Georgia on my mind...

Here's another recent painting, both of these last two can be seen (along with possibly another if I get it done in time) in a group show at Carmichael Gallery in LA throughout November.
Can't talk much right now as I'm off to Atlanta, Georgia for the next week to get pictures of a client's kids for a commission piece, and to take pictures of the lovely people on the street in that fair city. I'll post when I get back.

The Latest

Here's my latest effort. Tentatively titled "I'm so adjective I verb nouns." This is a guy that I ran across on Paulista Ave in Sao Paulo. Funnily, I sent the image to a friend of mine in Brazil and she knew the shirt, she and her boyfriend had thought of buying it. She sent me the link to it on threadless.com (http://www.threadless.com/product/197/Teddybear_loves_Teddyboy). I theen got a hold of it's designer, Mr. Gauky from the UK, and got permission from him to use the shirt design. He does some pretty interesting stuff, check out his site http://www.mrgauky.com. Let me know what you think of the piece.

Transferring....

I've received numerous questions concerning my method of transferring my images to canvas. To be honest, I was a bit nervous about showing this. I've heard of artistry being compared to magic: once the secret is revealed, the trick holds no more interest. My fear was that I'd lose the interest of my audience by revealing too much... lose the magic as it were. But in the end I wanted to go full monty, be thoroughly honest and reveal it all and so far it seems to have drummed up a little more interest actually. So might as well continue on and answer the question, here goes...
Transferring is really the most "trick" like element of painting...every other part really does take a lot of skill talent and practice, but this one part can be done by anyone. I've had a number of people offer up their hypothesis of how I do it and what they see on the video, often involving very large expensive printers and highly sophisticated paper. But the answer is much less impressive, and much more accessible than that.
First I use photoshop to size the image to match my wood panel. I then break up the image into a bunch of 8" x 10" pieces using photoshop or a free poster printing program called "Proposter", print each onto regular printer paper with a regular printer. I then cut off all the edges, line them up and tape them together to make a full scale copy of the image. I tape large sheets of graphite paper to my prepped panel (obviously graphite side facing the panel). The graphite paper itself is nothing special and can be purchased at any craft or art supply store, it is never the size you want, so you end up using multiple sheets...but it is reusable. Then I tape the printed image down onto that. I use a pencil and trace over all the lines on the image that I need. If the graphite paper does it's job, when I remove all the paper I'll see that I have successfully transferred the image....voi-la!
Usually I use this method if the piece is fairly small (say 2 feet square), or I'm going to need to paint layers that will need the image re-transferred multiple times (I then keep the image taped on the top of the canvas and flip it back when I don't need it there, or flip it forward when I need grab an element of the image). If my project is fairly large, and doesn't need multiple transfers, I use a digital projector I bought for that purpose, and trace the projected image.
Back in the day I used to use the gridding method of image transfer (drawing matching scaled grids on canvas and photograph, as a way of simplifying and giving reference when you draw the image), but to be honest it was a slow arduous process, and I'm far too busy for that now. Before gridding of course, I would free hand draw the image, but that went away a long time ago due to time constraints and, let's be honest, I'm not in college anymore, I don't have to prove to anyone that I can draw ...I know that I can draw, you know that I can draw, and I know that you know that I can draw, thus I can stop proving it and spend time and energy on more important things (like concept, color, style, composition, etc).
Good luck!

Back from Brazil....

So, I'm back. Rather than go on endlessly about the trip, I'll let a few of the pictures I took give you an idea (which would be appropriate because taking pictures was what I did for the vast majority of my waking hours on the trip..in all, I took over 3000 photos in four days). For those of you in Brazil, if you see yourself, drop me a comment and let me know...also if you'd like a copy of the photo send me an email I'd be happy to email one back to you.
The music in the video is The National's "Fake Empire."

P.S. The video is actually 3 and a half minutes, not 5, it goes on with dead air for that final bit... editing mistake, sorry.

Now the show is over....

Hello All. I'm still here in Brazil, don't have too much time to write, but I did want to share the final version of the video I've been working on. I couldn't post it til after the show, as I didn't want it to be old news for the audience. The painting is not done, as you can see and I mentioned before, but I'll post the rest when I finish. Enjoy!

Off to see the wizard...

An interrupted work...

This is a short one, sorry. The face is not finished (not nearly), I've been interrupted by my preparations for the Brazil trip. With some luck, and internet access, I'll be able to post while I'm down there. If not, expect new postings to be spotty for the next couple of weeks.

Two new paintings...

These two paintings have not yet been posted on my main website...just haven't had time, but I thought you'd like to have a look. They both showed at the Urban Angel group show in London (the smoker has sold).

Coming into focus...

Blocking out the color...

In the beginning....

Background ahoy. You are watching a painting session that lasted until 5 in the morning. I've never watched myself work before, I had no idea my face gets so close to the painting.

Prep time....

So, Next week I'm off to speak at the "Pixel Show" art and design conference in São Paulo, Brazil. In preparation for that I am filming myself complete a piece from start to finish in time lapse photography. For the next couple of days you will be treated with snippets of my painting process, I'm sure you are all overjoyed and anxious to see how it all happens.
The first segment here is how I prep my boards. I start with birch plywood, measure it, cut it, brace it with pine (which includes measuring cutting, gluing, clamping, unclamping, nailing, and probably a few other "ing"s I am failing to mention), sand it, rout it, sand it, plaster it, sand it, gesso it, sand it, and gesso it again. And voi-la! Ready to paint.

Cleaning the studio...

It seems that after every large project, or mad rush to meet a deadline, I end up surrounded with the detritus of obsession. Diet coke cans, fermenting cereal milk, 6 - 10 half empty cups of water, piles of paint tubes, bottles of failed color mixes, frayed brushes, mounds of displaced tools... basically everything, everywhere it's not meant to be. And to boot, the place is covered with a not so fine layer of dust. Hence the need for what you see above (please excuse my apparel, painting clothes are rarely flattering).

Soonish...

Starting soon...