V. I. C. I. 4

Another progress shot of the painting I'm working on.  Almost done.

Sophomore Undercover

Ben Esch's debut novel is out, and it's called Sophomore Undercover. As I've mentioned before, it's like getting kicked in the nuts by Mark Twain.  If that sounds like the sort of thing you'd like, get thee to Amazon, via the link above.  Or get thee to the official website to learn more.

New Slang

I had a dream last night in which I invented a new colloquialism, and I'd like to nominate it for wider use:

bert  | brt |

adjective

unexpectedly good : check it out–those culottes are bert | I didn't think I was going to like the movie, but it was totally bert.

On the internet one may write brt or, simply, <{:-|

Also, can we consider making "doin' the pigeon" a euphemism for something?  Thanks.

V. I. C. I. 3

Another progress shot of the painting I'm working on. As always, click for larger view.

From the Vaults 2

So my brother saw this post and was kind enough to send a jpeg of the album art reproduction I painted for him as a high school graduation present, which would have made me just barely 15. I guess painting album enlargements on canvas board was a bit of a meme for me in the late eighties–I remember painting at least one more (Magical Mystery Tour, I think) for another friend.

For the record (so to speak) I'm pretty sure we had a full-size LP I could reference for this one. The weird trivia here is that I'm also pretty sure I didn't just paint all the photographic elements of this Police cover in black and white, then brush them with transparent primary colors. I think I painted it all opaquely.

V. I. C. I. 2

More progress shots from the painting I'm working on. See previous post.

Voice Input Child Identicant

I'm due to contribute a piece of art to a group show called Idiot Box at Gallery 1988: LA. At my wife's urging I've elected to pay homage to what is arguably the worst television sitcom ever made: Small Wonder.
I lost about a week recently to a flu, so I started with a lot less in the way of thumbnails and preliminary sketches than I normally would. I gathered as much photo reference as I could of the original show, took some photos of myself, and ended up resolving a lot of the composition not in my sketchbook but on the painting surface itself: an old tabletop I found years ago in the trash and have been waiting to paint on ever since.
Here's the rough drawing. No time now, on to paint! I'll post more progress soon.

From the Vaults

I recently became reacquainted with my childhood best friend, Brandon, and he sent a jpeg of a painting I gave him. He says I did it when I was 13. I'm inclined to think I was maybe a little older than that, but I don't know. Anyway, here it is and, yes, it's an acrylic enlargement of the album cover of The Beatles' Abbey Road.

I love seeing childhood work like this, as I was famous for throwing away anything of mine that was more than a year old. If memory serves the painting is only a little larger than an LP–maybe 125-150% larger. But now that I think about it...I probably painted this from the artwork on a cassette. I didn't own any Beatles LPs when I was a kid, and it's not like I could do a Google image search back in 1986. Is that possible?

Happy President's Day!

Thought I'd share a larger look at that Abraham SuperLincoln I painted recently for a local Philly show.
Also, some pictures from a recent appearance at the great Head House Books on 2nd street. In honor of Valentine's Day, and at the kids' suggestion, I am drawing a monster bunny kissing Frankenstein.

Honest Abe Art Show

Shortly after my last post I received this flyer for the art show I mentioned. If you live in the Philly area, I hope to see you at the opening. I'll be the guy who looks like me.

Where I'll Be...

...if you're a lazy private detective hired to follow me or that process server I've been dodging.

Friday, February 6th from roughly 6 to 9pm– at Brave New Worlds Comic Shop in Old City, Philadelphia (45 N. 2nd St.) for the opening of the "Honest Abe" art show. Come see my and a lot of other artists' interpretations of Abraham Lincoln in honor of his 200th birthday. A preview of my painting is at right, which I've intentionally made VERY SMALL so that it'll look huge at the show.

Saturday, February 7th from 2-4pm– I'll be reading and drawing and signing books at Head House Books at 619 S. 2nd St., Philadelphia. Bring the kids!

Sunday, February 8th, afternoon– I'll be wandering around the Children's Book Fair at the Main Line Art Center (746 Panmure Rd., Haverford, PA). I don't have anything to do with this event personally, but friends of mine will be signing and presenting. Not "presenting" in the mating sense, you understand. I mean they'll be talking about their books.