New Painting: Routine Traffic Stop

This painting was a departure for a couple reasons. First, this is a bit more overtly political than some of the other works. Generally I think that art remains current longer if it taps into the psyche of a culture rather that relating to actual events. Yet art also needs to bear witness to injustice and general shitty behavior to those who have power. And let’s face it, there is a lot of shitty behavior from the shits in power these days. I have been doing a lot of quick gouache studies of police abuse lately, but this is the first time I pursued this subject with oil on canvas.

This work was inspired from a video I found online. While the nameless videographer was just recording the actions of the police, I noticed that composition was beautiful and eerie. So I screengrabbed it and started painting.

The other departure was more technical. I started the painting was a full canvas wash of yellow oche. This dimmed the natural radiance of the white canvas and gave the whole painting that dusky vibe that I was after.

New Painting: Golden State Drive

I finished another in my ‘corpses in cul de sacs” series. This is the biggest one of the bunch at 40x30 inches. As is always the case, the painting took on a life of its own and dictated where it wanted to go. It wanted a lot of Mars red apparently.

Many of these pictures were from snapshots I commissioned from a friend of mine living in Santa Clarita, where I went to art school. It is the ultimate suburban sprawl town. Of the photos he took, this one with the towers in the back were my favorite. But I avoided painting the photo because I worried that the towers would be a bitch to paint. And oh boy they were. But I’m glad I got this out.

Super Boy: The Incredibly High Budget Movie

Though I spend much of my time on this site talking about my paintings, I actually went to film school. I worked in Hollywood for a few years and then worked as a film journalist for a few more. In the days before COVID, I would split my time between painting and teaching classes on film history and film making at Stanford Continuing Education.

So this summer, I’m teaching an online course on filmmaking, which guides students through the process of making a two-minute movie. I spent much of the spring trying to get my very energetic six-year-old son to do something aside from watch TV and jump on the couch. So I decided to make a movie with the kid for my class. He wrote the story (though I helped shape it into something that could be done on less than a $100 million budget) and shot and edited it. I intentionally tried to make the movie as low-tech as possible. I shot it on an iPad and just used props that we found around the house.

I’m pretty pleased how it turned out. I like it better than a lot of the movies I made while at film school.

Quickie Rage Paintings About Rebellion

A couple weeks ago, I, like a lot of people, watched with horror and disgust as police departments around the country rioted out of control against people protesting police violence. I am heartened that Americans have risen up across the country and that maybe, perhaps, something might change.

I am in a high-risk category for COVID and I’m a father of a young child, so though my sympathy (along my donations) went out to the protestors, I am reluctant to go to the marches. So I process my anger through art. I did a series of quick oil on paper paintings of some of the more striking and unusual news photos of the protests I’ve seen. Usually these are completed not in days or weeks as my canvas paintings are but hours.

Protest Elmo is the best Elmo.

This was the first one I did. I would have liked it even better if it were a Chase bank burning down.

Follow up on my Marin County Exhibits

As I wrote about in a few previous blog entries, I have been having a string of luck in Marin county.

My painting Solano Ct. won first prize at the Expressions Juried show at Marin Society for Artists. Since we are all under quarantine here in California, the exhibition has been turned into a "virtual exhibition" (aka a website) which you can see here.

I also learned that Chuck and Cindy was invited to show at the “Left Coast” juried art show at Marin MOCA. You can see a virtual preview of the exhibit here. Unlike Marin Society for the Artists, Marin MOCA actually staged the exhibit even though art galleries aren’t permitted to open under current Shelter in Place rules. Hopefully, that will change before the show closes on July 19. The curator of the Marin MOCA did this video walk through of the show which you can see here.

New Painting: Tuesday 2pm

The news has been getting even more bleak this week, so I give you my latest painting, Tuesday 2pm. Day drinking while watching the world falls apart has definitely been something I’ve doing during quarantine.

The mostly monochrome palette and the muted values were the challenge for this work.

New Painting: Cleaning Up

My latest painting came straight from an old photo I found online. There was something really dynamic and unusual about its composition that drew me to it. As I came to study the photo, I realized there are a lot of really nice rhyming diagonals in it, like the roofs of the houses, the billows of the pool and the shadows on the wall.

I painted it with a less muted palette than I usually do but I was very conscious about keeping it balanced and harmonic. I like how the intense colors of the woman in the foreground juxtapose with more muted colors with the houses.

The challenge for the work was the water. I never really painted water before.

Solano Ct. Won First Place in the "Expression" Juried Show at the Marin Society of Artists, Part 2

I’m still in shock that I won the “Expression” Juried Show over at the Marin Society of Artists. I half expect to be told it was a mistake or a cruel joke, in spite of growing evidence to the contrary. Above is the Juror Andrea Schwartz’s statement about the show and my work.

Since we are living in this weird, shitty timeline, the exhibit is a virtual one. You can see it here. There’s some great work. Check it out.

A few more Quarantine quickies

Balancing life between homeschooling my son and wallowing in feelings of dread and despair by scrolling through Twitter, I’ve been getting some painting done too. Since I finished Pepper Tree Court I’ve been experimenting with style and with materials in a string of smaller works. Those big paintings take a lot of energy and time. It’s nice to loosen things up.

Actually, the painting above, Irene and Her Bugs, I thought was going to a be quick one. But getting the lines and the tones right on that house proved challenging and that VW Bug was even harder. Its profile is so iconic that any deviation from is curves soon read as just wrong. I opted for a cool green and blue palette for the house and surrounds because I wanted to make the central figure pop with that pink.

I added that mask at the last minute. A late night bit of inspiration.

Where Irene and Her Bugs required a lot of care with its execution, my next painting Kaye and Joe with Fish let me go a lot looser.

I loved the implied story in the original photo. The husband was clearly having a blast fishing in the hinterland. His wife, based on her hair, clothes and body language, was less enthusiastic. The photo was also dramatically backlit. Conveying both that mood and almost cinematic lighting was the challenge.

And finally, I started experimenting with painting on paper. This is a portrait of a stuffed piranha I bought over 15 years ago. I named it Condoleeza. I painted this on watercolor paper and I really liked how the paint moved on the page. I’m definitely going to do more of this again.

Solano Ct. Won First Place in the "Expression" Juried Show at the Marin Society of Artists

Last week, I learned that my work Chuck and Cindy was invited to show at the “Left Coast” juried art show at Marin MOCA. This week, I learned that my painting Solano Ct. has been invited to the “Expressions” juried show at the Marin Society of Artists. I am stoked.

EDIT: I just learned it won first prize. I’m completely overwhelmed.

You can see a video of the whole exhibit below.

"Chuck and Cindy" At "Left Coast" Exhibition at MarinMOCA

I just learned that my painting from last year, Chuck and Cindy, is going to be a part of the “Left Coast” juried exhibition at Marin Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s scheduled for June 6 through to July 19 but I’m not really sure what form the show will take place.

I’m excited because this is really the first bit of professional validation I’ve had for my paintings. And I’m doubly excited that this painting in particular got selected because this is a painting of my parents when they were newlyweds.

New work: Pepper Tree Ct

It is week four or five of the quarantine. Between the news, which is positively maddening, and the demands of looking after a very energetic six-year old, it has been a challenge. Painting is the one thing that I’ve been doing that reliably calms the waters.

This is another work in my corpses in cul-de-sac series.

Quarantine Quickies

I'm located in the Bay Area, among the first places to go into coronavirus-related lockdown. It’s been over two weeks now. The first week was spend mostly endlessly scrolling through Twitter and drinking. Lately, I’ve been getting back into painting with a revenge. I knocked out these two paintings in the past week. More to come.

RV Fire

Illustrations from 2020

This year, I’ve not only been painting in oil but also playing around with different illustrative styles. For years I’ve been struggling to find a style that was looser and less involved than the one I used for Veeptopus. Lately I’ve been experimenting with liquid watercolor, which feels like it’s halfway between ink drawing and painting.

I did the above painting last week while in the first week of quarantine. It feels right considering the moment.

Earlier this year, we went to Rome (oh, those were the days). I had a blast painting and sketching —along with eating my weight in pasta.

New Painting: Solano Ct.

When I started this series last year, I didn’t realize it would become quite so topic. I finished this painting under quarantine and, since I have literally nothing better to do aside from watch Pokemon with my six-year old, I’m probably going to paint a lot more in the future.

Live Painting at the Cinequest Film Festival

The plan last week was that I, along with three other artists, were going to do a live painting demonstration as a part of the Cinequest Film Festival and then the resulting paintings were going to be voted on by the festival goers. At the end of the fest, the paintings and the artists would be presented as a part of the closing ceremony.

Taking advantage of the VIP Lounge

Of course, the film festival was canceled after only a few days because of the corona virus. So no contest, no voting, no end of fest presentation. In the intervening time, I managed to paint the largest work I’ve done yet 6ft x 4ft. And I did it acrylics, which is a medium I haven’t really used much before. I think I going to stick with oils for the time being.

The festival theme was “elation” and we were asked to come up with a work based on that theme. This isn’t a topic I would naturally gravitate towards – “alienation” probably is closer to my speed. But while searching the internet for ideas, I came across a still from the David Cronenberg movie Scanners . That movie is most famous for having a guy’s head explode in a shower of blood and gore. I decided to paint that guy’s face just before he explodes. It looks a bit like elation but it also looks like a rictus of pain. Or as one patron of the arts noted, “It looks like he’s nutting.”

I worked at Kaleid Gallery where I will have a solo show in August. That is unless we’ve devolved into a dystopian hellscape by then.

New Painting: Benton Street

I just finished a new painting, a 30x30” work called Benton Street.

This work is both a continuation of my previous work and something new. It is definitely a continuation of the ground explored in my previous painting Cul-de-Sac. Judging from the response to that work, there’s something about prone bodies lying in suburbs that resonant with today’s mood. The death of the American middle class? The corona virus? Climate apocalypse? I’ll let the critics figure it out.

My previous paintings have all found their inspiration in vintage photographs. Yes, even the paintings of awkward naked people. You’d be amazed what you can find on Ebay. This painting came from the view outside my bedroom window (sans corpse). As I refine my style, I’m finding it harder and harder to find snapshots that I want to paint. Taking my own photos seems a logical next step.

My Painting Cul de Sac is on the Cover of an Album

So my painting from last year, Cul de Sac, is now gracing the cover of JChan ‘s latest album, Breakaway. If you dig chill grooves and phat beats, check it out.

First painting of 2020

I started this painting back in December, thinking that I would be able to knock it out before Christmas break. It didn’t work out that way, as it took me almost two months. A painting will take as long as it needs to take, I’m learning, and you can’t really force it. Of course, I was also sidelined by general holiday craziness and a really awesome trip abroad. (More on that in a later post)

The inspiration of this painting was the same as a lot of my recent work: a vintage photograph. I was drawn to this particular photo because it felt cinematic. It felt like a still from some forgotten classic. Of course, that doesn’t always translate into an interesting painting. It took a really long time to find that thing that makes the painting gel. In this case, it was the curtains. Once I saw that how the vertical lines of the curtains contrasted with the horizontal lines of the landscape, I knew that this painting was not destined for the failure bin.

The Veeptopus Etsy site is closing Oct. 1

Five years ago to the month, I opened my Veeptopus Etsy site. Since that time, I have been amazed how much people have connected with my insane project of putting octopuses with vice presidents. I loved reading emails I got from people saying that their son or aunt or girlfriend really liked my work. But I have been evolving away from cephalopod-themed work for a while now and it's time to move on. 

So if you have been thinking about getting that portrait of Harry S Truman with an octopus on his head or a picture of Alexander Hamilton facing down Aaron Burr, now is the time to do it. The Veeptopus Etsy shop will close on October 1.