Influences.

I had someone ask me the other night who my biggest artistic influences are. I rattled off the names of a few artists I like (Rick Berry, Phil Hale, Justin Gerrard, Jim Gurney, etc. etc. etc.), got a weird look (who?), and that was that. But then I reflected on it for a while. What really are the biggest influences in my art? Sure there are a number of artists I admire, whose techniques I draw from, but they aren't really the responsible parties for what I choose to create.

I suppose I owe a lot to my father, and his father, who would draw with me as a child. But then what about my friends in elementary school who would make maps and monsters with me every day? Or all of the pets we had growing up (and we had a few)? The sunny days spent on the lake? The stormy ones? The bugs that would crawl across my knees, or the clouds making their paths across the sky? What about every scraped elbow, every stranger's laugh, every flu I've ever had? Are these things any less pivotal to the way I see things - the way I create? I began to contemplate that all of these memories and experiences don't just shape my history, or my understanding of the world, but they are also entirely responsible for what I create as an artist.

Sometimes the influence is obvious - flatworms and paramecium informing a creepy monster, or an old man at a cafe turning into a hero born of a song, but more often I cannot pinpoint where my visions come from. I can assume that they are bred of countless images and experiences conspiring silently to make me make this or that picture. Endless faces seen morph into the one on the page. All the trees of my youth ripple and twist into the one on the canvas. Everything I've ever know coming together in my effort to relay the beauty I see in it all. It's odd to think about, but now I have a better answer for the next person who asks me what my influences are. I will smile, and tell them:

Thank you for reading, and for just being. You are all the reason I make things, and the reason life is so damn wonderful.

More art next time. I promise.

Power Down - Sketch On

We had quite the storm roll through this past weekend - over 12 inches of very wet and heavy snow overnight. There was mass power failure, and I had no heat or light at the house, so I went to a coffe shop and doodled. For 10+ hours. Twice. I thought I would share with you one of the spreads from that adventure.

Got m'self a red drawin' stick.

Reenactin' all over the place.

This is a little oil painting I did of one of my closest friends in high school. I haven't seen the man in years, but he still hold a prominent place in my frontal lobe (read: heart). He is an excellent historian, and has a fondness for reenacting. Here he is in full regalia, via a picture I stole off his facebook.

I wanted to go very subtle in the face, and I think it worked out ok. Whole thing is 8x10ish, oils on maple ply.

Every day I'm alterin'

      For the few of you that don't know, I am a massive nerd. I like all the nerdy things your mother told you to avoid if you ever wanted to find a nice girl (or boy) and settle down. It should come as no surprise to you, then, that I like a little game called Magic: the Gathering. What is it a gathering of? Magic, I assume, but also great art. On a scale of 1-awesome the illustrations for the cards in the game are completely out of hand.
      That said, I was approached by a friend of mine to deface some of these cards with little paintings of my own. Some being roughly 90 of them. These little pieces of art are refered to as "card alterations" and are basically considered the "pimping" of the MtG scene. If Magic was at all considered cool, Xibit may have even made a show about it (yo, dawg I heard you like card art...). I have a good chunk of them down already, and they can be found here, but I thought I would share a few of my favorites so far. Keep in mind that the cards themselves are a whopping 2.5"x3.5", and the area in which I work on them is a fraction of that amount.

They are really, really small. The other challenge, beside the size, is that - due to the need for flexablilty - the cards must be done in acrylics. Those who know me well enough to know how nerdy I am, also likely know that I hate acrylics. Or, hated, rather. I've come to respect them for this sort of work, because it does allow me to paint impossibly thin (another requirement for these little guys), and very quickly.

So there you have it: one more thing that is hardly a marketable skill, but that I decided I needed to be able to do. Enjoy.

Made myself a schedule, because I have poor time-management skills

You will note on it that blogging has been given an hour, three times a week. That is because, starting next month, I will be posting something new every monday, wednesday, and friday. It may be a sketch, it may be an observation about art, it may even be a completed project. If I miss a day, please make it painful for me. Bitch. Moan. Rant. I plan on getting kind of OK at this whole web-presence bidness, and I need all the help I can get to not slack off.

You may also note that it is kind of pretty, this is because I also have issues prioritizing, and instead of working on one of three currents commissions I chose to spend the better part of the morning and afternoon making a schedule.

Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for a jam-packed second season.