It's Sweater Time!!

8" x 10" Gouache and ink on Rieves BFK
Fun to do some .005 micron work:)

Portrait of author, funny-man, and super nice fella Lucas Klauss.  My lovely sister-in-law commissioned the piece to commemorate Lucas' first novel - Everything You Need To Survive The Apocalypse, which you should buy.  I had a good time splicing together some facts from Lucas' personal life: his childhood cats - Johnson and Johnson, harmonica enthusiasm, his love of killing white things (watch out honkies!), and of course his amazing knowledge pertaining to when it is, and when it is not sweater time.  Jealous of his success? As well you should be, but you should know, success lives in his hometown in Gwinett County, Georgia - a county so great it has moved beyond the need for punctuation.  Gwinett is great.  Period.  So no period.  Congrats Lucas, and hope you like it.

Is This Thing On?

Here's my submissions for this year's "Is This Thing On 2: The Weird Year" Show at Gallery1988 show in LA - HOSTED BY WEIRD AL YANKOVIC!!  I had . . . maybe too much fun on these guys.  I grew up on Bill Cosby records, and Peter Sellers has been a sort of hero for me since the first time I saw Casino Royale and had my mind blown.  

This one is "Go-cart Championship of America" - 19 3/4" x 15 3/4" gouache on paper.

detail

And this is "Man of a Thousand Mustaches", same size, gouache on paper.

detail - yup - all fake mustaches.

Big in Taiwan!

Angeline Chen from COOL Magazine, a street fashion, art and design magazine in Taipei, Taiwan was nice enough to contact me a few months ago and tap me for an interview in her column.   The magazine sells in Taiwan and also a few places in China, which is pretty amazing.  I've broken through to the mainland!  It was really great to get them in print a few days ago - and interesting to see my work in the midst of Taiwan street culture.  Makes me realize how pop-y my stuff is - and at least for me, how far my palettes have come from 5 years ago.   

Acrylic Demo - for Valentine's Day!!

Here's a demo I did a few weeks ago that I just touched up to bring it to a bit of finish - maybe not totally finished - but hey!  I got a Bill Cosby piece to paint, so here it is :).  I wanted to show my class some simple color blocking and dry brush technique. so the steps went like this:
1. Mount a sheet of 140 lb Arches Cold Press to a wood panel, using PVA, and the trim the excess off the edges.  Let it dry for an hour.
2. Paint in a washy sky-y background, draw portrait on top in very, very light pencil.
3.  Block out the face (the shape of the contour of the face) in red oxide (a nice cheap opaque pigment) with a little payne's grey mixed in to give it a slight variation, being careful of the edges.
4. Block out the hair shape and eyebrows in payne's grey, again being careful of the edges.
5. Start into lighter tones to "pull" out midtone highlights.  Basically, stating to shape out the cheekbones, bridge of the nose, ears, back of the neck, and forehead - using dry brush
6. Move up the the value scale being careful to not just keep mixing in white, but using cadmium yellow, napthol red, and light portrait pink to keep it warming - not just lightening, using dry brush.  So far, I've pretty much just used a #6 Filbert.
7. Use light on the sky as a high point for the highlights - in this case, the slightly whited out light portrait pink for the highlight.
8. Descend down into cooler tones and dark from the red oxide mid level, using payne's grey and dry brush.
9.  Use a bit of a napthol crimson wash on the upper left side of the forehead to allow the right side to pop a bit a more.
10. Wash a bit of brilliant blue into the mouth/chin area.
11. Realize you should have been painting the shirt, tie, and jacket at the same time and add them in.:)
12. Throw in plane for extra depressing affect.
13.  Besides prep and background painting, about two hours - not bad, have a cup of coffee.
14. Happy belated Valentine's Day!!

Here's what the end texture looks like.  Pretty pourous - but you can see how the wash on the left side smooths it out a bit.  I want the right side rough - closer the viewer, and remembering that rough surface come forward, smooth surfaces recede.  And - if you look close, you can see the bad photoshop highlights in the eyes I tossed in before I painted them in the finish above.  eeesh.

Rumbletoid and LostAtEMinor

My friend and Philadelphia consiglieri Josh Longo is now posting for LostAtEMinor and was very generous in throwing up some of my Freddie Mercury portraits for the New Illustration section.  VIVA FREDDIE!! And thanks, Josh!  But enough about me - let's talk about Josh.  Josh is an industrial designer and teaches at Pratt in the ID studios next door to the Communication Design Dept and sometimes stops by my class on Mondays.  We share bus rides back and forth from Philly to Pratt in Brooklyn - and like schoolgirls on a sleepover, we say we should sleep and then talk the whole time.

     Josh has a pretty amazing CV based mostly on his 3D work in Longoland, but for the past few years he's been doing what most of us illustrators talk about, but never REALLY do - and that's branch out.  He's been developing his 2D work and is doing some amazing stuff.  Not to say that Josh wasn't already great at drawing - he was - but moving from drawing as a preliminary for 3D work, and doing drawing and painting as a finish in and of itself is a really interesting difference.  It's been fascinating to watch.  We have a lot of similar influences and his stuff has inspired a lot of the more recent painting I've been doing and vice-versa, which is a blast.  The way he attacks pieces and compositions reminds that it's supposed to be fun - that the if a piece doesn't have intuition, that it's probably lacking in inspiration, too.  If you haven't already, check out rumbletoid - and check out his sketchbooks.

Here's a piece for Megan Scherer for Cincinnati Magazine about a downtown park revamp.  It was interesting doing a straight overhead and trying to give it some dimension.  I like the board game feel.

Delaware Today

New piece for Kelly Carter at Delaware Today about the life changing ease of having a civil union, while still calling for the ban on gay marriage to be lifted (coming soon I dare hope).  Anywho, I had fun painting this one - sort of a softer feel than usual - and God bless the gays!

Trout

Here'e the full image of one of the pieces for the "One Hour of TV a Week" Show coming down this week.  I've wanted to have an excuse to do a big trout for a long time.  I'm one of those kids who wanted to be a marine biologist, and did a fish dissection for my second grade science project.  I remember catching trout with my father and thinking the outside of trout was beautiful, and then (because I had to after I was 6 or 7) cleaning them and finding all this great stuff inside.  It was a little gross and lest I sound like a serial killer, I want to convey the tragic aspect I felt for the fish.  But - the mechanisms of what fuels this beautiful little animal machine were astounding from the tiny heart, to the contents of it's stomach, to the bladder it uses to regulate buoyancy.

"Magic 2",  22" x 22",  Gouache and pencil on BFK

If you've never been trout fishing, get a liscence, go find a small, cold, spring fed stream after it rains, wear a heavy pair of jeans and long sleeves, a pair of old sneakers you don't mind getting soaked in the stream, lots of bug spray, a creel with a frozen bottle of water in it, a three dollar pack of 18 trout worms, extra hooks, and an old rod and reel.  The worst that will happen is that you spend a nice summer afternoon walking a pretty stream.  The best case is you walk a pretty stream, fool a few wily trout, and have a nice breakfast/lunch/dinner.  They are damn good eating - especially after working up an appetite crashing through underbrush to get to a steam and back:).  

Two Hours at the Museum

My parents swung by Philly for a lovely visit and we spent part of the afternoon at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  They have a great collection, and given my recent interest in sketch booking (and trying to brush up my skills for the in-the-works-cross-country-bike-ride) I though I'd try to do a little work while I was walking around.

Bust, bust with stache.

I do love me some Stu Davis.

When people ask me about Philly, I say "wherever you go, nice restaurant, fancy hotel lobby -  there's a guy in shorts and Phillies t-shirt".  This is untrue - as evidenced by this drawing, he is sometimes wearing an Eagles Starter Jacket.

Mod tackles air-smooching.

Drawing of the surgeon, Dr. Agnew,  from the "The Agnew Clinic" by Eakins.

Sketchbook Portraits . . . Some good, some not.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!

Michelle was nice enough to multi-task - napping/posing - while we watched "Scrooged". 

I must admit, caricaturing Cary Grant while watching "North by Northwest" proved to be a little tougher than I thought. . . These are bad, but I like the page.

Another attempt with a (little more success) of doing a caricature/portrait - Bill Murray while watching Bill Murray.  It doesn't hurt that he's a got a great mug (and I've already drawn him once this year:)). 

New sketchbook pieces

Haven't had much of a chance to do much sketch booking with the show looming so it's been nice to try to get back into a little drawrin'.  Mostly these are done on commutes back and forth from Philly to Brooklyn - and it's fun to play with the shaky hand spontaneity.

The Show!! Jets! Boats! Squares!

This weekend I had the pleasure of setting up my "One Hour of TV a Week" Show at Gallery 543 in Building 543, a communal space for the headquarters of URBN Inc (which for the uninitiated encompasses Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, BHLDN, Free People and Terrain) in the Philadelphia Navy Yard .  The space is . . . pretty amazing.  Coi ponds?  Yup.  40 ft tall bamboo indoors?  Yup?  Handy parking for WWII era aircraft carriers?  You better believe it.  You can also get a good cup of coffee and tasty lunch if you want to make a day of it.

I want to extend a big thank yous to: Lauren Addis for her support of the show and allowing me to do an extended setup (and make an extended mess), Josh Longo (of Longoland fame) for helping paint boats and put on the finishing touches, and most of all to Michelle Provencal who not only put up with my turning our apartment into a disaster zone, but who also helped out this past week with all the last minute preparations that I never would have been able to finish on my own (as well as my manic stress-isodes).  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

On to the show!!  So - some of you may recognize a few of the pieces from the "History of the World" show that was up earlier this year created with Owen Sherwood.  Initially, this show was going to be my half of that show, but - I like doing work - and wanted to repurpose some of the more autobiographical pieces from "History" into a different slant. So with a few new pieces and tweaks on old ideas, here's the "One Hour of TV a Week" show.

A little stage setting . . .

Is that . . . ? Yes, you're correct.  That is an aircraft carrier
looming outside of that large glass window.

"I'll Stop If You Stop", Latex Paint (thanks Josh!)

"National Little League" and "Bicentennial"

"I'll Stop if you Stop" detail

"I Hate Brian Smith", 6" x 6" drawings on paper.  

The story is - I got beat up by Brian Smith a lot.  Many bloody
noses - most of them deserved - I was a tag-along crybaby.  And I'm
still trying to get the last word in 23 years later.  Eat it Smith.

"Cancer" and "Magic 2"

"Magic 2" detail

"Cancer" detail

"A Concept of Four at Two" and "Magic" with the model planes I made and painted,
with help from the lovely Michelle Provencal.

p.s. - Do you know how small the landing gear is on a 1/144 scale plane?
About the size of this "I" with two "O"s on either side.  Teensy.

On the left are two new paintings - "Duplex" and "Ghostrunners" (shown in
my previous post)

"Duplex" detail - That's our old duplex featuring our upstairs duplex mate, Mrs. Maynard.
She was a nice old lady who kept to herself - we rarely saw her but well into her seventies she'd be
out shoveling snow at five in the morning if there was snow to shovel.

"Mango's, 1988", Latex Paint.  This is my squad from 1988 when I was ten and my
first team after I left National Little league for Twin Town Little League in the hinterlands
of upstate NY.

My little workstation for people to make cannonballs featuring: gliders as a reward for cannonball making,
my old D&D wallet (thanks Kate Glasheen), a vintage Queen postcard (thanks Colin O'Higgins), an old gas can I love (thanks N.C.), Wiffle Ball boxes (thanks Jen and Jed Heuer) and some childhood favorite books from Mom and Dad.

And to finish, I'll take an aircraft carrier and jet combo.

Make it a double.