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Filigree Magazine
My work is featured in the second issue of Filigree Magazine. Please take a look, there’s some amazing work by talented photographers, designers, makeup artists, and models.
If you’re visiting this site because you learned about my work from Filigree, welcome, and you can see the paintings featured in the issue in the gallery.
I’m working on a new painting series and you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook if you want to know when it can be seen.
Thanks and nice to meet you.
NYC
I have a few goals for 2011, sell a t-shirt, do a shoot with my favorite model, make a book of all of last year’s paintings, some projects code-named “colorforms,” “bubbles,” and “the big myth,” paint and donate two celebrity paintings for charity, have a show in New York, and dig deeper, be bolder, and have more fun than last year.
Well, this Thursday 1/13 I’ve got that show in New York. It’s at Niagra Bar 112 Avenue A, at 7th St, in the East Village, right on Tompkins Square park, courtesy of the Antagonist Movement. Read about them, they’re doing good things.
Loyal readers (Trish, Mario, Susan, and Gary) will recall that I planned to take it easy this year. I’m trying. Really.
That’s what I’ve done so far this year. I like painting. I can’t really stop.
Here are the paintings in the show:
It’s easier to paint than write these posts, so I’ll guess at your questions and makes some notes for myself about the show:
- It’s a group show. No idea if there’s a theme.
- I’m showing three pieces, one existing (the tall one), two new (the ovals)
- I chose to make images that pick up where I left off from my April ’10 show
- I wanted to reconnect with my mission: For the women who view my paintings to recognize their own inner beauty
- Picking colors: I pick songs first and they tell me what colors to paint (i have synesthesia)
- I planned to do two paintings. One with colors I’m comfortable with and another with colors I haven’t used before. For the colors I haven’t used before, I chose orange and purple, thinking of the Invisibles). When I was done though, it didn’t seem “Cleff” enough for my debut (first? last? who knows?) show in NYC, so I decided to do a red and purple one. I also realized I wanted to make all three work as a set, so I made the image face to the right to compliment the left-facing blue one. I’ll put them on either side of the large painting
- They’re on canvas. I buy the canvases pre-stretched
- They’re done with watercolor. I have magic primer that lets me paint watercolor on anything
- I don’t remember exactly how large they are, they’re around 12″ x 16″. The large one is 2 feet by 4 feet
- First I drew the under-pictures on standard rectangular canvases then realized I wanted to use the oval canvases because it creates more powerful images
- I’ll probably go and paint the same images on those rectangular canvases too because I love these images and I want to try some looser painting
- While the images are based on pictures of models I worked with, these images aren’t meant to be portraits of specific people, they’re meant to represent aspects of feminine confidence
- I met the models through a site for models and photographers to network. For both models I spent about a year working to fit into their schedules
- The show is only up for one night
- I got the show through networking, responding to requests to show (submitting to one show and attending led to networking which led to submitting for another show. Thanks, Stacy Lynn!)
Feel free to ask me more questions, I usually only get them at shows, not online, but I’m happy to answer them.
Here’s a bonus, a closeup of the image I decided not to use for the show.
Hosting an event at the art museum.
First, a quick note about the show:
My latest solo exhibition is at the Topstitch Boutique, 54 N 3rd St (near Market) Philadelphia PA, 19106.
Show will be up all through August and all through September. Stop by Tues – Sat: 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM; Sun: 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Onto the stories.
At the Philly Art Museum
Dr. Sketchy’s Philly (which my wife and I run) was invited to host a session at the museum’s Art After Five series on August 6th and there were several hundred people in attendance. The theme was Renoir and models Candy Mayhem, D’Arcy D’Lux, and Tanya Dakin provided the costumes and the talent.
I’ll post better pictures on the Dr. Sketchy’s Philly site and Flickr page soon, but for now, please enjoy some iPhone photos so you can see what a fantastic night we had.
Video from the Gallery Show
My friend, filmmaker Gary Irwin (of GI Creative) shot and cut this short video of my painting process. Working with Gary a few years ago helped me realize a dream of getting into the IMDB.
I am completely floored by Gary’s talent and so grateful to have this video that captures this awesome time in my life.
Some of the paintings that were shown in-progress in the video:
Amanda Palmer Painting up for Auction. Proceeds to go to RAINN.org
I’ve donated a painting of Amanda Palmer (who’s also promoting this sale) to help raise awareness for Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. http://bit.ly/afpRAINN All proceeds from the sale of this painting go directly to RAINN. Stop by AMBERELLA sugary & sweet GALLERY & BOUTIQUE to see the painting. If you want to help, please share, tweet, or bid.
Here’s an photo of the painting. It’s based on a photo by Brian Viglione
If you’re coming here from the auction page and you want to know more about how the auction came to be, here’s the short version.
I wanted to start donating portraits of celebrities to charities regularly to be a proper role model for my new son.
I was inspired by a painting of Tori Amos done by one of my favorite artists, David Mack that was done for a RAINN calendar.
I contacted Amanda Palmer’s people through her website and then emailed my contact at RAINN and because both of those groups are amazing, we set it up very quickly.
As of this writing, we’ve raised some awareness of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention month and we’ve raised about $930 promised dollars.
If you’re an artist, go paint something and donate it to your favorite charity.
A friend of mine has agreed to be the next portrait and we’re in the process of selecting the charity. If you’re a celebrity, (or can rustle up a lot of interest) and want to participate, let me know. My plan is to do this about twice a year.
If you just want to help, please bid, tweet, or share this info.
Thank so much!
Steve
Prints!
It’s been years and there were some times that I doubted that I’d ever be able to reproduce my work, but I can now offer prints.
For now, you’ll have to go to the Amberella Gallery between April 10th and May 6th to purchase prints. I may offer them online after that.
Here are your choices:
The show is really real and I’ll have prints for sale!
Quick update: you can see information about the show on the gallery website: Amberella Gallery and Boutique
I’ve been waiting to see that since last August when we set up the show date. Well, really since late 2003 when I decided I wanted to get my act together and have a gallery show. Why did it take so long? I had to work on my style and get my technique down. Technically, it happened quickly. I got the show in August shortly after I saw a show at Amberella and the gallery manager’s contact info and told her how much I thought her gallery and my work were match. She agreed and a show was born.
But there was a lot of work leading up to the time where I felt ready to ask someone to show. A lot of that is documented here. But if you’re not interested in hitting the “Previous entries” button for six years worth of erratic blogging, I’ll summarize it soon.
Anyway, I’m on a tangent.
Big news is that after years of trying to reproduce my work: I will have prints for sale!
I’ll tell that story soon, too. For now, huge thanks to my photographer friend Jeff Smith and to Fireball Printing for making the prints. I can’t recommend those guys enough.
More soon, including pictures of the prints and details on how to buy them.