Cooleen and Brian's Starscapes

These are a series of four paintings I did for my friends Cooleen and Brian for their wedding. First off, I found their horoscope signs, Taurus and Libra, and found the appropriate star systems, The Bull, and The Scales. I then found the star systems' locations in the sky, as you can see in the full picture of the four squares together on back of I. So I transferred the sky onto four connecting canvases, with The Scales on the far left one (I), and The Bull on the far right (IV), with II and III falling in between. I then just drew horizontal and vertical lines to either connect the stars or just carried them off the page, and I painted the resulting rectangles in browns and blues, trying to limit my palette to be less confusing and loud. I included pictures of the basis in the sky on the back of each painting to better place them, as well as the two systems drawn into their respective placements. This is more of an ephemeral piece than I've really done recently, and it was really fun to do, break out of the traditional and do something a little more abstract.

I
12" x 12"
Oil on Canvas



II
12" x 12"
Oil on Canvas


III
12" x 12"
Oil on Canvas

IV
12" x 12"
Oil on Canvas

This is the back of I. I pasted the actual sky on the back of each piece to better see them. The four squares connected at the bottom is the area in the sky from which these paintings are taken so as to be able to see the physical connection between the two signs.

Quick 2 Paintings

Here are a couple paintings I did for my brother inspired by my trip to Alaska. They are done on two not-great mat-board type product from Pier I Imports or something of that sort. I just gessoed and applied some medium to the appropriate parts to make them paintable. I kept them as simple and as graphic as possible, to maintain the effect I was seeking to achieve. I have at least a screenprint or two that I would like to create based on these images. As with a lot of ideas, though, we'll see what happens. But they turned out well, pretty much what I was hoping for, just some simple original art to be displayed in my brother's house, playing with the frame and art idea: what is art, the frame, and their relationship. Completed August 2010.

Untitled
Mixed Media
14" x 20"

Untitled
Mixed Media
14" x 20"

Recent Work

Here is my most recent painting (besides the ones I'm almost finished with now). But this one was completed almost a month ago, maybe three weeks ago. It's for some friends who are getting married a while from now, I thought the date was sooner but was mistaken, so I get to hold onto it for a while. But the canvas came from Goodwill, the original picture is the last picture on the post, it's a pretty nice impressionist landscape, with some really nice textures. But it was a cheap canvas and reused, so I had to do something on it. I gessoed (a word I just made up, thanks) the whole thing, trying to keep some of the texture, and adding a little as necessary, and penciled everything in. I then painted over some of it with acrylic, and took some pictures because I liked the way it looked. I may use those pictures for some sort of design later, but that will happen as necessary. My goal was fairly clear from the inception of this piece of what it ought to look like upon completion. So I finished the acrylic section, used some latex wall paint for the foreground areas, and did oils over most of it. So much of what is seen is oil, but there is ample acrylic and latex paint evident throughout. The effect that I really wanted could only have been attained through oil paints, especially concerning the sky, and the buildings were far too unperfect when I first did them with just acrylic. So before I did them with oils, I measured and marked them out, making them fit my vision much better.
I am extremely pleased with the end result, the textures I've included with this are particularly pleasing, especially the first brown one of the foreground, there's a spectacular underpainted stroke and texture in the lower right area which is just wonderful, even better when actually seen.
These pictures definitely don't do the piece justice, as is the case with much artwork, but the real piece is slightly darker and more detailed than shown here.
I hope it's good. Even more so that the couple like it.

Hawaii II
Acrylic and Oil on Canvas
24" x 36"

Detail I

Detail II

Prior painting on this canvas
Artist unknown

Skyscapes: Metrolink

Here are the finished Metrolink Skyscapes. I think the wires add a lot more dimension to the pieces that are kind of lacking in the three below this post. This triptych also plays in with man's imposition into nature. These were fun to do though, as always. And am now going to paint on a canvas, which will be a fun new endeavor, or work on a sculpture, I'm just going to see how I feel when I get back from my trip.

Skyscapes: Metrolink I

Acrylic on Panel
24" x 22"

Skyscapes: Metrolink II
Acrylic on Panel
24" x 22"

Skyscapes: Metrolink III
Acrylic on Panel
24" x 22"

Skyscapes: Metrolink sans Wires

This is my most recent skyscapes triptych. These are before the finished paintings, which I will put up next. I just wanted to photograph them before I added wires in case I wanted to incorporate them into some kind of design project. But I just wanted to do a before and after wires for these pieces.

Fence Mural

This is a mural I did with a neighbor/ friend of mine. We pretty much grew up together and were both involved in some surgeries recently, he wins surgery-wise for sure though. We figured we'd do something productive and fun though in order to take our minds off other things. But he came up with the idea and execution. I really just helped with the painting. We began at around 9 at night, got rain delayed and built a semi-elaborate (well, elaborate may not be the right adjective, but it did the job) canopy. And of course, by the time we finished the canopy, the rain stopped. But we kept it up just in case it rained again. We then worked until about 12:30 and finished up and cleaned, etc. Came back and photographed it a day later. Really fun to work on, great doing a collaborative piece with him. About 6 or so feet high, maybe 15 feet wide. Two colors. He white-washed the fence and we just did black on top. Pretty simple, but really nice result.

Thursday Night Throwdown

This was done for the Barista Guild of America's (about) monthly latte art competition, entitled "Thursday Night Throwdown." This is my first poster I've done for them, and I hope to continue doing them. I was going for an old-school wrestling or boxing poster. A suggestion was made to add boxing gloves to the poster, which would have been a really cool element, but oh well, maybe next time.

Thursday Night Throwdown Competition Poster
Digital Print
8" x 10"