Day of the Dead Show 2010! (Part 1)

Well now, that was one hell of an intermission, no? Good news is I've kept my word and I'm posting something other than boxing sketches (although I've got buckets of those to show and probably will do so soon). Better news, it's that time of year again the Tweet Design annual Day of the Dead show. This is the third year for the show and the second that I've been in on it.

Last year the show was at the estimable Eyedrum Gallery but this year it is taking place in the Young Blood Gallery. I haven't been in a show at theYoung Blood since waaaay back in '01 ( at the old location no less). The gallery has grown mightily and I'm excited to be there again. Click the image below for details.

I created two coffins again this year. I wanted to approach the Day of the Dead themes in my own way once again and try to top my pieces from last year. I tried to think of different approaches to the coffin that might be something that hasn't been tried before or at least felt that way.

For the first one I decided to pay tribute to one of my art heroes, Robert Rauschenberg. He used a good many parachutes and things resembling them in his silkscreens and some of his performance pieces so that led to the coffin trading its heaviness for this kind of purpose. He's also famous for his combines in the art world. One of the most famous is Monogram. Throw in some angelic wings and several nods to other bits of his work and you have this:

I should mention that the backing board was merely for display purposes and isn't part of the piece.

DotD 2010 part 2

I wanted to use more of the typical imagery for the second piece and after a good deal of kicking ideas around decided on a warped, but fully functional, pull toy. Images below.

DotD 2010 part 3

The rest of the second coffin images...

and three photographs from a coffin by my beautiful wife.

Intermission Part 1- Bagging it

Things are coming along but they are coming along sooooo s-l-o-w-l-y thanks to obligations and getting my little man readjusted to school. I have tons of boxer sketches to show but I promised myself to up the ante before I posted more of those.


So instead I decided I'd show a few sets of paper bag puppet collaborations with my kids before they crumble to dust. Several of these show the heavy battle scars of packing tape and some have been played with so much that they are the consistency of tissue paper. This way I have evidence that I wasn't a completely bad pop. Right?

Sesame street. The Frazzle puppet (lower right) is the oldest I think- about 4 years.

More Sesame Street. Little Jerry and the Monotones with Telly and Oscar.

My daughter's princesses.

Miscellaneous paper characters- Human Torch, Hello Kitty, multi colored Foofa, Toodee, just a dog.

Paper bag Muppets and a character from Henson's Dog City.

Intermission Part 2- Mr. Ice Cream!

Motivational treat box I put together for my son this school year. I realized after doing it that it probably was born of more than a little influence from super talent Jim Campbell's hilarious Mr. Pork Chop.

More boxer warm ups

If I've not mentioned it in an earlier post, the majority of these are taken from a great book, The Illustrated History of Boxing by Harry Mullan.

More sketchbook runoff

A couple more studies for the hyena painting.

Piece #5

22"x30" acrylic, pencil on BFK

Piece #4

48"x60" acrylic and copper wire on canvas

Piece #3

What do you get when you put a collection many years in the making of these...

with ideas from this...

and this...

and a dash of this...

into my brain? Why, my third piece of course.


30"x44.5" acrylic (and some plastic promo credit cards)on BFK

Translation #2

The second piece that derived from a sketchbook piece. It changed slightly compositionally and got a whole lot bigger but other than that it remains fairly faithful.

Sketch:

Another couple of quick shots of the full scale piece:

Sidetracked!

In a good way. Have to use my work hours for an upcoming GA grant contest I came across which has derailed work on the comic. Funny because the progress was finally happening. However, this is an opportunity not only for a good amount of money but to get my work in front of some really exciting folks. Plus it's a terrific reason to do some larger work again.

I love reusing imagery in my pieces and allowing it to be reinterpreted and sometimes change meaning. It makes me feel like I'm building a language of my own. There were a couple of images I've done in the sketchbooks that I've liked and wanted to do large this is one of them:

The current reworking of it (via hastily taken photo):

More to come...

More sketchbook wanderings

Will up the ante very soon but for now more sketches...

Copperhead Blues- Title page and intro

This short comic was supposed to make its rounds with me at SPX in 2007. The only wrinkle in that plan being that I wasn't able to attend. It remained on hold because it was tapped to be printed last year. However, the publication has had to battle the same financial dragons everyone else has. I've wanted to let this one see the light of day for some time especially since I'm twisting my arm to sit down and commit to new comics. The good people at the publication gave their blessing so here it is. With any luck, it will be a good lead in to the next piece I'm working on and allow feedback that could help the new piece before I get into the meat of the visuals. Constructive criticism anyone?

Copperhead Blues Part 1