Dragon it out

Sometimes, I just let the dragons duel it out.  

Ever read "Eragon" ?  Yeah, I did too... So I made this, and it's in my living room,  as a reminder that a lot of my favorite movies/books/daydreams... involve dragons.  

I made the paintings in the background with acrylic using a lot of wet on wet with mop brushes to create a stormy look that this picture does not do justice.   Also those trees are a sea fan that I used a stencil brush to get the design.  Again the pic doesn't do justice.

Metallic Paints are my friends.

Mind-Gnoming!

I have had an amazing few weeks friends who read my silly blogtastic.  I have fallen behind on updating obviously, but the good news is, I have something to show!  Here is more of Matty's Gnome painting... with a few surprise guests.


Monthly updates apparently.  There have been a few things going on that were inhibiting my creativity, but slowly it's coming back.  Just proves how an Artist needs to be in the right frame of mind for inspiration to not only come around, but want to be released into the outer world.


I'm having fun at least.  I hope to clean up the characters soon so they don't look like some five year old painted them... but then again... maybe Matt loves it? 


We shall see... :)

Gnome of this makes sense

I want it to be a magical process.  It begins every time with a blank canvas.  The canvas always starts white.  I hear most artists have anxiety about the blank, white canvas.  

The first thing I do is paint it a different color.

 Not so scary now are you!!  A bright artist in my high school painting class declared one day that every painting starts with Dioxazine Purple.  I found that after the years, it is the best color to start with on nature paintings within the woods every time.  It is something that really works.  Gets that purple mountain majesty happening right away. 

 Add a little here, a little there. Familiar base photo.

Then this guy wandered in...

Then some grass started to grow

Then this fox appeared in the shadows.  WHAT IS GOING ON?!  Clearly the photo is gaining mystical powers and there is more to this picture than meets the eye!  

Stay tuned!

Painting for friends

not a great photo.  Took it on the day of delivery.

Second painting from the over processed nature photo taken at my parent's house in my youth.  This one was requested by my good friend Annie Stuart (Ridlon) Perry.  Annie Banani Ridlon.  Maker of  "Art Day", partner in city wanderings we called "Wednesdays" in college.  We have had few and far between "Wednesdays" in this chapter of my life.  Days where anything can happen and anything is welcomed when we walk out our front door.  I barely walk out the front door unless I have somewhere to go.  Gas is expensive, and the city is lonely.


I walked out the front door of my Parent's house near sunset my Freshman year of college and took this photo.  The light looked AWESOME, and I imagined in my head that the Hobbits were any minute going to be walking by in the woods.  I took the picture fully intending to process it and use it as a reference for a drawing with just that, fantasy creatures walking by.  


Never happened.  I used this photo to make another painting like this one for my cousin, and when Annie saw it she wanted one so I made one, and when brought to the Perry household on New Years Day to be gifted the story came out.  Matt wants one with a gnome.  No problem. 

Take three to be started shortly on the badly processed photo to be given new life.  Thanks CVS for doing such a horrible job on the developing, back in the day.

Bizz-ay!

Sorry for the delay.  I have picked up a weekday gig, working on a film called "Crooked Arrows" about Indian Lacross teams!  Fun times.  I'll be back so soon with lots of great painting pictures.  Please bear with me.  VIVA LA PAINTING!

Also in the works, possible teaching a small class at a craft store in the fall.  Painting experiments!

How it's going

A week ago I started some panels.  Last night I finished them.  One is brick, the other is the moon?  I dunno.  I did a bunch of texture and then painted it with what felt good.  Here they are! 

What I did today

I'm in an I.A.T.S.E. U.S.A. Union.  That is a Union for artists like myself that choose to work in the Production Design and Art Direction departments in the Entertainment Industry.  Theater, TV, Film, Print, Web... etc.  I have been a member of the Scenic Union, or U.S.A. 829 for a little over 2 years now.  I have paid dues, made contacts, had a fancy login name for the website.  I am technically an "Industrial" scenic.  I have not worked in 2 years.  

So what I need to do is build a strong portfolio that I can find out where the Scene Shops/Paint Shops are and pedal my samples.  The irony of this is, I didn't want to be an Illustrator, even though that's what I started at Art School wanting to do,  for this exact reason.  I didn't think my strongest attribute was going door to door looking for work.  I guess, as a shy Artist... I'll be broke forever.  The upside is, I LIKE to DO the work... so I'm experimenting.

I did some Non-Union Scenic work on a show at a Theater called the "Huntington Theater Company" in Boston.  Which technically is work I got through the Union, if you count it as, we had a workshop in the fall at the shop, and I gave the Charge Scenic of the shop my business card.  The theater is affiliated with Boston University.  The show I was called in as an over-hire on was "Romeo and Juliet, the Opera."  It was a Senior Thesis show, for graduating Opera Majors at BU, so it's not on the roster for thewebsite... of course.  I don't have pictures either, of course.

I may not have the exact title right for the show, but you get the idea.  The set was a massive deteriorating French building.    I did anything and everything they asked me as best as I could and after about 9 non-consecutive days I was finally starting to keep up with these girls who do this work everyday at the same paint shop for something like 5 years.  I loved it.  I was so burnt out, I forgot how PHYSICAL that kind of work can be, but I loved it loved it.

Brick

futz

The panel that is the brick (photo above) is somewhat what we were doing but on a smaller scale.  It's just the texture bit today.  The second one is just me futzing around with plaster and some additives.  I also went in and sponged out some texture, lifting off the plaster mix.  Pretty nifty eh?  I'm sure both will be fun to paint.  We'll see if I can re-create somewhat of a resemblance of what I did on the opera set.  I'm just kinda trying to blog about it to see if I can keep a pretty good step record of how I'm doing things.  :)