I have decided to break up my interests into multiple blogs. This will help streamline the content that each blog provides.
This blog will continue to be my main art blog. I'll share news of my artwork and new projects. My other blogs will be devoted to writing and ranting, respectively.
The rant blog is called Poor Drawings, and the goal is a weekly update at least of crap that I am dealing with or stories from my past that I want to illustrate humorously. I don't have a lack of potential content...
My writing blog isn't established yet, but I am working on a novel. While I hate to promise something that won't happen, I have the goal of doing illustrations for it chapter by chapter. Once I get far enough ahead with that project to be able to post on a regular basis, then I'll usher you over there.
I have five paintings that are in various stages of planning and finish, and while I can't show you one of them, the others you will probably get sick of, I'll show you so many pictures. :)
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Father Son Show: Life Imitates Art
This Friday, my dad Gary and I had our joint art exhibition. It happened just a day before a big Open House at the Mill, so we went back the next day to enjoy the other festivities. I had a really awesome time, and I want to thank the gracious Bear's Mill for hosting us, as well as all the people who came out to support us. It is a gorgeous venue. Thank you all! I'll let the pictures do the talking.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Father Son Show
Remember all that talk about a show I have coming up? I just got the flyer in my e-mail. Ooh, la, la.
This is a really exciting show for me. My dad and I have always connected through art (and general manliness), and while our media couldn't be more different, we go about our work in similar ways: i.e. we always let Mom give it the seal of approval.
This is the first time that I will have a specific show that I am featured in, and it is the first of many that my dad and I are taking part in. If you aren't in Ohio, show up anyways, and if you are in Ohio, you've no excuse. Just drive there. Or ride horseback, it doesn't matter.
I lied, it does matter. It would be super awesome if you rode horseback.
EDIT: Silly me, how are you supposed to get there if you don't have the address? Now that I am putting this up, I fully expect everyone and their mother to show up.
Visit Bear's Mill
Hours
January through March
Thursday 11-5, Friday 11-5, Saturday 9-5, Sunday 11-5
April through November
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 11-5
Saturday: 9-5, Sunday: 11-5
December
Open every day except Christmas: 11-5
Bear's Mill address:
6450 Arcanum-Bear's Mill Road
Greenville, Ohio 45331
937 548 5112
www.bearsmill.com
This is a really exciting show for me. My dad and I have always connected through art (and general manliness), and while our media couldn't be more different, we go about our work in similar ways: i.e. we always let Mom give it the seal of approval.
This is the first time that I will have a specific show that I am featured in, and it is the first of many that my dad and I are taking part in. If you aren't in Ohio, show up anyways, and if you are in Ohio, you've no excuse. Just drive there. Or ride horseback, it doesn't matter.
I lied, it does matter. It would be super awesome if you rode horseback.
EDIT: Silly me, how are you supposed to get there if you don't have the address? Now that I am putting this up, I fully expect everyone and their mother to show up.
Visit Bear's Mill
Hours
January through March
Thursday 11-5, Friday 11-5, Saturday 9-5, Sunday 11-5
April through November
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 11-5
Saturday: 9-5, Sunday: 11-5
December
Open every day except Christmas: 11-5
Bear's Mill address:
6450 Arcanum-Bear's Mill Road
Greenville, Ohio 45331
937 548 5112
www.bearsmill.com
Cowboy part 3: the final resurrection
Before I show you the shiny finished product, let us take another look at where it was before.
Shudder. This painting took the downright scenic path to completion. And for an entire year, it spent it's middling existence being 'sort of' finished. So once I started working on it, I decided to make a little change and ended up painting the entire canvas over again.
Am I happy I did? Oh yes.
Is it a better painting? Ten times better.
Would I do it again? I think next time I'll work on a clearer image before executing the final.
Am I going to paint over all of my old paintings now? Of course. Scarlet Letter, your number is up.
Just kidding.
Shudder. This painting took the downright scenic path to completion. And for an entire year, it spent it's middling existence being 'sort of' finished. So once I started working on it, I decided to make a little change and ended up painting the entire canvas over again.
Am I happy I did? Oh yes.
Is it a better painting? Ten times better.
Would I do it again? I think next time I'll work on a clearer image before executing the final.
Am I going to paint over all of my old paintings now? Of course. Scarlet Letter, your number is up.
Just kidding.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
End of a legend
I'm not sure what I'm calling this piece just yet, but the title is one option... I am also throwing around Sheriff Wilhelm and Live by the Gun. None of them is turning me on yet. If you have a suggestion, I'd love you hear it! I know you read that sentence and thought, well, sure, someone, but not me. Yes, you.
When trying to figure out how to fix my painting, I knew that I couldn't be tentative. But painting right into the canvas without careful planning would be worse that fixing it in the first place. That's where, in this age of computers, Photoshop is a life saver.
Yes, it looks absolutely silly. But in about ten minutes flat I can get a working idea of what would usually take six to ten hours to do. I even used this photo to judge size and distance from other parts of the painting. I wasn't painting randomly, hoping my sizes where correct. I would look at the canvas and say, OK, the hand is this far from the edge, and the pinky is this far from the shirt, et cetera. It made huge changes of little consequence.
I took progress shots pretty much every time I came up for air on this project. Enjoy.
I almost tried to call it done here, but I knew there was something hiding from me. The sky wasn't finished yet.
I also realized that his arm still looked awkward. I went back to the drawing board and shot reference one more time, and added it into my frankenstien photoshop monster. Then I executed it:
I still have to go back into the hair and add just a touch or two of detail, and I have to paint over the forearm to give it a little bit more dimension. Otherwise, anything else I do to the piece is polish. If all goes according to plan, tomorrow you'll get to see the final product, signature and all. Thanks for looking!
When trying to figure out how to fix my painting, I knew that I couldn't be tentative. But painting right into the canvas without careful planning would be worse that fixing it in the first place. That's where, in this age of computers, Photoshop is a life saver.
Yes, it looks absolutely silly. But in about ten minutes flat I can get a working idea of what would usually take six to ten hours to do. I even used this photo to judge size and distance from other parts of the painting. I wasn't painting randomly, hoping my sizes where correct. I would look at the canvas and say, OK, the hand is this far from the edge, and the pinky is this far from the shirt, et cetera. It made huge changes of little consequence. 
I took progress shots pretty much every time I came up for air on this project. Enjoy.
I almost tried to call it done here, but I knew there was something hiding from me. The sky wasn't finished yet.
I also realized that his arm still looked awkward. I went back to the drawing board and shot reference one more time, and added it into my frankenstien photoshop monster. Then I executed it:
I still have to go back into the hair and add just a touch or two of detail, and I have to paint over the forearm to give it a little bit more dimension. Otherwise, anything else I do to the piece is polish. If all goes according to plan, tomorrow you'll get to see the final product, signature and all. Thanks for looking!
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
If you give a moose a cookie...
It is a dangerous thing to paint on old paintings. Most times, if they didn't get finished, I set them aside for so long that they become 'too old.' That is to say, I've learned enough about paint handling and composition that any new paint I put on it would be obviously better. This happened just recently.
My Cowboy Carrion piece, an early jewel in my collection, had a long-planned companion. About a year ago, I began painting on this guy.
I have a show coming up with my dad, and for the show, I wanted to finally get this cowboy done so I could put both of them up. According to my calculations, all I had to do was paint in the pants.
My calculations were wrong.
When you give a moose a cookie, he's going to want some milk. If you give him some milk, he'll want a napkin. So on and so forth, until he either charges you in sexual frustration to gore you with his awkward antlers, or you shoot him. The same goes for this painting. Minus the awkward antler goring. Maybe still with the sexual frustration.
I finished the pants in two hours flat. But then the rest of the painting looked faded, because I was better at painting contrast than I was a year ago. So I painted over the rest of the painting just as it was, except I darkened everything. But then asked for a damn glass of milk.
See what I did there? The first cowboy has the bullet going straight through the composition. I decided to do the same for this cowboy. But with a bullet going straight through him, his pose looked awkward with both hands in front of him. So I made his pose more awkward by breaking his arm and putting it behind him.
I was stuck between the pose I wanted him to have and the pose I had painted a year ago. At this point I could do one of two things. A: I could paint the other hand back and call it quits. B: I could paint an entirely new pose that fit with my mind picture of a better composition. I really, really wanted to be lazy and do 'A.'
But the more I stared at it, the more I knew it had to change. I wasn't about to have my most recent painting be, for all intents and purposes, a failure in my own eyes. I first tried painting part of his shoulder away, so that he looked like he was twisting. When I did that, it worked a little better. But something was off.
I pondered the problems of my painting while I ate cereal in my living room. Then it occured to me. I set down the cereal, stood up, and did my best 'getting shot in the back' impersonation. I tried to fling my arms into the same pose as the painting and react from the impact of the bullet. It was very method.
So I put both my arms out, and flung my head back. No, that wasn't right. Shoot me again, imagination. I flung both my arms out, and threw my head back. Dammit! I tried one more time, this time I was determined to make it work. I swung my body around, arms flailing, and tucked my chin like I had it in the painting. Ow. Not only was it painful to do deliberately, it was against the laws of physics if I was really being propelled by a bullet.
So I stewed and whined and acted like I wasn't going to do anything else to my painting. Then I shot reference and pretty much destroyed everything I had done up to that point.
Beautiful, I know. At this point in the game, it was more about making a new, worthy painting than it was about finishing an old one. There was no place for tentative changes here.
I worked quickly, keeping the panic at bay.
He isn't done yet, but he is finally on the road to recovery. This was one painting that really could have been thrown away. But I knew that beneath its mediocre mediocreness, a painting that I would be proud of was waiting. It took not being afraid to make big changes and having no tolerance for a product any less than the best I could come up with.
This is essentially the same story as the Dark Pearl, with the same moral: plan ahead. Don't get 90% done and a year down the road on a painting before you figure out the solution to its woes. And also, never give a moose a freaking cookie.
My Cowboy Carrion piece, an early jewel in my collection, had a long-planned companion. About a year ago, I began painting on this guy.
I have a show coming up with my dad, and for the show, I wanted to finally get this cowboy done so I could put both of them up. According to my calculations, all I had to do was paint in the pants.
My calculations were wrong.
When you give a moose a cookie, he's going to want some milk. If you give him some milk, he'll want a napkin. So on and so forth, until he either charges you in sexual frustration to gore you with his awkward antlers, or you shoot him. The same goes for this painting. Minus the awkward antler goring. Maybe still with the sexual frustration.
I finished the pants in two hours flat. But then the rest of the painting looked faded, because I was better at painting contrast than I was a year ago. So I painted over the rest of the painting just as it was, except I darkened everything. But then asked for a damn glass of milk.
See what I did there? The first cowboy has the bullet going straight through the composition. I decided to do the same for this cowboy. But with a bullet going straight through him, his pose looked awkward with both hands in front of him. So I made his pose more awkward by breaking his arm and putting it behind him.
I was stuck between the pose I wanted him to have and the pose I had painted a year ago. At this point I could do one of two things. A: I could paint the other hand back and call it quits. B: I could paint an entirely new pose that fit with my mind picture of a better composition. I really, really wanted to be lazy and do 'A.'
But the more I stared at it, the more I knew it had to change. I wasn't about to have my most recent painting be, for all intents and purposes, a failure in my own eyes. I first tried painting part of his shoulder away, so that he looked like he was twisting. When I did that, it worked a little better. But something was off.
I pondered the problems of my painting while I ate cereal in my living room. Then it occured to me. I set down the cereal, stood up, and did my best 'getting shot in the back' impersonation. I tried to fling my arms into the same pose as the painting and react from the impact of the bullet. It was very method.
So I put both my arms out, and flung my head back. No, that wasn't right. Shoot me again, imagination. I flung both my arms out, and threw my head back. Dammit! I tried one more time, this time I was determined to make it work. I swung my body around, arms flailing, and tucked my chin like I had it in the painting. Ow. Not only was it painful to do deliberately, it was against the laws of physics if I was really being propelled by a bullet.
So I stewed and whined and acted like I wasn't going to do anything else to my painting. Then I shot reference and pretty much destroyed everything I had done up to that point.
Beautiful, I know. At this point in the game, it was more about making a new, worthy painting than it was about finishing an old one. There was no place for tentative changes here.
I worked quickly, keeping the panic at bay.
He isn't done yet, but he is finally on the road to recovery. This was one painting that really could have been thrown away. But I knew that beneath its mediocre mediocreness, a painting that I would be proud of was waiting. It took not being afraid to make big changes and having no tolerance for a product any less than the best I could come up with.
I know it looks like he is smiling and skipping, but the blood and an angle on his face that better captures his anguish should heartily quell that notion
This is essentially the same story as the Dark Pearl, with the same moral: plan ahead. Don't get 90% done and a year down the road on a painting before you figure out the solution to its woes. And also, never give a moose a freaking cookie.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
November Mourning
Ah, the changes. I sent my first version of this painting to an eagle eyed artist, who mentioned that either my scientist is the world's largest man, or the robot has a really tiny head.
I realized a relatively simple solution to my problem: make the army bigger. I also added snow. Which I hate. But you live some and you learn some. And then you never paint snow like that again. Ever. I'm pretty happy with it, though. He got his foot awfully close to the edge of that frame, didn't he?
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