As an artist my two mediums of choice are oil painting and digital illustration. I've been on the fence about how to reconcile these two very different approaches, but after finally getting a wacom tablet of my own I decided to try to do a digital illustration with the same approach I usually take when painting. I also incorporated some of the elements from my pastel work in figure drawing where I used a wide selection of unusual colors (such as the oranges and greens) to help flesh out the skin tones. I wanted to do a portrait to test this new approach and decided to tackle Obama. There was no preliminary work, I just jumped right in with the tablet and I think from the finished product this is definitely a sign of good things to come.
This can be considered a sequel to 'The Sinking Sound'. I found this picture of Syd Barrett lost in his own world, so I wanted to put him someplace that might echo that feeling of isolation. Its almost as if he is building something tangible out of music in the sky.
No post yesterday because I was working on painting this, a large Harley Davidson logo for my dad out in our garage. Its painted on two doors which open to reveal the bike, its kind of like the batcave now. It came out pretty cool so I thought it was worth a post. Its getting cold and snowy out, I don't know how I feel about that.
To celebrate a successful year of art I put together this portfolio showcasing my best work from the year. It features 35 images that include my digital illustration work, oil paintings, pastel figure drawings, various printmaking pieces and my 'Afghaniscrewed' and 'Musica de la Muerte' Series. I printed it through Blurb.com and the final product really surpassed my expectations. I highly recommend using them if you want to have something professionally printed.
The book is available for purchase here for $24.95.
Its a Christmas Miracle Charlie Brown! Back in August 2007 I made this video mashing up Blondie's Call Me with video of Led Zeppelin playing. The video was so popular it got 100,000 plays, but then Youtube disabled the video for copyright infringement. I recently decided to dispute the claim, citing that it was a parody (and to stick with the blogs theme) a non commercial artistic statement similar to a collage, that combines two unrelated elements into one work. I haven't heard back from them yet on the final verdict, but it seems my act of disputing has made the video go live again, so in case you we don't get another chance enjoy the video and thank Youtube for this Christmas Miracle!
I've been busy getting ready for Christmas so I thought I would just do a music post today. This is a track me and my friends recorded for The Jonee Earthquake Tribute Cd. The story goes that me and my friend Phildoh Montenegro had a band together to record but it fell through the morning of the session. In a panic I ran around my dorm looking for anyone who could play instruments. I found my friend Luke Farry who could play bass and he joined our crew. I then left a message for my friend Spencer Worthley who I knew could play drums. Without hearing back from him we decided to depart Manchester and see what we could come up with in the studio since we were running out of time. Two blocks away from his street he calls us back and says hes on board so we quickly pick him up. Apparently theres also a blizzard going on, which we were totally oblivious about, making us slow down to a crawl on the highway with time running out. We learned the song and wrote down all the lyrics on the drive since we hadn't really done our homework. We arrived at the Electric Cave studio in Portsmouth only 15 minutes late and got right to work. Joe Queer of the Queers and Jim Tierney were manning the boards and producing and they could hardly believe we had never played the song before, let alone ever jam with each other. We started recording without even a dry run and did two takes. Both were keepers but there was a glitch on the first track so we went with this one. I flubbed the guitar solo a little but it doesn't really bother me since I was making the whole thing up off the top of my head anyway. With all the obstacles we faced that morning its a miracle the song was recorded at all, but here it is.
If you want to pick up a copy of the Cd its available through Jonee Earthquake or Here. Its a really amazing compilation with exceptional sound quality and alot of awesome local bands.
I was recently looking for some new material to cut up and came across some playboys from 1968/1969 where this beauty comes from. Surprisingly this was about the raciest thing in the issue, mostly it was a bunch of ads telling me to dress better and smoke. For the scene I was thinking of something along the lines of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and decided to have two potential suitors flying reconnaissance around her. I was also inspired by the song 'A Woman Can Take You to Another Universe, Sometimes She Just Leaves You There' by John Lurie.
I'm taking a break from collage for today and going back to some of my work from the summer. This is an oil painting I did of a family friend named Steve Gray. You got to dig his wild and crazy beard. The size is 14x18.
