The Warden

Deb and I went to visit Mark in January. He had been sick and in and out of the Reno hospital for a year and a half. I had seen him a few months ago but now he was home and I wanted to see him there. He looked better on the second day and although he was skinny as a rail, his face was full and his hair was white and bushy like Mark Twain. The next day he went back in the hospital and about the time we got home he had passed away.
While there we looked at the family photos in the room. His wife Carleen pointed out a photo (taken by Skip Waller) that she loved. It was taken about the time the two of them met and (important to me) shot in natural light. I wanted to do his portrait from this picture and Skip gave the okay. Scott Faris suggested the painting be titled "the Warden".
I spent the next several weeks looking carefully at the picture and focusing thoughts about Mark, getting completely lost in the work and going on autopilot a lot of the time. Working from a great photo helps, but knowing the subject intimately takes it all to a different level; one where you don't need conscious thought, just intuition. I tried to make it look like there was a grin under the scowl, which was often the case with him, and found the smile in his eyes, not so much the mouth.
It turned out to be a great way to deal with the loss and I got this painting out of it, which we then delivered to Carleen. She sent a note which read in part "You captured Mark’s eyes! His eyes had gold flecks in them when he was young, and they showed up in the painting. " I'd have missed that detail if I was looking. It's like other paintings were training and here I had to operate blindfolded, drowned in music and misery and see what comes out at the end of the day. I am really pleased with the results, for me it transcends illustration and borders on art.

Bookcover: Whistling on the Stair

I was so pleased to get a call from Saylor Smith who was about to go to press with his 3rd book and asked me to do a painting for the cover. He had taken a photograph to be used as a guide for the painting, but wanted the subject in an 80's Angel uniform, a bat on his shoulder, a catchers mitt in her hand, and add an interesting but muted background. So sketches were started near the end of November and emailed back and forth until we got a suitable composition. There were a few things I needed to change from the original photo, I wanted the vantage point to be a bit lower and needed more info in the shadows so I got a friend to pose with his daughter and re-shot the scene. I was able to use some of this new info in the painting, but the more I worked with Saylor's original, the more I was able to see in it. I wanted the grandstands as a background right away and found some suitable images, some from the painting "The Hub" made last year. So here it is, I left room at the top and bottom for title and author info, and then worked with Saylor to come up with a layout that he liked, playing the part of a graphic artist, then the publishers went to work polishing it up and making a great presentation.

University Club

This commission for Vern King came to me by way "That Frame Place" in Brea, where I have sent clients for frame work since 1971. Vern saw that the sailor and young lady in this Norman Rockwell piece reminded him of his son and daughter-in-law, and decided to have an original oil painting made rather than buy a store bought print. This allowed him to personalize the piece, changing the Taxi to a Studebaker convertible, add himself in there and make the whole thing square rather than slightly portrait. We wrote up a contract that eliminated any confusion of this trying to be a forgery of the original Rockwell painting and proceeded. Vern supplied the photos that were needed and I got a poster of the original painting to work from. I was amazed to see Rockwell used a pretty rough unrelated texture to the whole thing. It looked as though he roughed up the gesso before he started, probably to paint the rock texture faster while working under a deadline. When looking carefully I could even see this texture in the surfaces that were supposed to be smooth, like the sidewalk, glass and the car. So I did all that too, trying to be faithful to the original and it really helps tie everything together. Too much texture would be a distraction, but he really had the touch. I learned a lot from this piece and thank Vern for the opportunity to create this new family heirloom.

Sonny

I have been fortunate to have so many friends who are superior photographers. Joseph “Joey” Viles is one of those guys; one I have known since kindergarten and whose work always impresses me. While perusing his website I came across a black and white image of his brother Sonny with his wife Pam. It is a great shot so I called and asked for a good print so I could do a charcoal drawing from it and he obliged right away. The picture was taken with a 4X5 Polaroid and has such a rich texture, very much like the fine grain Tri-X film that I loved. I’m not much for shots taken with a flash as they are usually washed out with too much light; but in the hands of a professional, a controlled flash can be an effective tool, like here.

So I dug out my old charcoal pencils from the 70s and started laying out ovals and blocking in values. I use a knife and sandpaper pad to sharpen the pencils and sometimes fill a 1” brush with charcoal dust from the sandpaper to block in big areas. Then I start to map out the geography of the face. There are simple mathematic formulas for this and I follow them as far as they’ll take me. Then I jump off the bandwagon and draw what I see, making adjustments as necessary. I keep going until it looks right.

I did use the computer a couple times here in an attempt to be contemporary. I posterized the original, letting me know big areas of value, and this was amusing. When we were kids, Scott and I did a lot of silk screen work and we had to make all those posterizing value decisions with only our teenage brains, so the computer did little to improve on those years of good training. At one point I took a digital picture of my drawing, put it in the computer and printed it. Then printed a copy of Joey’s original on top, the same size, but a different color. This told me where my drawing deviated from the original and I fixed what needed to be fixed, which was minimal.

Speed

I was recently invited to participate in a show called "Speed" curated by Jeannie Denholm. The show was at the House of Balsamico in Irvine and was exhibited to private audiences during September and October. Jeannie picked four pieces for display and I created a new piece specifically for the theme. One piece, "Targa", was borrowed from the collection of Lee and Lynn Dudacek; while three others "Access", "Norm" and "TRC" were loaned from the collection of Jason Parr. My sincere thanks go to them for making these available for this show.

The fifth piece, "Sharknose" was painted specifically for the show and made its public debut there. This was based on a charcoal piece I had done almost twenty years ago, and it came to mind almost immediately after hearing the theme for the show.



This is Phil Hill at Monaco in 1961, the year he became the Formula One World Champion. I've never determined what made the front wheels shimmy this way, it must just be a nanosecond of wheel jerk that drivers corrected for intuitively lap after lap in these tests of concentration. But that is what made this image so attractive to me and what came to mind when thinking of "Speed".

The Hub

I’ve been doing a lot of paintings of people at work and constructed this view of Angels Baseball. Last year (2010) I went to a ball game late in the season. I enjoyed a walk around the stadium and checked out vantage points from all over the place. While in the nose bleed section I saw this great little cubby hole of activity near the dugout. So when the new season started I got on StubHub, looked for the appropriate seats and shot a few roles of film above this little scene.

In the center is the head coach who orchestrates everything around him, coaches, players, staff, media and at base, the fans; all going about their duties somewhat anonymously. Going clockwise we see the coaching staff, a player, and the ball boys, part of the staff. I particularly like the cameramen; broadcast, print and social media. The social media guy being a crossover between fan and journalist. Then a variety of fans. Note the ball boy tossing the ball back to the stat guy, the kid in the front row hoping it will get to him.

I call it "The Hub".

Orange County Fair 2011

Well, it's Fair time again and I submitted three pieces hoping to get in and all three made the cut. You never know how that stuff will work out and I'm happy they dug my paintings. So here's the three entries.

Junior

I'm doing a series on restoration experts and two of the pieces are entered in the fair competition. The first is "Junior", one of the pioneers who worked with George Barris in the 50s and developed exotic paint techniques for the automotive industry. I had the opportunity to work with him a few years ago and it's his ethic and approach to handwork that separates his results from all others in the field. (This won an Honorable Mention)

The Body Builder

Steve Beckman is a master in his field of fabrication. In "The Body Builder" he shapes flat sheet stock into the voluptuous forms of hand built exotic cars. In his work he replicates the shapes and volumes of the original hand hammered forms while insuring the metal stays unstressed.

911

This is my tribute to 911. No records of the view from inside the towers on that day exist, but this is the image that came to my mind on that day. It's a macabre scene, but one I think is a valid interpretation of the events. It's the last moment of American innocence.

Jason Parr has purchased the painting and we are hoping to circulate it around, perhaps make prints available etc. I'll keep you posted on it's progress. (This won the Staff Award)