90th...

Another scan I had feared lost makes it way into the digital world. I completed this loose portrait of my grandmother in celebration for her 90th birthday. She seemed quite taken with it.

The Fall of Nessus

This piece was just returned to me after having show in two consecutive shows, one in Los Angeles and the next in Seattle, as part of two group shows. 

The Seattle Show was themed around mythology, and the first idea that popped into my head was the abduction of Hercules' wife Dejanira by the centaur, Nessus. The tale has been covered by a number of painters of the past, but I felt there was a dynamism missing from some of these earlier depictions.  So I decided to take a stab at it, and I'm proud to say that this was the result. 

Possibly my best forearm...

A Ride Through the Garden

It's been a longer hiatus from the blog here than I thought. Alas. 

Well, I'm back today with this piece that I finished a short while back. A bit of fun, a trifle. I had never considered really pursuing this watercolor over ink drawings, but after my trainwreck piece became such a hit, I've given it a few more shots. So far, the response has been quite positive. 

I certainly hope you, the viewer, enjoy this one. We'll see what else I can whip up for your eyes soon enough.

"Some Cupid Kills with Arrows, Some with Traps..."

My final Eros/Cupid of the week was a piece I was racing to get into a Valentine's themed show, but I just missed it. Anyhow, it was a little experiment in gouache.

What a Man's Gotta Do...

For years, my grandmother and I have had an on-going debate concerning one John Wayne v. one Clint Eastwood. I was brought up on Eastwood, my father being a big fan. I think the first one I ever saw was The Outlaw Josey Wales on ABC's Monday Night at the movies. And I've always had a soft spot for anti-heroes and movies that operated in moral grey areas. Grandma contends, and I quote, "that he [Clint] has the same look on his face, whether he's shooting a guy or kissing a girl." To which, I reply, "Grandma, John Wayne does the same thing. He's John Wayne with a different name in every movie."

Nonetheless, I cannot deny that Wayne is indeed an American icon, and one of the largest larger-than-life figures to fill the Big Screen. So as a matter of détente this Christmas, I whipped up this little tribute to the Duke for Grandma.

A Dame of Danger

Playing around in the gouache, I came up with a throwback to the days of pulp paperbacks and eye-popping poster art in this treatment of my friend, the lovely and talented Ver Mar.

To The Future...

My latest painting in gouache, which is currently on display at the Hive gallery in downtown Los Angeles for the month of December.

Ire

The second of the speedy self-portraits.

I think the graphic quality of old posters is better in the last one...but the painting is better on this one.  We'll see.

Pistolero

The speed painting series (some of which I can't show on here, as they have other purposes) were all sort of leading toward this handsome fellow above. I took a little more time with this one, all the while keeping in mind the quick, decisive and vigorous brush strokes I'd been practicing on the speed paintings. He still had to get worked over a little more than I intended, but overall, I was pretty happy with how he turned out.  Now all I need is the time machine to take me back to a time when such skills were relevant.

(Also, of all my work, I need someone to explain why my self-portraits are the most popular pieces.)

Off to the Races

The final piece in this series of watercolors on ink creations is in some ways my favorite of all of them.  It's not necessarily the most accomplished. In fact, I would say, in terms of rendering, it's a step down from the last one.  Despite that, I'm quite fond of it.  A few other share my enthusiasm...but it's mostly for the side-boob.  In any event, that brings this particular series of pieces to a close, though it hasn't killed off my desire to pursue the style.  I might, in fact, be working on another one.

On the Track and Off the Rails

The second attempt at a final piece for this series is perhaps best described by the image illustrated above.  I suppose you could say that the speed and ease with which the first one came together caused a bit of overconfidence in approaching the next one.  I have a photo of the drawing that I did before I began to paint, but have since scrapped the abortive attempt.

This image, the train wreck, was the third and perhaps finest of the entire series. You may not agree, granted, but I feel that this was where the imagery and the style best came together.  For the first time, I've actually wanted to repeat something like this composition as the masters of old often did multiple copies and versions of some of their best work, but haven't quite gotten down how I would do a reinterpretation of the image.  In any event, like the water nymph before, this one also sold.

Water Mediums and Goddesses

At long last, this week, I'll be sharing the final pieces from my watercolor experiment from a recent commission.

I began with this one, and I'm sort of amazed it turned out as well as it did.  It also took far less time than I expected.  Now you have to work quickly (but patiently, ironically enough) with watercolor. However, since I was doing this in glazes and washes with no real direct painting until the very end, it came together far quicker than I expected, especially for not having a hair dryer between layers.  As I may have mentioned, I was looking for something landed somewhere between the Victorian illustrators Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac and late era Japanese prints. This one of this series probably hit closest, though it appears that some Mucha snuck in there for good measure.

I've included the original drawing below for comparison.

Awash in the Flow of Watercolor

At long last I've returned with one of the finished pieces from my new water-based paint experiments. I'm very happy with them, though they're still not exactly what I wanted.  I was aiming for something somewhere between Japanese prints and Arthur Rackham.  In that respect, I've been somewhat successful, but there's still something lacking.  Now part of it is that my water color skills, while improving, are a damn sight below Turner...and maybe the drawing, while also getting better, still has room for improvement.  I'm working on it. Always working on it.  But here's a taste of the results.

WARLOCK: The Movie (1975)

This is my poster for a would-be Adam Warlock movie that I had hoped was going to be included in a Comic-con themed group art show.  I accidentally jumped the gun putting this together, and the event didn't happen.  Remember that Warlock test piece I put up a few weeks back?

The cosmic characters have long been some of my favorites in the Marvel Universe, particularly those penned by Jim Starlin.  Thanos is a fantastic villain (and apparently going to be in the next Avengers movie...). Adam makes for a bizarre hero with a cigar-chomping troll, Pip, as a best friend.  Then there's Drax the Destroyer, who was created to destroy Thanos, but I guess only recently, forty years after his creation.  And the deadly assassin Gamora, who, in her slinky fishnet outfit, was twenty years ahead of the superhero sexpots that would really begin to dominate in the 90's.

Now some may criticize me for lifting these poses and whatnot from others work...but in my mind, those old movie posters were made from set photos, so wouldn't the comics I was referencing be the same?  Anyhow, it certainly owes a debt to the aforementioned Starlin, Ron Marz, Al Milgrom, and many others who brought these cosmic stories to life.

We Interrupt This Broadcast...

I had forgotten that I had not posted my latest painting to my sites.  Obviously, with this post, I've remedied this gap in post related art communication.  I only wish the photo better communicated the details of the background...in all that murk, there is some, I swear.

A Man-God Reborn!!!

Our second cosmic character this week is the strange hero, Adam Warlock.  A long time favorite of mine, I believe I have all of his early appearances, save those first couple of Fantastic Four's where he debuted as...dun-dun-dunnnnn...HIM!  The Warlock persona was later created by another favorite character, the insanely inconsistently written High Evolutionary, in a series which led to Adam become the messiah of counter-Earth (an Earth on the other side of the sun that is in many ways our opposite) in a controversial story-line.  However, it was Jim Starlin's run on Warlock that drew me in as it picked up, in many ways, where Starlin had left off with Captain Marvel.  One of the most unabashedly bizarre books of the 70's, it would lead to the second great takedown of the mad Titan, Thanos...a storyline that would again climax twenty years later with the Infinity Gauntlet series.

This rendition of Adam in gouache was adapted from one of the early tales by Jim Starlin.

Aggrandizement of the Self

And breaking out the gouache ultimately only meant one thing: New Self-Portrait.  And if you're going to paint yourself again, it might as well be vaguely creepy...

The Revelation...

Sorry kids, I let it slip my mind that I had one more post to make this weekend concerning my less than beloved Roman Emperors series (sorry Commodus, maybe next round).  Our final entry is the painting I did of Titus Flavius Domitianus, better known as Domitian, twelfth emperor from 81-96 AD.  Domitian is another tricky one in terms of reputation, and this is what fascinated me about him.  Roman historians and Judeo-Christian tradition has him marked down as awful tyrant and persecutor, but modern scholarship has found that though he was no doubt an absolute autocrat, he was less the insane tyrant than another victim of posthumous slander.  In other words, he ticked off the Roman aristocracy and they're the ones that paid to get the histories written.  And yet, he was the one that banished John to Patmos where he wrote the New Testament's most infamous book, The Revelation.

This painting came about because of a conversation I had with the great Barron Storey at a show he participated in here in Los Angeles.  Barron, in addition to being a great artist and illustrator, was the professor to a great many of the artists and illustrators of whom I've been enamored of since my youth.  After a conversation about the French Revolution and a variety of historical topics, Barron asked if I ever included my studies in my work.  The answer was a timid "not really", but the question stuck in my mind.   Then I recalled my fascination with the conflicting points of view on Domitian, and felt I had struck upon something that begin to fill that gap.  So I searched for photos of the few remaining contemporary busts of Domitian, and pieced together a portrait. However, due to the conflicting views between past and present, I left the chips and cracks to the bust on his flesh, and the tarnish soiling his cuirass.

The Hive Gallery 7 Year Anniversary: Best of the Hive

Tomorrow night, I'll be a part of The Hive Gallery 7 Year Anniversary with my latest painting.  I'll be hanging out at the opening for at least a solid chunk of the night.  (Then I might have to slip over to the Titmouse show in Alhambra where several of my friends will be showing...).

The Faerie Folk

As my last post before taking a holiday break, I figured I'd put up the latest of my paint splashes on paper.  Inspired in thought if not in execution by the images of wee ones and fairie folks by the likes of Henry Fuseli and Sir Joseph Paton, here's my take on tiny nature spirit.  Not very natural, eh?  Happy Holidays everyone.