Top Five - List No.5 ~ Sad Bastard Music

"The blues ain't nothin' but a good man feelin' bad, thinkin' 'bout the woman he once was with"
Crossroads (1986)

Never in my life have I felt myself slipping into such a deep, dark, yet exquisite, funk! You ask what is causing the mudslide of my soul? A woman of course!

It's not just that though. It feels like everything in my life is going south at the same time! So right now I’m holding on to my sanity with just my figure tips...

...Thank goodness for music.

Here are the top five sad songs that make me happy right now.

No.5  I Got You [ Train ] (2009)
No.4  Better That We Break [Maroon 5 ] (2008) 
No.3  The Crystal Ship [ The Doors ] (1967)
No.2  The Thrill Is Gone [B.B. King] (1970)
No.1  Sideways [Citizen Cope ft. Carlos Santana] (2007)

New Year ~ New Leaf!

Happy New Year Everybody! Not to wax too philosophical so soon into the New Year; But I’ve learn with this project, not only thinking “I can do hard things”, and then going after the task. Sometimes, things go beyond hard to “scares the crap out of me” ~ and I still have to go do them anyway!

I’ve always wanted to do holiday windows, but I didn’t know how to get started. I talked to a friend of a friend and he got me started with paints and clean up. The “scares the crap out of me” part was going out and getting business. I have built up this phobia of talking to strangers, but I made myself go talk anyway. I laughed, after talking to the first half a dozen shop owners, I remembered how darn charming I was! The ideas came easy after that. I even sold this original concept to the Fixx's owner.

The photos you see are taken at the Fixx Coffee house here in Boise. The drawings are Christmas gifts for my kids. Some are from the project; some were ideas that didn’t end out on the windows.

Self Portrait No.1

I was sitting around bored one night, and decided to take one of those cheesy bathroom mirror pictures. I ended up with my cellphone in front of my right eye like a digital pirate. Having got this out of my system, once and for all, I went back to my desk and started a proper self portrait.

What you see here is not unlike a snapshot from a camera. If you were to see me that day; you would see how long my hair was, weather or not I had facial hair, and so forth. If you were there, I probably wouldn't have been taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror!

These exercises keep me creatively limber. However simple the outcome may be, it allows me to practice on an ever ready, and hansome, model.

Terri's Cats

I found this old picture of this little girl holding a bunch of cat. There was something magical about it. I just had to draw it!

What you have here are the two steps it took to finish it. It almost drew itself. The watercolor was fun to do, because there were more details to think about. I noticed I have come 180 degrees from “the Brady Bunch on Acid” piece where I had the watercolor exclusively in the background. Now there’s the color as part of the main subject.

I think I'll do that some more.

Knitting Factory Poster

Very happy with the project!

I was able to accomplish everything I wanted; having the free standing piece, and the Knitting Factory poster separated. This project gives me the confidence to do it again. The watercolor pencils worked fantastically; I had more control using them with the pen and ink, and the colors really popped. It is safe to say, a good time was had by all.

On The Road To Graceland!

Last semester one of the teachers I respect said my pieces were starting to look “too cleaned up”. I listened to what he was saying. About that time I was put on some new meds for my trimmers. I was concern that was going to affect my art work too. And then I got the watercolor pencils.

It was a good time for change.

This piece was all hand rendered, not put together like some of my other stuff. The watercolors worked well for direct application. Pen and ink was good, still some shakiness. I’m happy with the piece so far. The whole point of this is to have a free standing piece that doesn’t have any text on it. It will have text on it soon because it’s supposed to be a poster for The Knitting Factory Concert House. I can do that stuff by hand and marry it all together in Photoshop in its do time.

Stay tuned.

First picture is the first draft, Second picture is pretty much the free standing piece . Next comes all the music stuff.

Trees To Meet You