Virtual Workshop Time

Touchstone Center for Crafts has just released their schedule for the Spring/Summer 2021 virtual workshops and I'm there in the mix with my class "Creating Narratives in Portraiture". The class will be on April 20th from 6:30-8:30pm and there is a complete list of materials for anyone that would like to work along with me as I explain how I create my pieces and some techniques that I use. Link below to view entire class schedule.

https://touchstonecrafts.wordpress.com/virtual-workshops/

 

A Series of Johns

John Lurie

Since my steady Soul Clap & Dance-Off poster gig stopped abruptly back in March 2020, I haven't really been drawing a lot of people this past year. I was given the opportunity to teach a few afternoon art classes about portraiture/caricature recently and I decided I should brush up on something that is (was?) a big part of my career: drawing faces. 

I got going on this trend of drawing people named John accidentally and then after I noticed there was about 3 in a row in my sketchbook, I just rolled with it and did a few more until I felt sort of burnt on it. I've included each John with their full name below.

John Cooper Clarke

John Cale

John Carpenter

John Goodman

John Bonham

John Waters

 

Anthony Bourdain

Recent commissioned portrait of Anthony Bourdain. Went for a bit of a weathered treasure map look for the illustration to reference Bourdain's explorer spirit when it came to searching out culture and food. I would catch his shows every now and then and will always be glad I caught the episode on Lisbon, which introduced me to Fado. It's a genre of music I've really grown to love and was even lucky enough to catch some when traveling through Lisbon. Anyways, I've never drawn Bourdain so I'm glad I got the chance to immortalize him in my own way and also revisit his work for research. Scroll on down for some process pics.

Fundraiser Time

I'm having a little fundraiser on my website. While we wait out this COVID-19 crisis, I am taking some of my old paper scraps and doing little portraits on them. Back when I finished up my senior thesis projects I had about 10 days between finals and graduation and looking back on it, I probably should have just bummed around town but I went from working like a dog to being completely free to do whatever I wanted for 10 whole days and it was a tough adjustment. I spent some of my time taking all the old scrap paper from the year and experimenting with colors and my ability to record information with ink straight to paper. Now that I am finding myself in a similar situation due to lack of any work coming in, I'm returning to old ways to keep myself from falling out of practice.

I'm selling this first little batch of heads on my website. Each one comes with some extra gifts as well. They are all listed on my website right here -> STORE and I will probably be adding to it as time goes on. These purchases will help me keep the studio lights on as we continue to wait this storm out. 

One thing I want to add: When you click to purchase the item you want, your purchase will be secured but it will not be shipping immediately. Being in NYC, and at the center of this crisis, I want to be as safe and responsible about this as possible. So, as not to put anyone at risk and put any more strain on the mail carriers, all items will ship out as soon as it appears safe enough to do. Thank you for your support and understanding.

"Character and Narrative" the Final Four

"Slave to the Booty B.C."

16 X 20"

"LOL"

16 X 20"

"For the Gram"

16 x 20"

"#feltcutemightdeletelater"

16 x 20"

These are the final 4 pieces I made for "Character and Narrative" the group show that Travis Winters, Tom Sarmo, John Van Horn and myself participated in at the Foothills Art Center back in August of 2019. Just getting 3 of the 4 scanned in now due to the tight schedule I was under with wrapping them up; They're slightly larger than I usually work and I had 5 days to complete them before they had to be framed. I've included a couple process pics but due to the 15 hour days huddled over my table, racing against the clock, I don't have much exciting details to show. Nothing like a deadline to get you motivated. 

I think there's a narrative running through all these pieces. I wanted them to create this timeline dealing with our history of vanity, misinterpretation of text and images, instant gratification, and the banal things we do either out of lack of thought, need to be liked or desired, or fear of being out of the loop and how modern life has amplified a lot of these insecurities.

In Between Documenting Europe..

This was done before I sat on the couch on November 8th and watched the results of the election in total disbelief.

Around Halloween I always wanna do some sketches about my favorite horror movies and it always comes back to An American Werewolf in London. It's the one for me. I even found the alleyway from the final scene in the movie while I was in London. 

Portrait of Dylan Rieder.

A Selection of Sketches

 Scott Walker. Again.

Finally watched the first season of True Detective.

Interpreting a line from one of Charles Bukowski's poems.

Did a couple versions of Mick Fleetwood. You can't tell here but the second drawing is twice the length of the first version I did. I think I could stretch him even more.

The internet, currently.