amberella
Dreams, Death, and Near-death
Thank you for a very good year.
I realized a lot of dreams. I did everything this year I could dream up. This list below is to help future versions of me to remember what happened this year, and see what’s possible.
Dreams
Most importanty, I helped my wife raise our now 14 month-old.
I also landed a job I’d been chasing for two years.
Now for the art stuff.
I had a goal this year to be in a gallery show. This actually came up last year as I was getting prepared to be a dad. I imagined my future son finding a closet full of my paintings, asking me if I had ever done anything with my skills. In an effort to show him by example he could do anything he wants, I decided to get a show.
I wound up in six shows (two solo, four group), and invited to be in four others.
Also to set a good example for my boy, I decided I wanted to start regularly donating portraits of celebrities to charities. To start it off, I was able to donate a painting of a portrait of Amanda Palmer to raise $950 for RAINN.
I also donated another painting to Pinups for Pitbulls and a painted umbrella to raise money for the Philly Mural Arts program.
Because I suspect that my audience has the same budget as me, I wanted to make my art affordable. I got lucky and found a class on photographing artwork and with my friend, photographer Jeff Smith, I was able to make some affordable options for people to get copies of the paintings. These include prints from my paintings, a book of my work, and at the end of the year, I got my work on a t-shirt. Soon you’ll be able to get those if you’re interested. Here’s some of the prints available:
I wound up in a couple of articles this year, one for the City Paper blog, one for City’s Best, and I’ll be in one next year in HAHAMag. I should note that Amber of Amberella gallery got great press for the shows in Livingproof Mag, 5150, and Out of Print mag.
To finish things up, I got hired to storyboard a feature film and illustrate a comicbook for the movie, Sufferance, from Eventide Productions. I’ve wanted to do both of these things for years.
Death
At the beginning of the year, my wife and I took over Dr. Sketchy’s Philly and hosted seven sessions. Including one at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and another with the legendary Stoya as Neil Gaiman‘s Death.
Near-death
I also had viral meningitis and was in September I was in the hospital for three days and in bed for about two weeks. I’m fully recovered, and was able to get in another couple of Dr. Sketchy’s and a show afterwards. Shortly after I got out of the hospital I tried a new style of painting I had thought of, specifically because I knew this new style would test out my brain and I was very pleased with how it turned out. What you see are seven round canvases of various sizes all hung together to make one image. One reason I like it is because it involves the viewer, as your mind has to fill in the blanks. I’ve got about 20 variations of this I want to do next year.
The painting served another purpose too – it was this year’s Halloween painting. You can see the Halloween paintings at MakeitBleed.com. I do the paintings every year for our annual Halloween party. This year’s party evidence:
Finally, I worked on daily sketches again this year. I started in 2006. I drew daily for most of the year, with breaks when I was painting daily and when I was sick. Highlights from the daily sketches:
Thank You
Special thanks to my wife Tricia for making every day a dream come true, to my son Patrick for being the inspiration that got me to do all this stuff this year, to Stoya for being a great friend and muse, to Amber Lynn for letting me have my first solo show, to JL Schnabel and Tanya Dakin for advice. Thanks to Candy Mayhem for helping to run Dr. Sketchy’s Philly and to Miss D’Arcy D’Lux and Little Darling for all of their help with Dr. Sketchy’s Philly. If I got nothing else out of the experience, I got the benefit of meeting you all!
Thanks to everyone who came to my shows and thank you very much to the people who purchased paintings and prints, it means a lot.
Thanks to Gary Irwin for shooting and editing this amazing video:
Thanks to Eventide Productions for hiring me to storyboard and illustrate.
Thanks to Susan and Tom at Comcast for hiring me and to everyone at CIM for dealing with my time out with meningitis.
Thanks also to everyone on Twitter who supported me throughout the year, especially Jamie Berry, Kat Ostrow, Jerry Shawback, Ken Powers, Spyros Heniadis, Warren, and @BlueGumboArt.
Thanks to LisaLou McKnuckles, Michelle Hengeveld, and Sean Saunders for their support. Thanks to the Fall Studios and Tina and Linda at Topstitch for letting me show.
Thanks to Amanda Palmer and her management team, to Chelsea at RAINN, to Neil Gaiman, and to Stoya for helping me to give back. Together we helped 180 people get crisis counseling.
Thanks to Ginger, Leigh, and Lilly at HAHAMag, and to the folks at Paradigm Gallery for helping me raise money for the Mural Arts Program. Thanks to Little Darling for helping me raise awareness for Pitbulls for Pinups.
I love all you guys and you keep me going.
Next year? I have to chill a little. I have some big paintings ideas, we’ll see how many I can get to. Please keep checking.
Here’s the paintings I was able to do this year. Enjoy.
Oh yeah, I tried out using social media to support my paintings. I did sell a painting through twitter and met a lot of cool people. This next picture is my highlight though. I don’t know who these other three people are, but I’ll take being compared to Maynard.
Happy New Year!
Last show of the year. New style
You can still see my new work at the Amberella gallery.
From the opening:
I love the bubbles. It’s a new style I’m going to explore next year.
I’ve got loads of ideas to try.
Because it’s impossible to write a proper post these days with everything going on, here’s a bunch of pictures of the sketches, primer work, and under-paintings for the show paintings.
Auction is over, show closing reception on Saturday 5/1 at 5PM
The gallery show continues, with a closing reception this Saturday at the Amberella Gallery at 5 PM. There’s a Restaurant Weekend event starting at 3 PM right in the Piazza where the gallery is, so come for the food, stay for the art.
The Amanda Palmer painting auction has ended, with a final bid at $950 which helped 95 people get counseling. If you bid, shared, or tweeted thank you very much. You’ve helped a lot of people. Special thanks to Stoya, Amanda Palmer and her team, Neil Gaiman and Kim Sherrell and everyone who helped spread awareness of the auction. News on the next one soon.
I’ll write more soon about the show and the three paintings I’m working on now for my next show.
Oh – and a hardbound book collecting all the paintings in the show is available at the gallery.
Hope to see you on Saturday
One of the best weekends ever
I only say it was one of the best and not the best is because I got married to Trish on a weekend and our boy arrived on a weekend. Trish and I met on a Tuesday.
But – the show. The show was great. Trish was amazing, playing the hostess and setting up some awesome refreshments that were a perfect combo of my taste and Amber’s taste. As the hostess, Trish told many stories about how I painted 17 of the 21 paintings in the show since late January, and answered questions about having a husband who works with beautiful women repeatedly. She is the best.
Amber was amazing, too. I’m so glad I had my first solo show with her. She helped me with everything but making the paintings. And her gallery is such a special place. One of my favorite parts of the night was hearing over and over again that my work fit perfectly in the Amberella Gallery.
I have sold six paintings so far, many prints, and several copies of the book. This is more than I could have imagined. In fact, I’m still convincing myself that it all really happened.
It meant so much to me to have my friends there, especially because they know what it all meant. Every time I heard someone say “you’ve been talking about this for years and it’s happened, I’m proud of you” it was the best feeling in the world. I can do it because you guys believe in me.
Some of the questions and comments I heard most:
How did you get the show?
How long is the work up?
Are you showing again?
How long does a painting take?
How long did it take to paint all these?
With a new kid, and a fulltime job, how did you find time to do this?
Who are the models?
You must like Jackson Pollack
What medium are these?
What’s the hardest body part to paint?
Do the models pose or do you work from photographs?
Do I know this model?
How do you do the splatters and keep it off the other parts of the painting?
Number 8 is my favorite.
What? The red painting sold? I was thinking about buying that one.
Where’s Patrick?
I will answer all these over the next few days, but wanted to capture it all for now.
Notes to tell: the story of my savior, Zack, how Twitter and Facebook did and didn’t help promote the show, meeting a woman who also has synethesia, and the wonderful Sunday after taking my family through the gallery.
Show tonight!
The show is tonight! Paintings are hung. Prints are printed. It’s on.
We’ve even received three write ups already on the Philly Weekly blog, on Living Proof Mag‘s site and on Fiftyone:Fiftyone
Got to make the playlist and pick up some refreshments and then it’s time to talk to some people about some paintings. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there.
It’s been a long time on the way and it doesn’t really feel like today is that day I imagined years ago.
Oh – and I’m set to be in two group shows this summer. Hoping to get another solo show for this year.
If you can’t make it, I’ll be livetweeting on Twitter.
Two weeks to the show!
Less than two weeks to the show, actually and I’m jumbled up with emotions. This is such a fun time. I wish I could save the way I feel and bring it back in the future. This is where all the hard work pays off. I’ll have to remember this when I’m exhausted in the future, pushing myself to paint.
This is what a gallery show looks like:
I’m a collection of conflicting and high energy thoughts. “Is anyone going to go?” “Will the paintings sell?” “Do I care? The goal was simply to have a show” “But it’d be cool if some sold” “I’m going to miss the paintings if they sell, the remind me of this time in my life” “Can I make a book? Can I make a video?” “Did I forget to tell anyone?” “What am I going to paint next?” “I want to take a long break.” “I can’t wait to paint more”
I’m a mess.
But it’s fun.
This week is about merchandise and promotion. I’m trying to make a Blurb book about the show. I have all the images and I’m messing with the software tonight.
I’d also like to make a few t-shirts, I may just have to simply go with Cafe Press for now and do something cooler later.
A video would be cool to have at the gallery. I have videoed many of the paintings in progress and a moviemaker friend offered to film some stuff.
The good news is that prints have been made and of course, even better news is that all the paintings are done and have been protected.
Gallery show update March part 1
Something’s better than nothing, so here’s a quick update:
First week in March I finished up the large paintings by painting the sides, erasing stray pencil marks, cleaning up fingerprints.
I also worked on my bio and artist’s statement. Painful. Those are up on the site, i’ll link later.
On Sat 3/6, I varnished / UV-sprayed the 11 large paintings for the show.
On Sun 3/7 a photographer friend and I tried some new techniques I learned at Fleisher Art Memorial to shoot 5 of the paintings. The techniques worked! After five long years, I now have the ability to make prints of my paintings. I’m selling prints at the gallery show and possible online. More details later
The next week I spent mostly preparing for the first session of Dr. Sketchy’s Philly
But I also painted a painting of Amanda Palmer. I later decided to repaint it. I’ll post more details soon.
This past week I did the second painting of Amanda Palmer. I’m going to auction this painting working with Amanda Palmer and RAINN and all proceeds are going to RAINN.
Also this week, I painted three small paintings, bring the total number of paintings for the show to 17 completed. There’ll be two more that I do.
In the next week I have to get the prints made, promote the show, and try to get three t-shirts and a book made. My plan is to have the t-shirts and the book at the gallery and take orders for anyone who wants them.
Wish us luck.
Here’s some of the Amanda Palmer painting, in progress.
First a color study:
Last Week of Painting. Part 1
Last week to paint. I have to use the time in March to varnish all the paintings, photograph them all and promote the show. In addition to painting this week, I also have to write an artist’s statement, a bio, and get a promotional image together. Oh, and I very much want to do three runs of prints.
Anyway, this week is about painting. I’m painting the skin and shadows in first. They look a little creepy without eyes and lips. But you have to paint light to dark in watercolors. We’ll see if I can transform these from Fluid Creepy to Fluid Beauty by the end of the week.
Sunday night:
Monday night:
Tonight I hope to work on two paintings. We’ll see.
Getting it all done in time for the show
I had a bit of a meltdown on January 28th. If you know me personally, you know on the outside my meltdowns aren’t very noticeable. On the inside, I had done the math, and realized with my current pace, and the time remaining until the end of February, divided by the number of remaining paintings I had to do for the show … well I was going to run out of time.
Unsure of what to do, other than doing the math over and over again, I talked to Trish about it and she suggested that I change the way I had been painting. Instead of painting a complete piece, I could use the technique that I had used in 2006 when I did my first series and that I use often when I do my Halloween paintings.
Sunday, January 24th
Inspired by this and running on fear/excitement adrenaline, I started painting. I wasn’t sure exactly what the color scheme was going to be for the next seven paintings, or even the style, but I found myself using an old technique that I wanted to bring back soon and after about a half hour, this was the result:
I put that off to the side, still drying and then did this:
The technique was similar to one I used in late 2008, but I hadn’t tried it with the new watercolors I was learning how to use. This time I put water down, then threw paint down.
I felt very differently after I had painted those two. The plan was to paint every night, for about a half hour to an hour. Just before sleeping. Working on the same type of stage on all seven. Backgrounds, then fabric, then hair, then portraits. While I began to work on these paintings, I also had to prime two 24″ by 48″ canvases with the magic watercolor gesso.
I had planned out five pieces that work work together:
Wednesday, January, 27th
Thursday, January 28th
Friday, January 29th
Sunday, January 31st I drew the images on the two 24″ by 48″ canvases.
Monday, February 1st
Wednesday, February 3rd
Another view
Saturday, February 6th
Monday, February 8th
Tuesday, February 9th
Wednesday, February 10th
Thursday, February 11th
Saturday, February 13th Did this:
and this:
Got some nice feedback on Twitter. That really helps me keep painting.
Sunday, February 14th, I did this:
Then reworked it:
Knowing I had to finish the fabric, I worked on this:
some more
Monday, February 15th, I realized I had to wrap up the next stage, the hair marathon. In order:
You can see it’s getting crowded in the studio.
I hope to finish these seven paintings by 2/28.
I’ll have an update next Monday.
How’s that gallery show coming along? Or: Why I redid everything
The work for the gallery show is coming along. Yeah, I’m behind schedule. But, yes, I’m confident I’ll get it all done.
I’m working on a lot these days, so I haven’t updated as much as I’d have liked. I’m going to keep at it to get all the information up here.
The work for the show is going to made up of four separate series. The first, called “Reflections” is about personal development and evolution. It’s also loosely based on Tool’s Lateralus album which deals with the same themes.
Here’s the work I did for the Reflections series in August and September just before our baby boy Patrick arrived. I was ahead of schedule and had five out of what I thought would be twenty-two paintings I needed for the show.
The originals: ahead of schedule
And here’s the work I did for the Reflections series in November and December. I have four for what will be seventeen paintings.
The re-dos: behind schedule
Why do some of them look the same?
Because I can’t use any of the originals and had to redo them all.
Why?
Here’s the story.
Fade out
The week after Patrick was born, I did some tests because I knew the Dr. Martin’s dyes I used would fade in sunlight. I’ve known this for years, but figured someday I’d deal with it. In the summer, when I discovered UV protectant sprays, I was confident I didn’t have to worry about the fading. BTW, the UV spray I bought happens to have an ingredient that causes cancer. I used it outside. And before Patrick was born.
But it didn’t work.
I painted a canvas blue. I added some purple and some bleach to see how the sun would affect them. Then I sprayed half of it with the UV spray. Then I put a post-it on the canvas. Then I left it in the window. This would create:
- Half a canvas exposed to sun
- Half exposed to the sun, but protected by UV spray
- A little square that was not exposed to sun
If things went well, the little square and the protected half would be a rich, deep blue.
But they weren’t.
Both exposed sides faded.
No problem, I thought, I’ll just try a different UV spray. The kind that doesn’t have an ingredient that causes cancer.
Same problem.
The Fugitive
So I did some research online. Turns out the UV spray is known not to really work, and the Dr. Ph. Martin’s dye-based Radiant Watercolors are not lightfast. I learned that “lightfast” means “doesn’t fade.” I also learned that “like all aniline dye base colors, they are fugitive when exposed to direct sunlight over time.” Also that they “are primarily formulated for graphic arts work on paper surfaces intended for reproduction.”
F.
It’s not how you fall, it’s how you get back up
So now the search was on. I had a lot of questions? Should I pay for frames and museum-quality UV glass? Should I paint the show in oils? Should I cancel the show? What other paint can I use?
With an intention to paint all the paintings in oils, which I had learned to use just a few months before in early in ’09 …
… I decided to try some inks and watercolors first. During my research, I learned that Dr. Martin’s makes Hydrus Watercolors. Which are lightfast. I also learned about India inks (surprise, they come in more colors than just black) and acrylic inks. All lightfast.
I also liquified some water-based oil paint.
In the lab
Then I set to experimenting.
You may be able to see that I exposed half of all these squares to sun with a lot of tiny post-its covering half of each square. I also added bleach to some, because that turns the dyes to white and I’ve become pretty dependent on that affect. Unfortunately it only works with dyes and only the red Hydrus watercolor.
The winner here in terms of being vibrant, translucent, the right hues, and lightfast were the Dr. Martin’s Hydrus. I was actually rooting for them because they were the most similar to the Dr. Martin’s dyes and (despite their disappointing tendency to go all “fugitive” on me) I’ve grown quite attached to those dyes. And spent a lot of money on them:
It works! Now, how do I use it?
So, now I test the color choices I have and how they all work together. The Hydrus watercolors are a little tougher to find than the dyes and I had to buy some from Dick Blick and some from Jerry’s Artorama. They come in either three sets of 12 bottles (least expensive at Dick Blick), or individual bottles (only at Jerry’s).
Looks pretty good.
I also did experiments with my splattering, with various effects and with the red options. There’s no “red” there’s magenta and an orangey-red.
But the only way I could know for sure if I could change to this type of paint forever was to do a painting.
Winner!
Which I liked. So we had a winner: Dr. Martin’s Hydrus watercolors. (Imagine you hear trumpets. Or the theme when people win on the Price is Right.)
It’s a different look, but one that lets me express what I want to express. In a twist that makes one believe in fate or subconscious influence, of the media I work in, watercolor is my most comfortable. So by switching to the watercolors from the dyes, I’m able to use all my watercolor rendering skills, in addition to all the skills of color and value manipulation I acquired using dyes. So even though this was intense – because it was happening at the same time that I was learning how to parent a two-week old, and with the clock ticking on my first solo gallery show – it will be for the best.
Back to the painting board
Now that I knew which old medium, but in many ways, brand-new medium (I had painted in watercolor, but never in this semi-abstract style) I was going to use to paint these twenty-two paintings, I had to decide which paintings to paint.
What would I do with the original reflections series? Paint over them with watercolor? Paint over them with oils? Redo them?
It all hurt my head.
And when could I tell anyone about this? (Aside from Trish who supported me through the whole thing)
I decided (I think this was Trish’s suggestion) to paint one of the images from the Reflections series that I hadn’t painted yet. Conceived as an eight piece series, I had only painted five.
[SinglePic not found]So that worked out. The energy/fire part was different than with the dyes. Probably the biggest change/challenge.
I then stopped by the gallery to finally measure everything to see how all the paintings would work in the space.
That’s how twenty-two became seventeen paintings. The space is a little different than I thought and we can only fit a smaller number of paintings.
This was good news. Because at this point, it’s taking a long time to finish these paintings.
Buoyed by the painting test and the reduced number of works I have to make, I decide to redo the “Reflections” series.
Success!
I start at the beginning with “Assumption”
I move onto “Patience” which I knew would be the turning point for finishing the paintings for the show. It would require the most patience (intentionally), detail, and time. Once that was past, I could work with increasing speed.
[SinglePic not found]Finally I re-painted “Triad.” This painting has the biggest difference in all the re-paints, in the change from the ‘smokey’ energy effect in the middle I had in the original “Triad” to the ‘fire/crystal’ effect I have here. I liked the ‘smokey’ effect a lot, but, as with the other two, I like the overall painting more than the original. The switch is painful but ultimately, beneficial.
[SinglePic not found]So, phew. I’m back where I was a few months back. Slightly better for the journey. I’ve got four paintings in this series now because the wall they go on in the gallery can only fit four. I may paint the remaining three and put them on another wall, but only if I find I have time after I’ve painted the other thirteen paintings.
Back on track
Next time, I’ll tell you about how I had a bit of a meltdown over the weekend of Jan. 23rd, resulting in a very productive week following. After that, in a series of posts over the next few weeks I’ll tell you how I decided to have a show, how I learned this style, how I chose the models I’ve worked with, how I got the show, and how I chose the subjects for the paintings in the show.