An Illo for The Observer for one of my favorite writers, Shalom Auslander

So the story of this piece is pretty funny.  I was working with Ed Johnson at the New York Observer - nice guy and witty emailer - knowing that I was going to do a piece for this Shalom Auslander story.  I love Auslander.  I got to know his work from his readings on "This American Life", and I've been reading him ever since.  Suffice to say, I was psyched.  This is the second of his pieces I've done an illo for, and while I liked the first, I felt it could have been better - not for lack of direction, Scott Dvorin is an absolute ACE! - I just didn't like the choice I made for the finish, and I wanted this one to work.  The only problem was . . . . there was no story.  I won't share what Auslander shared with me and the AD, but it was pretty vague.  But he's a great writer.  Him being vague just sent my mind a flutter with ideas.  I understood it to be about the election, death, the onset of winter, and a general malaise associated with the fact we're all at least little bit effed with whoever leads this monstrosity we call the USA (pronounced Yoo-sa - BING has sent me notice that for lack of education funding, we're going phonetic or onomatopoeia-ic [thus "bing"] ).  So I sent a smattering of sketches dealing with death-ish issues and fall.  I sketched an apocalypse now type thing with Auslander as a crazed hunter, a skull and crossbones topiary . . .   I was psyched when the wolves were selected.  Who are they eating?  Bill O'Reilly!!   That's just between us and the NYO readers.  Ed made a good change and said - "Though lets not make Auslander stand-in bloody at the mouth, maybe just his hands. Don't think implying cannibalism makes sense w/ story."  Very true - and a good call.  I responded - "no prob.  no cannibalism after Labor day."    Anyway - it was a quick finish, but I'm happy.  It's a little morbid, a little comic booky, and quite bit bloody: an illustrators dream.

In Class Demo

Here's a little gouache in class demo I didn't get to finish in class - I'm still trying to figure out how to a finish in an hour.   I'm just going to walk through the process a bit.

Here's the finished piece.

Hour 1:  Working thin, and not using the full opacity of the gouache, I'm laying some basic warms and cools, focusing a bit more in the cools in the shadows.  Im basically laying on some color and then subtracting out to maintain a little bit of a value structure.  In all of these color in the face, I have a little bit of a pale coppery blue-green (besides the hair).  I want that to be a unifying theme color.

 Hour2: I kind of liked how the warm we're looking on top of the cool - so I decided to warm the whole thing up a bit, and lay in the background color.  I'm also starting to shape the hair a bit, and looking at how all those curls are working structurally.

Hour 3: Ok - so I like the warm, but now its too warm - so I bring back my tealy base color: a little darker, in the sky, and bit cooler on the ground.  In the sky, I'm painting thick on top, going lighter on the bottom toward the horizon, so I can have a little dusky feel.  I subtract out some secondary highlights in the hair, and add some darks in the hair.  This is why I love gouache - you can still make some big changes, and blend.

 Hour 4:  I figure I'll work in a little narrative imagery, and after listening to a podcast about the wizard of Oz, I figure I'll make it about a woman who finds religion after her house is destroyed by a tornado.  I add some cools in the hair - same cools as the ground color.  I also threw in a white morning glory in her hair.  I want to pull the foreground forward, so I added some more warms to the ground, and a few stars in the sky.  I also like the pale of her eyes after hour 1, so I brought back the pale blue.

Analog Arkanoid

"Analog Arkanoid"
8" x 10", pencil and gouache
on watercolor paper

Here's my submission for "The Old School Video Games Art Show Level 2" at Gallery1988's Venice location.  I was one of only three kids in the continental U.S. who grew up in the eighties without any video game console, so I loved the simple games.  I didn't have 300 hrs to put into Zelda, or Castlevania - so I loved the games where all you needed was hand eye coordination: Space Ivaders, Centipede, Spacewar (oh yes - the oldest game on the books), and of course the Pong revamp Breakout, which eventually became my beloved Arkanoid!  Given how low tech my childhood was, I thought I'd pay homage to the simple joy of destroying something effectively, so here's my "Analog Arkanoid".

Misaki Kawai

I love Misaki Kawai.  I remember when I first saw her work 8 years ago, and had my favorite type of reaction which somewhere between "What the hell?" and "This is genius!" - but I knew I liked it, and I still do.  It's one of my favorite people to show students to tell them that as long as their being earnest and applying themselves fully, the work will be great.  Kawai bends or discards nearly every academic rule, and yet, it works.  Picasso said "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, and a lifetime to paint like a child."  Misaki's ahead of the curve.

I even love her drawing of sweatshirt sizing.

That's why the Space Program must go on!

I'm a big fan of the space program, and forgot to post this old painting I did of Armstrong in 2009.  So here's to you Neil!  A belated remembrance for a pretty amazing guy who passed away this summer. Over the past few evenings I've been watching the "When We Left Earth" series from a few years ago - not as good as "For All Mankind", but a decent, if overly glossy, portrait of NASA, which has got me thinking.  In college my friends and I had a saying coined by Wes Cox: "That's why the Space Program must go on."  Whenever someone would do something innovative or crazy, or innovatively stupid, or ask questions to which there were no answers - why are girls like that? would you die if you jumped off this? etc . . .  The answer was a statement - "Well, that's why the space program must go on."  It was a statement of faith that if we put some smart guys working on it, we could solve anything.  We put a this man on the moon, didn't we?

It's great that we're pursuing unmanned missions to Mars - I mean check out Mars!  But the manned program - even considering the danger and the disasters that happened with the shuttle missions - is a worthwhile endeavor.  People willing to take the risk.  Neil Armstrong was.  At some point, we're going to need someone on Mars, and the cost - compared to military budgets, social security - are tiny and the gained knowledge would do what the Apollo missions did - drive the economy for fifty years!  I'd pay a .5% "space" sales tax.  I'd donate to NASA directly if it was a little easier (to do so now seems very complicated - but I think you can send them a check?).  Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson has been making an impassioned plea and I agree with him whole heartedly, and I think we need to stop thinking of space as something frivolous.  Have smart people figure out incredibly tough problems - and the innovation will flow like Tang!

The Last Policeman

New spot for Scott Dickensheets at Las Vegas Citylife for a review of "The Last Policeman" by Ben H. Winters.  The novel is about a detective trying to solve a murder disguised as a suicide.  The twist?  There's an asteroid heading towards Earth that's going to kill us all anyway.  Sounds like a good read - post apocalyptic stuff is great, but I love the new PRE-apocalyptic genre.  The piece was done with gouache - laying out a modeled grey in the face and hat and the maroon-ish asteroid "transparency", subtracting out the highlights, and then going in with some darker tones.  The asteroid and noose were drawn with gouache, and then the whole thing futzed around with on photoshop for a little tweak and arrow adding.

Aquariums

Here's a little sketchbook project I've been fooling around with for the last few weeks.  I feel like I've been a bit lost - pursuing things more technically than artistically . . . ?  Anyway, I thought I'd try to mess around with something a little abstract.  So - I love aquariums.  And that love has led to the death of many fish.  But I thought it was an interesting problem - an ever changing rectangle of shapes.  So here's the beginning of a little side projects.  I present to you - AQUARIUMS!!

SALE!!

Announcement - I am now selling some of my favorite pieces at my new Etsy Shop including these guys!  As you may have heard - Im getting married!  That's expensive so I'm trying to raise a little pre-marital dough for the cause and, I've got a lot of good paintings that need a good home.  Wont you give them a home?  I priced them to move and Christmas will be here before you know it, so check it out.  I've got some big ones, some small ones - but there's certainly one that's perfect for you.  So do two things at once: invest in marital bliss, and rescue a painting.  There will be more up as the weeks go by so keep your eye out!

Whatever happened to the good ol' fashioned watering hole?

Here's another new one for the NYObserver about all the new childhood game/theme bars popping up in NY.  It does seem a bit like the Dave&Busterization of great NY bars scene although I must admit, I used to spend a bit of time at the Red Lion in W-burg soley for a decent jukebox and the sport of kings, Skeeball.  And . . . I may have spent roughly $60 in quarters over the years playing Asteroids and 1941 at Barcade.  And I do like shooting large digital bucks . . .  And I am glad about but have yet to visit the Ping Pong bar, Spin. . .  BUT - I concur, it's getting a little out of hand.  Thus the Chuckie Cheez ball pit in a bar:).  

Since I routinely encourage my student to use photo reference even if it's just for inspiration, and since this one has sort of a fun cast of famous inspiration models, here's the folks that inspired the characters from left to right: Peggy Lee (turned brunette), Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin, Tom Waits (the consummate barfly), and Sarah Vaughn.

The Hamptons!

 In all the vacation madness of summer, I neglected to post a new map I created for Scene Magazine about the Hamptons.  This one was a lot of fun, and a lot of work.  I try to have as much real info as possible, while still manipulating the figures, typography, and scenes for a fun composition.  This one was initially a single spread, which after the first round of sketches, got turned into a double spread covering the bottom half of four pages, along with a type design (above).  The finished painting is below.  I decided to do a little more mixed media, with ink, water color and gouache on Arches 300lb hot press to have a lot of slight textural differences - gouache dry brush, watercolor dry brush, watercolor full soaks, gouache line, and micron .005 line.  Thank you to Jasmine Lombardi for working with me on this (it went right down to the wire!), and Scott Dvorin from the Observer for throwing my name in the basket.  And congrats to Scott on his new baby and new endeavors!

Below is the second set of sketches with the stretch to 4 pages.

Here's the first set of sketches below for the initial spread (two sketches and two type designs).

The Fox and the Crow

Here my new piece for sale at a great show at Chicago's Gallery 27, called "Dreaming Child" which opened on Friday, August 31.  The show is all artwork based on children's stories, fables, and fairy tales.  I based mine on the Aesop's fable of the Fox and the Crow.  The crow has a piece of cheese and the fox coaxes it away from him by at first praising the crow's physical appearance, and the inducing him to caw and drop the cheese by saying that the crow must have a beautiful voice to match it's beautiful appearance.  The crow, so flattered and full of pride, opens his beak and caws his caustic caw, dropping the cheese to the waiting fox.  Fox wins.  The painting itself was created by tea staining a background tone, and then gouache on top.

"The Fox and the Crow"
11" x 14", tea staining and gouache on watercolor paper

Crazy4Cult New York!

Crazy4Cult 2012!! In NY!!  So easy to get to from Philly!  And yet on that day, I am up in Vermont!  However, the day had many other wonderful things happening not in the general perusal of this little blog.  Let's just say it involved a change of the face book status:).   So I've been pretty disENGAGED with my blog over the summer, so much so that this piece for one of the biggest shows of my year, has opened without promotion from me, and the piece has already sold! I finished this about two months ago, and then had in the studio itching for release only to be late to the party.  Yarg!!  Anyhow, the show has done really well, and great to see the NY press coverage.  So here it is, "The Path of Shaun", 9" x 12", ink and gouache on paper.

Like the maps I've been doing of late, I think the dogged pursuit of simply following the character tells a lot about the movie.  In this case, a pretty intense back and forth between a few places, the Winchester, Shaun's house, Liz's house, and all of the zig-zaggier path come when the zombies come and Shaun gets out of his rut.  It's a sort of dry approach - but I think of them as doing two things: they allow the viewer to follow the experience of the entire movie in a really condensed frame, with some fun little details, and humor, and they also have a bit of an info-graphic/anthropological study feel.   I do try to shape them for clarity, but when you start connecting the dots, these patterns start emerging from the plot in a very simple stripped down way.  There not all that much control in these very controlled piece and that's really fun.  I'm working on more movie maps for a two man show in January at G1988's Venice location - and those are getting really crazy!:)

There's some fun little details around the Winchester.

photo by HalfBaiked

Apparently, the line went three quarters of the way around the block!!  Hats off to Jensen and Katie at G1988 for putting this all together and doing a lot of great promo work!!

Medicaid: The Sinking Ship

New editorial piece for Annemarie Neff at American Medical News about the team effort being used to consolidate and help out Medicaid (symbolized with the boat).  Basically doctors and hospitals are trying to consolidate medicaid patients and work as a team to help relieve some of the cost while providing better care.  Medicaid is a huge drain on the national debt and a system in drastic need for reform.  It's also an essential program in need of saving and not to do so could be catastrophic.  Possibly even cata-seamonster-trophic.  
     I had a good time painting this using gouache on hot-press paper to lay out the color structure and then subtracting out highlights with a wet brush.  By heavily wetting the areas before the initial color blocking, I can bleed in some other subtle color variation (the more purplish red in the sea monster and the variation in the blue of the water) to get a little more depth in the painting without over powering the line work.

Tsk tsk . . .

Here's a new piece for Scott Dvorin at the New York Observer about young parents who try to maintain a little bit of their former boozy nightlife, but do it in the middle of the day.  It's a fun, yes, and a little sad concept but great illo fodder.  I'm glad we ended up with this one with the toddlers tied up out front like dogs.

Unbearable

Thought I'd try a painting with a little more painting in it.  I've had the idea to do a Teddy Roosevelt equestrian painting for a while, and I might use this for a show in Chicago.  I read two biographies of him when I was a kid, and while I think he was an amazing person, I think he must have driven everyone around him crazy.   He's in the Magnificent Bastard category.  Did some great stuff, said some great things, but seemed to me like a bull in the china shop.
  Fun to mix in a little more watercolor with the gouache.  Basically I'm playing with the addition/subtraction stuff I've used in a few in class demos and other little paintings with bit of the dry brush on top that I've been working with since college (thank you, Rudy Gutierrez:)).  I sized it to fit this great wood frame I found at a little used furniture/antique/various stuff shop about a block and a half from my house.  20$! plus 22.79$ for some plexi, and ba-boom!  Teddy!

The Joy of the Micron.005

Between shuttling back and forth from Pratt for the end of semester survey and final critique, I got to spend a little quality time with my oft ignored sketchbook and some .005 microns.    

I love the 65 year old women who dress like 18 year olds in Brooklyn.
How do they keep that denim so shiny?!?

Kong.

Puffed up pigeon under a heat lamp in Chicago.

Character idea for a children's book I'm messing around with.

One Philly park tree, one Central Park tree.  The Philly one is the one
with cheese whiz all over it.