The 30's and 40's were pretty optimistic about how super slick our lives would be around... now. Donald Fagen had a similar idea with the flying car that made organic food and was so fast it took "ninety minutes from New York to Paris". Nobody would really have to work, and our lives would be filled with super-saturated color. All of our problems would be solved through technology.
We would have jet-packs and flying cars! We would wear super cool jumpsuits like Barbara Bain and Barry Morse in Space 1999.
So... things didn't really work out that way. No jump suits, but we do have Spanx for men. No awesome Dick Tracy wrist-communicators, but we do have awkwardly large cellular phones that are too big to fit in your pocket ( unless you wear some sort of "cargo shorts" which, quite frankly, NEED TO GO!). C'mon! Can you really see Cary Grant or Steve McQueen in a pair of these things?
Wait! What was I saying? Oh yeah, the phones. They also annoy the shit out of you every 30 seconds, break if you drop them once, and don't really work well as a telephone.
I guess I'm being narrow-minded when I whine about the fact that the general public is NEVER going to be allowed to have access to a jet-pack or a flying car.
These are WAY better, right?
Sorry, I know this one was a little ranty. I'm currently in a cargo-short "tolerance program", and I know with your support... I'll make it!
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The Buck Roger's Atomic Disintegrator XZ-38 version was made by Daisy ( the B.B. gun people) in 1935, and is essentially a "pop" gun. It has a little flint in the top that sparks, and the piston drives an arm up to make a popping sound.
A really, really LOUD popping sound.
It is the KING of all toy space guns. The Wyandotte and the Hubley are really cool, but this is the quintessential icon of heroic inter-planetary defense weapons. It's super annoying and... super awesome!
I got pulled over by the local cop once. Actually, he flashed his lights at me and then I instinctively pulled over. He drove up behind me and said he was "just sayin' Hey!". I half-ass remembered that it was some sort of law to tell the cops that you had a gun in the car. I pulled out my XZ-38 and he looked at it, gave me a funny look, and he indicated that this didn't really "qualify" as a gun.
Whatever, dude! It's super annoying and... super awesome!
This is one of the actual patents for the Atomic Disintegrator. It's kind of a work of art in itself.
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I had originally been thinking of the Big Bang singularity and the many theories revolving around the consistency of the rate of expansion. I think it's, quite frankly, fascinating:
I'm now kind of leaning a little towards the fact that this is a great example of Chaos theory where the random pattern is the most natural state. Right?
big bang theory ( detail)
You know, like, to make a consistent effort to continually "tidy up" your workspace is going against nature. I'm not talking about half-eaten sandwiches and a rusty hubcap on your dining room table or anything, but running around like Felix Unger ain't where it's at either, baby!
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I've been thinking about doing a series of these for years. I like lobby cards and commercial illustration from the 30's and 40's. One of my favorite paintings of all time is a conceptual piece of Superman ( for the radio show) by H.J. Ward from the early 1940's. This hung in one of the board rooms of DC comics until the 1980's. The colors are rich golds and violets that seemed to be a little better than "real life". Hey, dig where this thing turned up!
Superman, 1940
60" x 45", oil on panel
Apparently standing off the coast of Honolulu or Oz or something?
I'm working on the second part of Red Zeppelin I right now, but here's where I am at up to the end of the first sitting. I used a mix of Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna with no medium. Fat over Lean, baby! As I add more layers, I'll use more and more medium which in this case will be Galkyd from Gamblin. It's a rich honey in color and consistency, and it levels beautifully! It's also very, very quick drying.
I'm pretty happy to be represented by the Matre Gallery in Atlanta, GA. I'll be showing some of my paintings in the 15th Anniversary Show on November 12th, 2010.
One really awesome aspect of this is that now Don Johnson ( aka Sonny Crockett ) and I have something in common. I would have preferred that it was our really cool hair, but we see how that worked out. Check it:
"does this suit make me look fat", 2010 24" x 24" oil on cradled panel
Wow! Actually, I'm not really sure that I can say anything that appropriately captures the whole experience of the "Monsters" opening at Kai Lin Art in Atlanta on July 16th. Here are a few pictures of the action:
Jon Arge did the "Monsters" window. He also had a Batman that was in the show as well as many other cool pieces.
See the Batman? Also, Solongo Mellecker's painting "No Pets Allowed" is there too. It's funny because I usually use a Komodo Dragon as my goto example of an endangered species. Example:
Hey, give me a break with the whole "green" thing! It's not like I'm frying up a pan of Komodo Dragon steaks or anything!!
Note: my work is also prominently located by the bar.
Oh, yeah, and another thing I learned that night is that I'm apparently not attractive enough to be gay! You know I learned to live with the whole too-short-for-pro-basketball-thing, but every time I feel a door closed in my face it still stings a little, you know?
At this point, it's still light outside...
Some people kinda ran with the whole "Monsters" thing and actually came in costume. I, once again, didn't get this memo and got left out of this part of it. It's kind of a shame too because I had my 1966 Ben Cooper Wonder Woman all laid out and everything.
Actually, this is Dante DeStefano who had several awesome little "Monsters" in the show as well as an installation on the wall.
At this point, it's 118 degrees inside...
"The joint was jumpin' like the Sands"!
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There was a book in the 70's about how too much CANDY ( "Continuously Advertised Nutritionally Deficient Yummies") was killing the children of America, and that this CANDY was... a MONSTER! The funny thing about this little cookbook was that there were tons of recipes that contained huge amounts of sugar. Wouldn't this be a... SUGAR MONSTER?
The Candy Monster really wasn't too much of an invasive predator in my home as a kid. However, I can tell you who was more of a problem for my sister and I. It may have been the... "NO" MONSTER! My parents weren't really at the mercy of any candy commercial to the point of making a homemade Snicker's out of soybeans and molasses. They just used the word "No!"... a lot.
This may be where my ongoing battle with the "NO" Monster started. The "NO" Monster has been a WAY bigger threat to my personal happiness both as a child and now as a larger/older person. Things like:
"No! We do NOT drink out of the toilet!" ( I remember doing this when I was three years old ).
"No! We do NOT take Holiday Inn towels to Boy Scout camp!" ( I totally get this one now ).
"No! We're not getting a monkey! ( Ron Ely made it look so cool!).
Or, today, where the "NO" Monster rears his ugly head in an attempt to spoil my fun:
"No! We are not spending $25,000.00 on Christopher Reeve's costume from Superman III" ( actually, I should have scraped up the bread for that one anyway. I was totally cool! You know, the "dirty" costume where Superman turns slightly evil during the movie).
"No! We are not going to 'suspend' everything and follow RUSH's tour across the U.S.!" ( Limelight never gets old, baby!).
"No! We're not getting a monkey! ( I do NOT get this one).
Either way, I'm going to be in the MONSTERS show on July 16th. I don't have any monsters, but everything I've painted is over life size ( kinda monster-like, right?). My colors are rich and tasty ( like candy).
Here's a cool little demonstration of the potency of using a limited palette. I went over to talk a little "shop" with my pals at Studio Products today and they showed me a kit they've developed for landscape painting that has only four colors.
The colors are Sunshine ( a fairly neutral pale yellow kinda like the Sun), Sky ( a fairly neutral pale blue kinda like the sky), Magenta, and Cobalt Green. Okay, check out the nice range that this group of colors can generate.
Oh, and I didn't forget the young lady who asked me about how I "fix" my drawings before I apply paint. I use this Cat's Eye Retouch Varnish. I spray a thin mist over the drawing and wait 24 hrs before I start painting. This is better than using workable fixative or Aqua Net ( yes, you can use Aqua Net) because it's basically Damar varnish.
My wit-well is a little dry, so I'll leave you with this. Feel free to break up into individual discussion groups afterwards.
I noodled around with the underpainting a little more, and then I roughly glazed a blue into the background. I actually just painted the stripes to illustrate the power of the underpainting with a glaze of color over it. Ordinarily, I would have painted this area in one "shot" and would have worked a little more opaquely. Notice how the glaze is really affected by how dark the underpainting is. I really mix a lot of medium into the paint for a nice gloss. I've been using the Studio Products mediums, but I also like Galkyd or the generic traditional old master recipe ( 1/3 linseed, 1/3 turpentine, and 1/3 Damar ).
Next, it's time to really get into the color. The real beauty of this method for me is that it is VERY forgiving. Right now, you've basically got a monochromatic version of your painting. You could continue to paint in a more direct and expressive style, or you can reign in those German roots and tighten things up a little. Also, this is really where color harmony and balance come into play. You're interacting with the temperature of the background, and you're glazing colors on top of one another in order to create a tertiary level of depth.
At this point, I play with this thing forever through adding and "lifting" color until it feels done. I'll probably sand this thing off and use this board again due to the fairly sloppy way in which I executed this painting ( not to mention the fact that "a pair of pears"... may... not be my zenith of creative intensity). I hope this is helpful to the people taking my workshop next week.
Hey, I've really got only one more important thing to add:
"When Karate and gymnastics are fused, the combustion becomes an explosion, and a new kind of martial arts superhero is born...Gymkata!"
At this point, I'll monkey around with my drawing a little, but for the most part I'll make "real" corrections in my painting. After the drawing, I'll make a wash of some sort of earth tone ( usually Burnt or Raw Umber diluted with a little mineral spirits or turpentine ).
Okay, let's talk about turpentine. Turpentine is nasty. Turpentine evaporates into the air quickly and it can get into your bloodstream even through healthy, unbroken skin. Odorless mineral spirits are a safer alternative ( Gamblin's Gamsol is good), but they are also a petroleum product and are by no means "safe". So, here's what I do and why I do it. I use OMS for brush cleaning. It's cheap and works well. I use judicious (i.e. very, very small ) amounts of turp for my actual painting, and usually only in the early stages for underpainting. Turpentine doesn't cloud like OMS, and quite frankly, I like a little hint of the sweet smell of it in my workplace. I also encourage you to use pure gum spirits of turpentine, and not just some crap from the "Home Store" ( they always say that on This Old House even though Lowe's is a sponsor ).
You also don't really have to use solvents with your painting if you're concerned about safety or you have allergies. You can use M.Graham's Walnut Oil Medium which is fairly safe ( it's basically a cooking oil) for your medium and you can use just about any kind of natural oil to clean your brushes with.
So, if you want to use turpentine, open a window and be careful with it. If you tend to handle hazardous materials in a Jerry Lewis-like fashion, then use something else. Okay, enough of this.
After my underpainting is dry, I "build" my underpainting with a monochromatic ( one color) foundation or grisaille. I'm really only concerned about values here, and I try to use the warm earth tone to guide the temperature of the composition. This example is fairly quick and dirty, but I usually spend most of my time in this stage. One point to remember is that you'll be glazing layers of color over this underpainting, so be mindful of the fact that you want this too be slightly brighter so that the colors don't effectively diminish the light when you apply them.
I used a grisaille set from Studio Products that has the greyscale values pre-mixed in accordance to the Munsell Tonal Chart for this tutorial. This set is fantastic if you want to make subtle variations in the background that will "shape" the colors when you glaze. I made up a little striped wallpaper backdrop to illustrate how precisely mixed greys can accelerate this process.
Okay, let's talk about neutrals and greys. I like to mix neutrals myself from color relative to the composition with the primary focus being on simultaneous contrast. I really believe that employing this in your painting makes it come to life . Take away any silly little joke that might be the thrust of my painting and you'll still have this operating on a subconscious level and effectively engaging your viewer. See? You can wash my mouth out with soap and I'll still have a little something to say, baby!
So what I'm trying to say is DON'T just use black and white. It robs your painting of significant depth and it's lazy.
Here's the grisaille. I'll leave this alone for five or more days to dry. The next step is adding color.
While I'm waiting for my painting to dry, I like to watch trailers for really bad movies. Here's one right now:
My favorite line here includes the phrase "caught between a dangerous loser... and a girl... they both love".
I'm doing a two-day workshop in May, and I'd like to post a little demo of my process for the people in my class. I'm sticking to a simple subject in this demonstration, but we'll do something a little more involved in the workshop.
Here are a couple of pears ( or, a pair of pears, I guess) that I played around with on my table and arranged for my drawing.
I typically use Wolff's Carbon Pencils for drawing just about everything. They are super black and they handle really nicely relative to a General's ( which I also use, but they're a little more crumbly... for me).
I'm using a gessoed panel ( from my pals at realgesso.com ) that I made an oak edge banding for. I like these with a thicker band for a couple of reasons: they are easy to handle when you paint ( as opposed to a regular panel), they are ready to hang, and... if you dare... they can sit on a mantle or a bookshelf.
I loosely sketch my composition and then I'll glaze an earth tone with a little turpentine ( or mineral spirits). This will give me a nice "tooth" to start my Grisaille monochromatic underpainting.
My next post will show the progression of the underpainting and balancing tones for the glazes of color
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. There are times when I find inspiration for painting through the carefully crafted work of others. The subtle nuanced layers of certain films inspire me to reach higher and push my medium as far as I can. This "film" is one such example:
Hey, is it me, or does Ed Lauter got some kind of neck-thing going on here?
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My work is in the March issue of Poets and Artists ( Oranges & Sardines) magazine along with some really wonderful painters. I'm thankful that Didi Menendez included me in such a talented group of contemporary artists. The online version has a pretty slick display that allows you to "flip through the pages".
Actually, I've been corrected. It should have been "shoe antlers". Sorry about that.
Okay, I found these things that stick out of a deer's head at our local flea market for $1.00. Yeah, some redneck was clearly judicious in his selection of "game" to have acquired this trophy specimen for his wall. Actually, I'm pretty sure these wouldn't have even made the cut for antlers on those Jackalope things.
I say this one a lot, but it's so good that it really needs to be repeated often. Growing up in the south, there's a thing that avid hunters say in defense of their "sport".
"Hey!" ( in a really slow partially-intelligible drawl)...
"Hey!" ( sometimes "Hey" is often repeated here. I'm not really sure why )
"if you don't like huntin', then don't tawk with yor mouth full".
Yep! That's it. That's the argument for deer hunting. It's not the deep-seated fulfillment of primitive urges from 100,000 years ago. It's also not the necessity to "control" the deer population due to food shortages ( which, they eat leaves and live in the woods, and I'm pretty sure there's no leaf shortage, but...). Nope, It's "weer providin' food for y'all, and you better be grateful!!". Actually, here's an excellent essay ( and by "essay", I mean poorly written ramblings of the type of guy I mean).
Okay, let's get something straight. In the 21st century, we don't "hunt" our food. Nobody is going out and hunting the elusive "wild cow". We don't hunt cattle, or fish, or fowl. We herd them into a place, and then we kill them with hammers and/or electricity. That's not hunting... AT ALL!
My dad ( now defunct ), used to say, "if God wanted us to hunt, He wouldn't have created the meat department". And listen, I love a good steak as much as the next guy, but I am pretty sure that if I had to wrestle the damn thing to the ground with a spear in order to get one that I would eat fewer of them.
Actually, I'm not particularly passionate about the hunting thing. Without hunting, we might lose all of those "accidents" which, incidentally, has a very positive effect on the gene pool.
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I've been a busy bee getting work ready for the Holiday Show ( Size Matters) at the Miller Gallery in Cincinnati and for a small works show at the Swan Coach House in Atlanta. Here are some of the paintings:
I'm starting a new series of paintings for shows coming up next year. This means it's time to pull out my Christmas music to accompany me through my holiday work. I like to listen to Bing and Bob radio shows where the dates fall around the Christmas season. Typically, there will be a little banter, a song or two, and then a nice little Christmas message from Bing at the end. It's nice and it gets me in the mood.
Another good one I like to listen to is the Dragnet Christmas episode .22 rifle for Christmas. Does the title give you ANY indication as to what happens in this story? Okay, honestly, this one is pretty depressing, and they ran this show EVERY YEAR at Christmas time. This tells me that either they ( Jack Webb ) were too lazy to record another show for the holidays, or they ( Jack Webb ) really had an axe to grind against "Daddy" giving his little boy a rifle. At the time, Dragnet was pretty much the only game in town, so Jack could rip the beard right off of Santa ( not the "real" Santa, but the fat drunken slob in red sitting in a chair at the local shopping mall ) to drive his point home.
Of course today we all realize that giving a gun to a little kid isn't only a "good thing" to do, but it would also be the "American" thing to do. Please note that at no point did I ever say it would be the smart thing to do.
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I've been thinking about why I consume so much bad pop culture while I paint. The best I can come up with is that I need a little "comfort food" while I'm nurturing a painting. The meticulous nature of how I paint diminishes some of the immediate energy found in other styles of painting. I like painting Alla Prima , but for me I feel that its like a playful prelude to the real work. My thinking is that anything that I can pop-off in a couple of hours doesn't have any real intrinsic value other than the experience of doing it . I get more fulfillment out of the painting process by "building" in layers. Maybe there's some sort of psychological component that won't allow me to fully immerse myself in something as immediate as painting in one sitting.
Or... maybe it's more fun to paint with Elvis.
Anyway, I listened to a lot of Elvis music ( all pre-'62 and post '68) while I painted stitches, glazed layers of umbers and crimsons, and noodled around with roses. I also played Blue Hawaii a few times ( I didn't want to miss any of that clever Presley subtext the first time around). In Blue Hawaii, "E" returns from the Army to Hawaii ( yeah, he's Hawaiian ... you know its an authentic native Hawaiian when the main character says "Wa-heen-eh" with a southern accent) to assume the role of heir to his father's pineapple plant. Here we see another classic Elvis movie theme involving conflict with his "Daddy" ( I love it when I hear a grown man refer to his father as "Daddy").
We saw Elvis attempt to overcome the embarrassment of his loser father ( Dean Jagger from White Christmas ) in King Creole ( "you go to school Daddy!! I'm going out to make a buck!!"). In Clambake, we watched him "go underground" as a water skiing instructor in attempt to evade his responsibility of taking over his father's oil company. Oh, and Clambake also includes one of the greatest musical scenes EVER! This would be the scene where he restores a speedboat in 4 minutes with the aid of Will Hutchins, a bunch of hot girls, and Gary Merrill ( the cross-dressing / child beating drunk who married Betty Davis) with the aid of a chemical compound ( that Elvis invented) that improves the strength of speedboat hulls.
The "Dr." really knows how to make a pair of boots. You can walk in acid in these suckers.
Note: Always check on the bottom to see the words "Made in England" before you buy them. The ones made in Japan fall apart and are meant for fashion ( not action).
I'm sending this painting out with a batch of smaller ones that I'm getting ready for a show in November at the Miller Gallery in Cincinnati. I'm also working on some things for a group show ( also in November ) at the Swan Coach House in Atlanta.
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I still can't get over the fact that some of the finest oil paint available is made a mile from my house at the Howard Daniel company. I got to see my pal Max Howard make a batch, and I have to say, It's WAY MORE WORK than I ever imagined. The Ralph Mayer handbook shows you how to mix up a batch of your own paint from scratch, but it's really an involved process if you want any level of consistency in your materials.
First, The finely ground pigment is mixed with a carefully measured and balanced amount of linseed and safflower oils. Next, a "test run" is made by sending a small amount through a special milling machine that mixes the compound into paint.
Once, the paint comes out with the perfect blend of sheen and body then you run the properly balanced mixture through the mill.
This is actually a blue, and is so rich in pigment that it actually looks black. The finished oil paint is then ready to be shipped by the gallon...
or "tubed".
I'm getting started on some new paintings this week. I've spent the last couple of weeks preparing surfaces and I'm ready to get working.
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