Finished Madonna

The finished Madonna True Blue piece for the "Let's Bolt, Again" show at Rock Paper Scissors Gallery in Oakland, CA.
As you can see, if you keep scrolling down, the process that it took to get her to this. I am very, very happy with the result!
It shipped today so that they can have it to hang by Friday. I am still terribly sad that I won't be able to make it up to the show. The gallery sounds awesome and the show should be fun!


From the side.

Then the other.



Half way there.

Purple/Orange Madonna

Blue Madonna

True Blue

These are some beginning sketches of a piece I am painting for a show in Oakland, CA at Rock Paper Scissors Gallery on Jan. 4th.


This is the one I will work from and I am going to try to get it as paintly as possible when painting. I am not sure yet if I will paint it in acrylic or oil.


While I was tracing the outline to be transfered onto the wooden box I am painting the final piece on, I need a light colored surface under my tracing paper to see the outline better. This scrap of test paint paper with written out random thoughts was laying on my drawing table, her outline was transfer onto it. I decided to take it a bit further and ink it in with a blue rolling ball pilot pen. I really liked the effect...sometimes magic happens when you are not even trying.
I also love that it is blue and so is the writing...strangely coincidental because I did this weeks before working on this TRUE BLUE piece.


When I first thought of this idea I remembered a painting I did in high school of this image of Madonna's True Blue album cover. This was a quick sketch from the recall but realized when I looked up the image it looked nothing like this.
I will post the final piece sometime in the next week, it is due on the 15th.

IF: Excess

Inspired by P.J. Harvey.
Songs from the City ~ Songs from the Sea
Lyrics from "We Float"

When seeing the topic for the week...this song kept playing on repeat in my head when brainstorming excess. I didn't want to do something cliche' or obvious this week and I have always wanted to draw P.J. Harvey. So here ya go ~~


I thought I would add this photo because it's a nice view of my current workspace, in my additional ~ why do I have a second kitchen ~ kitchen, acting as a temporary studio.

Meet the Sharks

Since the shark video, for the time being, is not the highest quality, I thought I would introduce the sharks in their stationary mode.
Please click on them to enlarge them to get their full effect.


Alan


Dave


Ms. Heloise


The Shark Council

Dr. Sketchy SD November Session

I am very happy with my progress since attending the first Anti-Art School session back in July.


10 minute


10 minute


20 minute with added arms


20 minute

Dr. Sketchy SD October Session

As you can see I am a month behind with this set of sketches. The model was very vampy for Halloween.

5 minutes


5 minutes


15 minutes


20 minutes

Flying Society of Sharks

My new San Diego friend, Brandon and I worked on this film for the last couple of weeks. It was a call for video artists to come up with a mocumentary of Artificial Anthropology. We found the flyer at T-Deli in Hillcrest and had until the 15th to make the entire film under 7 minutes. If chosen it will be played along with other films at the Bamboo Lounge in Hillcrest, SD Saturday, December 1st, 8pm.

Honestly, Brandon was the brains behind the project (he is a filmmaker). He came up with the script, the thought behind the rock wall/gardens and the society of flying sharks. He got the actors for the parts, filmed the entire piece, the music in it is his original score and he edited it as well.

I decided to make the sharks out of cut paper. The first idea in my head was simple and boring. However, I kept receiving every kind of catalog you can think of in the mail for the former tenants of my new house in North Park. So the sharks evolved from the pages of catalogs and fashion magazines...I hope you find their bling as beautiful as I do. I also painted the backgrounds and the shark castle, where Ms. Heloise meets with the shark council. I really wanted the Hanna Barbara repeating background effect and it worked nicely.

I hope you enjoy it, I personally find it truly hilarious and one of a kind, it makes me laugh every time.

Thanks for watching!

IF: Open

I'm not sure why this image formed in my head and then materialized into a painting for this topic. Probably has to do with all the wonderful live burlesque women I have been drawing lately.

There are hidden messages and meanings ~ as always with lovely creatures of the night.

WOW!! I am so excited to have been chosen for this fun contest.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR VOTING AND ALLOWING IT TO HAPPEN!!

IF: the Blues

Thinking about the title for the cover art I just did "The Sea Never Drowns", this lino-cut, practice illustration seems appropriate for this week's Illustration Friday theme. (To view this in other colors and cuts look up my lino-cut posts in Sept).

{sorry to repeat ~ for all of you who have been keeping up with my blog}

The Pear Cover

This another idea I had been weighing and painting in my head. I finally got it onto paper today and sent a digital image off to my editor. He thinks it's "quite brilliant, actually" and that it goes really well with the typeface he has chosen. He would like me to extend it to the left so that is can wrap around the whole cover. Which means a repaint, but I can live with that now that I know it's a go.

The lino cut print was pretty but didn't really allow for title and such. However, it was a good exercise and got out some ideas I had been tooling around with. Although ~ I was able to incorporate a lino cut in this painting and that is the pear itself.

WHEW!!!

Dr. Sketchy SD September Session

Even though this was one of the quick five minute sketches, I felt it captured the essence of our model she had a very shy demeanor.


A gaggle of five minute drawings.


Actually, only the one on the left is a ten minute pose. The one on the right came from the last twenty minute pose, but I cut off the body and it just seemed to work so well with the other one.


I took the night off this month to attend the entire Dr. Sketchy session (last month I only attended half). However, I feel because I had more leisure time I may have not been as fluid and carefree with my hand as the past sessions. It's strange how our drawings can change just by different moods and time frames.

Beginning drawings for Kristin Benson

Kristin is having her good-bye party tonight. She is leaving the restaurant we both work at to be a full time hair stylist. Over the last few weeks one after another of my coworkers have been leaving. I was asked to make a sign for Kris when he was moving to Arizona, then for Kellie for her trip to Vermont. Now I am being requested to make signs. So I decided that since Kristin is my new hair dresser and is only moving across the street, it was time to barter. These are the beginning sketches for her party tonight, however, I plan on working them it out a bit more and making it really look like her. Then I will paint her a sign, if she likes it and agrees on some hair-dos for art.

p.s. Thanks to Tara McPherson who's characters inspired this cute artwork.

Sketches of "The Sea Never Drowns"

These are two of the rough sketches I did for the cover of the poetry book. I initially felt it should be a lino cut. Below are several test prints I did after cutting the two different drawings. The first one felt too busy, and the center was too much of a focal point. The second through still feels too busy. So I am back to the drawing board ~ literally ~ to rethink the entire thing. Sunny Outside runs there stuff from a letter press, so I for some reason felt a lino cut would work.

Second round of lino cuts

First round of lino cuts

Wife of a Rodeo Clown

"Alfred, why'd ya do it?"


"WHY?!!?"

These are two pieces I did in 2006 for a few different art shows. I began painting them for a show that fell through. I was later able to put them in a one night show at the "Five Spot" in Little 5 Points Atlanta. And then a week or so later at a one night show at "DooGallery" in Atlanta.

I painted them when I still worked at Deljou and had access to free canvas and paint. So I didn't hold back with texture and the amount of paint I used.

They are still a work in progress because in my mind there are four paintings in the series. Three of her upset and crying and the last of him the rodeo clown hurt or cheating on her. I still haven't fully conceived those last two. I hope to have them done before 2008...wish me luck!

Dr. Sketchy San Diego official beginnings

A page of one minute poses.


A page of five minute poses.


The only ten minute pose I was able to finish.

Our model was fabulous!! She had shocking pink hair brought together in the back by a large fuchsia flower. She had great legs, beautiful tattoos and tassles on her corset that were fun to draw.
This month's session was from 3pm to 6pm and unfortunately I had to leave half way thru to get to work by 5pm. So next month I will make sure to have the whole night off!
Thanks to Lily, our wonderful hostess, well done!!

IF: Emergency

I love it when IF's topic for the week coincidentally works with a piece I am in the middle of...
That way I have an even bigger deadline to get it in before the following Friday.

This little 'nurse betty' is for my mechanic. Who performed an emergency transmission rebuild on my car a couple of weeks ago. He gave me the "family" (because my mom use to date his dad) discount ;) I have to take my car in for a two weeks check up and I thought since he used his skill on my car, I would use my skill for a nice piece of artwork.

Oh yeah, he's into race cars/hot rods and Cali girls with over-exaggerated curves!!

You write such pretty words

I am proud to say that I have finally been requested to publish a piece. My good friend David McNamara of 'Sunny Outside Publishing' has asked me to do a cover for a poetry clapbook by Jason Heroux. He was good enough to send me the one of the last edits of the poems and I just started sketches from all the poems. With the title in mind, I wanted to get the feel of the contents inside, as well.
These are quick doodles and excerts from some of the ones I did. I just so happened to have the five new colored pens in front of me when I went on my doodling rampage.

"not a lot happens here at once or everything switches off..."


"the poor grass kept growing like a sweater knitted by the dirt..."


"postcard from a parking lot..."


"it's the evening hour even though the streetlamps haven't turned on yet..."


"...talking about which colours to paint the rooms in our house it suddenly seemed we were really talking about the war."


"although it can't swim, the sea never drowns..."

The last piece is what I was going with for the cover. I would like to make it into a linocut. Print it either in one or two colors. However, over the last week I have been brewing another cover sketch. I will post that when I get it down on paper. I will also post the final piece.

Thanks again for stopping by...I would love to hear any and all feed back...please leave comments.