Art Show!

I finally wrangled an art show at the Empyrean. Originally we were shooting for May, but then they called me the day after I talked to them and asked if I could do April instead. I guess the person they had for April flaked out. It's a bit sooner than I'd like, but it just means I have to work that much faster, I bet some of the paintings will still be wet as they are being hung. Don't be surprised if you see me there touching up things on the wall with a paintbrush :D All week I've been painting like crazy. There's a 4'x3' painting that's almost done, and there will be some new works.

Anyway, here's the details:


Empyrean Coffee House is kind enough to display my art during the month of April. There will be an opening reception the first Friday of April, the 4th, from 6:00pm - 9:00pm. Stop by if you can, if not, the art will be hung all month long!

Empyrean Coffee House
154 S. Madison
(509)838-9819
Spokane, WA 99201

Movies about Art, not Art Movies

I rented the Thomas Crown Affair today, I wanted to watch a film about art and its really the only one I know of. There has to be more, so if anyone knows, please let me know!

While watching it today, I started painting a friend's family crest. He found a small image online last night to work from, so with that I hopped to it and starting work. My version is 18"x24", pretty respectable size. While painting it, I started to think about how much people would be willing to spend for a large personally painted family crest. I see shitty 'abstract art' all over town that sells for ridiculous amounts of money. Just recently I saw an 8"x8" painting trying to be sold for $250. I spoke with a friend about the thought of doing these family crests for a side job, and how much they could run. I'm thinking I could easily sell them for $500, especially if someone could buy 8" x 8" of acrylic vomit for $250. If I did 4 crests a month, I'd be making more from the paintings than I do from working. That's actually a scary and lucrative thought that I might just need to keep investigating. If I switched to part time at work merely for benefits, then painted 3 of these a month, I could really start getting a name for myself. I was even thinking, if I worked my ass off three days a week painting, I could get 5 maybe more done a month, and run the business online. I'm thinking out loud at this point, but its extremely tempting. I think I might try to do a couple more crests, and then have them with the rest of my work at ArtFest this year. There isn't better exposure than that, all walks of life show up for ArtFest every year in town, and a lot of those individuals are looking for art to decorate their homes.

30 Days of Night

Just watched 30 Days of Night and I have to say it is by far the best vampire movie I have ever seen. I am going to buy it when it comes out next week. That's pretty big for me, I don't usually buy movies much anymore, unless they are marked way down. I just have way too many movies these days.

Everyone who likes vampires, but feels the movies just tone them down or fem them out should watch this movie. It turns the fruity Anne Rice like bloodsuckers into a wild pack of bloodthirsty hell spawn. It was pretty wicked. Rent it, it's worth it.

Sketches from the breakroom

So, sometimes when I have nothing better to do on my break, I like to doodle. This is from earlier in the week:



Sorry its pink, it wa


What if our president was part monster? :) I'll keep posting random stuff like this.

Caravaggio, you are my inspiration

So, I've been going mad trying to come up with a creative painting to jump onto. I've been drawing all sorts of stuff, like Elvis in my last post. Well, I would have done Elvis as my next painting, but the pose wasn't grabbing me, it wasn't creative enough. In an interesting turn of events, a friend was looking for a print of a Caravaggio painting, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist. I did a Google search to find where to get a print, and I then realized who Caravaggio was. He was a youthful and rebellious painter during the late 1500s who was known for his amazing religious paintings. He was quite the rabble rouser though, drinking, fighting, and boasting his way to his own demise if I remember correctly. Once he even used a prostitute to pose for the Assumption of Mary. That got a lot of uproar, but his works is awesome.

Anyway, I'm blabbing a bit, so I'll get back to the topic. While browsing his works, this painting of St. Jerome caught my eye:



I really love it, its so odd. For one, who transcribes the Bible from Greek and Hebrew to Latin while only wearing a blanket? Secondly, while transcribing why would you need a skull by your side, and whose skull is it anyway? I'm sure if I did some research, it would probably be a Saint's skull or something, but that's still quite disturbing. So, I've been drawing and redrawing my own interpretation of this scene. I'm really excited about it, I'll post the preliminary sketch when I finally get the pose exactly the way I want. As for St. Jerome, I want him to look crazy old and skinny like a bag of bones.

So, that's all for now. I'll probably post what I've got on the canvas in a few days probably, I need to get back to the drawing!

Updates

Its been some time since I've posted, so its time again. I finally finished the poster for RetrowareTV:



It took a LONG time to finish this last project. I'm going to print a couple copies to put in my portfolio, its an 11"x17" poster. They really enjoyed it, and I was pretty happy to start experimenting a bit with the look and style.

Now that the Retroware projects are out of the way, I'm starting to work on some sketches that I want to actually paint. Here's one I just did:



I also want to start a webcomic. If the response is good, I'm going to get it compiled and printed through ComiXpress, then pimp it out at the cons. I would love to be published.

In other news, I just finished watching the tv series Freaks and Geeks on dvd. It was a shortlived tv series on HBO. After renting it on Netflix, I think I'm going to buy it. It's probably one of the best shows I've seen in a long time. Even though the series is set in highschool during the early '80s, it has a phenomenal amount of parallels to my junior high and highschool years. Rent it if you get a chance!

Lastly, I got a new mp3 player for my birthday. My new player is the Sansa e260 4GB, and its amazing. The player is just like my old one, but with a bigger screen, larger hard drive, and I can watch videos on it. I actually watched a whole movie on it last week, Shoot 'em Up. The player also has a microSD expandable slot. When I have some extra cash I want to get an 8gb card for it. That will be a ridiculous amount of available space.

New Year, Birthday, MP3 Players

It's been a while since I've updated my blog. I've been working a lot on a project for RetrowareTV, you might remember from previous posts. I'm almost done with the last project, and I want it to look really nice. Here's a work in progress preview of what I have for them, its supposed to be a Super Nintendo game box, similar to the Contra games:



I'm pretty excited, this design is going to be an 11x17 limited run poster insert for the first run of the RetrowareTV DVDs. I'll post some more pictures soon of everything I've done for them. I can't wait to see all of my work in print in real life as well!


So, my birthday is tomorrow. That's been blowing my mind, especially because I received a letter in the mail about my upcoming 10 year highschool reunion in two years. I just feel like time is slipping out of my fingers. The whole situation has been weirding me out.

Lastly, I broke my wonderful MP3 player. My MP3 player has been my best friend since I bought it on Black Friday. It was a 2GB Sansa Clip. I work alone at night, so other than the voice in my head, its pretty quiet. The MP3 player has been a Godsent though, and I've listened to endless hours of it at work. I've really gotten into podcasts, they are informative and quite long. They have been perfect for work, I can just cook, stock walkin freezers, clean, and more all while listening to something pretty entertaining. But back to the breaking portion of the story. I had just gotten out of my car at work, and the mp3 player slipped out of my pocket and laid in the door jam just as I shut my car door to head into work... CRUNCH... Surprisingly with tape and some clamps, I was able to get it to work again, kind of... But now the audio is dying on it, and it ocassionally resets, so its time to send it out to pasture. So sad, but I want to get a 4gb now, if not larger. I realized how much of an audiophile I am after I bought that 2gb. Within minutes of buying it, I already filled up the disk space. 4gb will be good, anything more will be awesome.

That's it for now. I'll be posting some more sketches soon, I have a few that need to be scanned.