed, the other barely there and burning. Dark green on light green with tan and flames.
Teal, moss, chartreuse, yellow, gold, black, and white abstract sort of a landscape. High and low areas full of weird, hiding creatures and ghosts. Intuitive/automatic drawing.
Abstract panel in quarters. A stained and grafittied wall. Is this the place? For story, read counterclockwise from bottom left or from light to dark. Mustard yellow, brown, grey, black, orange.
Piles of stuff including buildings, small appliances, empty boxes, a spatula, a hamster wheel, costumes, scales, a lamp, a bicycle, stairs, and a clock. Ghosts and goblins rummage through it all.
This looks swampish to me. Reptile shapes and textures, murky greens and grey bordering a body of water. Lots of creatures hiding but they haven't done anything wrong. Q: What about the green, roughly hexagonal shape near the water? Is that an apple? A gem? Maybe a pod to collect the wrongly imprisoned and shuttle them to a better place.
Abstrract in dark colors, mostly greens and blues. The central figure looks like a cocktail glass with legs and a surprised facial expression. Surounding figures may include stars, planets, faces, bottles, glasses, and memories.
Map of a place with creatures emerging from land. An annoying if not abominable snowman type. He fancies himself a sheppard looking after an assortment of strange little creatures. Honestly, I never know. Mainly teal, white, and brown.
Faces within faces surrounded by faces and bodies and eyes. Map of an isthmus, agate, whrilpool, serpeant. No wonder they took back the statue. Many shades of blue with light green, black, and white. Any kind of animal can be a pushmepullyu.
A bird or a camel delivers the news. They used to call it "etching." Return to your fishbowl and try to make the best of it. Blue/grey and green on black, may or may not have been drawn with a table knife.
You might have seen a castle in the background, but when the sky cracked, poodles swarmed and the grass began to sharpen its blades. Watch out. You might think you've broken through, but is that not another barrier ahead?
What happened at the Hut didn't stay at the Hut. Now the entire city knows about the problems including dissatisfied otters, "low-visibility" cheese, and a variety of pests. Faded colors and black on turquoise background. Faces.
Cecilia had somethint to say. "You overcomplicate everything. Why not simplify instead?" I was inclined to follow her lead. Alas, it was another trick. "I get it now," I speak from under the rubble but she isn't quite ready to let me go. Brown, white, black, green and tan shapes and lines, not too many of either.
To be honest, this looked very different when it took the name "Falling." I can't verify that anything is in fact falling here. I see faces, of course, and a wall here. I think sky, I think water, but these turn out to be walls too. Pastel blues, green, purple, and white.
Off muted primaries barter at the tavern in the cavern just before the funhouse. The mirror is artfully cracked, so see what you want to. Near black background with darker near-black showing through in places.