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ok, LOTS of photos to see from my show at Device.

i didn’t get a chance to take very many shots opening night.

looking in the front window:

front window 2 different angles:

me in front of my 2 newest paintings. the one on the left is called “Up” - and the red on the right is called “30 story ranch house”. both are 2′ X 5′, spray paint on steel.

that’s me standing next to greg and amy. they’re the owners of the gallery, and two very fine human beings.

my dame in front of her favorite piece in the show (she made that skirt specifically for the opening)

the other 2 ladies in my life. my mother and sister.

that’s all i have from the opening. good thing i went back during the day and shot some more.

the facade:

the front door:

this is the work of tom thewes. he’s a painter and gallery owner from detroit. i really like this piece. it’s very fortunato depero (one of my favorite futurist painters):

next we have the work of sculptor greg brotherton, a very talented young man:

and finally, on to my stuff. i currently have 8 paintings and 4 drawings up in this show. that’s the most work i’ve ever had hanging in one place at one time. i love looking at it all together. it looks so much more impressive than just leaning against the wall in the corner of my studio. some of these paintings are 3 years old and have never been shown. others are brand spankin new. let’s look:

first, a couple of cut-n-paste-panoramics to give you an idea of the layout of my pieces. click both thumbs for very large view:

man, i love these 2 new ones. i think that white one on the left might be my new favorite:

a closer look at “Up”:

a closer look at “30 story ranch house”:

i also painted the back of both of these pieces a contrasting color to the front. the idea bing that when they’re lit, that light will bounce off the white walls to the color on the back of the steel sheet that’s floating 1 inch from the wall, and in turn that color will cast a very faint reflection around the piece. it worked, but it’s not as dramatic as i’d hoped (at least not with the current lighting of the gallery). so, on the white one i painted the back orange - the orange glows very faint around the piece. the same happens with the red one except the back of that one is green:

the back wall (both angles):

there’s been a lot of interest in that tall thin piece on the left. it’s called “A.D. - 15″, and it’s spray paint on aluminum:

i suppose that about does it.

new work is brewing.

first, i did this mirrored subway car drawing (based on the R36 ) a few weeks ago for a painting i’ve yet to start:

then i photocopied it a couple times, cut it out, and taped it together to make a neat little subway car skyscraper that sits perched on a shelf in between some art books and some ultra flat black.

next, 2 more drawings that will become paintings very soon, and will be unveiled on september 27th at the Device Gallery in la jolla.

“30 story ranch house”

“up”

thanks jill!

last weekend was really fun. it was comic-con, i was part of a cool group art show, i had friends in from out of town, i had 4 days off from work, i got to meet and be semi-insulted (all in fun) by ashley wood while he signed my poster and gave me a custom sketch, and i got to watch my lady be a star for a day while she walked around comic-con in her ironman costume that she made from scratch! here she is posing with the “real” ironman:

here she is during one of her many “paparazzi moments”:

eventually she hooked up with some fellow avengers - captain america (that girl was tiny. her and trista entered the marvel costume contest together and got into the finals but didn’t win), and nick fury:

speaking of hand made clothing. here’s trista and i the night of the art show - she’s wearing a skirt that she made just 2 days before.

the art show went relatively well. three pieces sold, although unfortunately mine wasn’t one of them. still, it was fun. plus the show will be up for another month, so who knows, maybe it’ll sell.

i was originally told that this was a comic book themed show, although it turned out to be not so comic book related. nevertheless, i adapted my style to the comic book theme. the piece is a diptych titled “Metrotham” - 48″ X 37″, spray paint and paint marker on 18g steel. The word metrotham is a combination of metropolis (as in the city of superman) and gotham city (where batman fights crime). i used relatively the same drawing for both cities with subtle differences. the idea being that metropolis and gotham city are both based on the same city, NYC. the one on the left is metropolis - red, yellow, and blue are to represent superman. that red streak in the clouds is superman taking off from the daily planet building. the right then is obviously gotham city. it’s black and gray, the colors of batman. the design has changed slightly by omitting the daily planet and adding smoke stacks, a bat signal moon, and a W to the top of wayne tower. in both pieces there are subtle differences in gloss, satin and flat colors that are almost impossible to photograph. for instance the background of metrolpolis has 3 different whites of varying textures and gotham’s background has 3 different blacks. you can only really tell in person….so go see it. it’s up til sept 15th.

i had done 2 pieces prior to this on aluminum but this was my first on steel**. i had a 1″ square steel tube frame welded for the back of the steel sheet so that i could hang them without outside frames. i JB Welded the tube-frames to the sheet and painted the back white:

here’s a shot of the back signed, titled, and dated. “metrotham: metropolis” and “metrotham: gotham city”

**i’ll be working on steel from now on. it just fits better into the whole arrowchitectural decograf concept. graffiti was painted on steel trains, skyscrapers are built of steel, and so on.

Group art show including yours truly @ L Street Fine Art Friday July 25th, 6 - 9pm. What’s that you say? you’re sad to miss it but you’ll be at comic-con that day? Well, unless you plan on staying at the con until late you don’t have to worry. The L Street gallery is RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from the convention center! So as you’re leaving the con on your way to the car, or the trolley, or dinner, or whatever, stop by the gallery and see us. There’ll be live music, refreshments, and of course some great eye candy. Plus, if you’re not going to the con and feel you’re not man enough to brave the downtown comic-con crowd, you’ll have all the way until September 15th to see the show. I do however encourage you to come on opening night. It makes us artists feel special when people actually show up to see what we’ve been working so hard to bring you.

Also, here’s a very small peek at one half of the brand new diptych I did for this show.

Titled “Metrotham”, the piece is times two 4′ X 1.5′ (4′X3′ overall), spray paint on steel. It’s about NYC’s dual super-world disguise - Metropolis and Gotham City. Executed in glorious Arrowchitectural Decograph, of course. As with all art, this is a must see in person to appreciate kind of deal. We all hope to see you there.

NYC’s super hero disguise will be revealed on july 26th 25th.

here’s some sketches from my art night book. the last time i posted stuff from this book was back in january . so these have all been done since. i usually try to do one every sunday. they’re all done with a 7b graphite pencil and a white charcoal pencil. i love the look and texture of this paper.

in order of completion:

i just finished this painting today. it’s 12″ X 78″, spray paint and paint marker on aluminum. it’s titled “A.D. - 14″. excuse the horribly blurry photo, the ol’ camera’s on it’s last leg.

so, some new developments since the last post. first, i finished my first spray paint on metal piece. it’s called “who’s afraid of red, yellow, blue, purple, orange, green, black, and white (jacks painting)”. the title is referencing robert irwins huge aluminum panel piece called “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue³” ** that was built by master fabricator of the art world jack brogan. while working at the MCASD i was fortunate enough to have been able to be a preparator for bob irwins “Primaries and Secondaries” retrospective. while i got to help install many of the pieces for that show, i (along with my pal joey gold) spent the most time (a week) installing the aforementioned “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue³”. while installing that piece under the guidance of the man who built it, jack brogan, joey and i got to be pretty friendly with him. this guy’s got so many stories about so many famous artists he’s worked with. he’s been the go to art fabricator in southern california for decades and has built some of the most famous contemporary art pieces. on top of that he’s an extremely humble, easy going, and generous individual. he’s the one who helped me with some of the issues i had about how to go about painting on metal with acrylic, and even gave me a can of aluminum etching primer of his own volition (which i used on this painting).

it took me 4 attempts to get this painting done! the first 3 attempts i mention in the previous post. on that 3rd attempt i made a mistake that screwed it up again and had to start for the fourth time. i got it right after that. here’s the result:

the colors are slightly off in this photo, and there’s a very subtle fade coming off of all the arrows that you can’t really see here. also, this design is based on one of the first arrow deco drawings i did from about 4 years ago.

second bit of news. *sigh* someone robbed my studio of about 30 cans of spray paint that i just bought. FUCKING BASTARDS! i guess i can be thankful nothing else was taken and none of my art was messed with…but damn! KILL!

and finally, to offset the extreme rage of being robbed…i sold a piece! woohoo! a man from atlanta, who obviously has impeccable taste in art, happened upon my site and fell in love with my “city block” drawing. thanks again dan. here’s what he purchased:

i’ll be kind of sad to see this one go, it’s one of my favorites. however, i’m never sad to get paid.

over and out.

** robert irwins piece “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue³”

when i first started painting arrowchitectural decograf i was using canvas. i’d buy them pre-stretched from blick. since i mask my paintings i need a smooth surface - obviously, canvas was a poor choice. in order to get a smooth surface i had to do 3 coats of gesso and sand between each one. the only advantage to canvas was that i could hang them as is, no framing required. but still, it was lacking. so then i moved to masonite. cheap, smooth, can cut it to any size. i also painted on other wood surfaces like hollow core doors and plywood. but it’s always bothered me that i don’t paint on metal. metal just fits better into the concept behind my work. i mean, graffiti was painted on metal trains and most of the architecture i love was built on a metal skeleton. a couple reasons i hadn’t started using metal yet - one, it’s expensive, and two, it’s hard to paint on metal with acrylic (as i’ll explain and show below). which leads me to the two reasons why i paint with acrylic instead of spray paint, even though it’s always bothered me that i don’t (again, it fits better into my world). first, acrylic is very fast drying. i can paint an area and within less than 5 minutes i can put masking tape right over it and won’t come off when i take the tape up. with spray paint you have to wait significantly longer than that before putting masking tape over a painted area. not that it would peel off, but if it’s not completely dry you’ll get marks where the tape was. the other reason for using acrylic is that there’s infinite possibilities for colors. i can mix 2 or more colors together and make any shade or color i want. you can’t do that with spray paint. even with companies like montana offering almost 200 colors, which is a lot, it’s nothing compared to acrylics range of any color i can think of.

so anyway, i decided to start painting on metal…with acrylic. i went to material sales in national city and picked up a couple scraps of aluminum sheet to test it out. when i was working as a preparator for mcasd i met a great guy named jack brogan (an absolutely astounding individual. a jack of all trades, master of everything kind of guy). jack was helping us install robert irwin’s “who’s afraid of red, yellow, and blue”. joey and i worked closely with jack for about a week installing that piece and along the way we got pretty friendly. anyway, i asked jacks advice on how to paint on metal with acrylic and he suggested i prime the metal with etching primer. he even gave me a can of it to try out. so i used it, and laid my first layer of acrylic down on top. then i masked out another section and when i pulled the tape up it took my first section of color with it. ugh. well, i turned that peice of metal over, primed the other side, drew out my design again, and started the painting all over (this is a couple weeks later). this time i had mixed in some gac 200 medium, as i had heard that it helps acrylic bond easier with metal. i didn’t mask another area like before, i just put some tape over what i had just done to test out the bond. it didn’t hold. the same thing happened again:

aaaaarrrrrrgggghhh!

that was the deciding factor. if i was gonna paint on metal, i had to use spray paint. so…i flipped the metal over again, sanded all the first try crap off with my trusty milwaukee orbital and some 80 grit, primed it, and drew out my design for the 3rd time (by the way, those little letters in the drawing are where i was pre-visualizing my color scheme. usually i do a marker color test on paper, but for this one i didn’t. i just wrote in the color because i knew exactly what colors i was gonna use)…

then…i went and bought some paint:

in the future i’ll probably order some montana or belton or some such paint, but for now i’ll be using krylon (not that krylon’s bad paint). the thing that sucks about buying krylon though is that it’s only readily available at 3 stores in san diego. the first two, ace hardware and michaels, sell it for almost 5 bucks a can, and they never have any good colors. the third choice is wal-mart. ugh. the very thought of stepping into that store makes bile rise in the back of my throat. but, they do have lots of colors at a cheap price (about $2.30 right now). and today i found some cool new colors:

some of the stuff i bought is part of krylons new line of cans. they have a lid that’s a hell of a lot easier to take off than the original (although not as cool looking), and they also have the dreaded “slit-spray” cap (it’s not all that dreaded in my case. since i’m just masking and filling in color i don’t need a cap with any kind of control).

ok, so i have my paint. i’m ready. i masked off my first area:

then filled it:

so far so good. i waited about an hour before i masked the next couple sections and everything was fine. i’ll wait until it’s done to show you the results.

there we have it. end of an era. and another journey begins.

when i used to work at MCASD as a security guard it could get pretty boring. there would be stretches of up to 2 hours sometimes where there would be absolutely no one in the museum. thankfully, during those times we were allowed to sit and read. i did a lot of reading when i first started. titles such as “the master and margarita”, “1984″, “hunger”, and one of my favorites, “the confederacy of dunces”. after awhile though the museum got a little busier and it got harder to concentrate on reading when you’d have to stop and put the book away every 5 or 10 minutes. so i didn’t read on the job too much anymore and went on to doing crosswords. well, i suck at those so i went on to just drawing. i’d carry a clipboard with a few sheets of printer paper that i’d get from the front desk, and whether i was sitting or standing i would draw (usually with a ball point pen, sometimes pencil). i amassed quite a few drawings during those long boring days. most were complete garbage that i’d end up tossing out as i left to go home. but some were worth keeping. most of these are smaller than the picture implies. i blew them up in order to see them better.

this was my view across the street of the new museum location at the santa fe train depot from the front desk of the old downtown location at one america plaza. “concept is king” was a stab at the museums choice of the jenny holzer permanent installation on the front of the building. not my cup of tea. same thought was behind this drawing which is based on the museums “X” logo:

this is about as controversial as i get in my work. heh. on to less agenda oriented drawings like these:

want to see the other 26 sketches? check out my FLICKR page.