crappy hand of haiku

So I just finished a big #finealt (trying to come up with a name for what I do, trying) thrift store painting featuring a giant Rick Moranis head.  How did I get here? Do I have a love for Rick Moranis? Why would someone do this to a perfectly good painting?  While I can't always mind map an art project, I have a pretty good idea where this one came from. It starts with #meetingnotes.  Meeting notes is an ongoing project of mine that organically started as I had to go to meetings at my day job  Many of these meetings didn't pertain much to me, so I started drawing to a) pass the time and b) work on my drawing skills.  When I started, I made mostly doodles.  Over time I began working on more complicated and intricate sketches of people (mostly celebrities that I admired).  I would post these on my instagram on Fridays to the she-grin of friends and fans.

Here is a new piece titled Tugboat Playa. I'm one of those people that see faces in everything. Patterns in carpet, lines on a wall, and sometimes in old thrift store paintings. I saw a robot face and went with it. I also experimented with using stain to add some extra patina to the image. I'm always looking to blend my alterations to make them as seamless as possible. Sometimes that means mod podge and sometimes it means stain. Now I've got to get this smell off my hands or I'll be having a contact high all night. Adios!

I t's Ghostbusters 30th anniversary weekend!  I'm all ready.  I'm wearing my Bill Murray Shirt.  One of my kids last night said I'm not afraid of no ghosts ON THEIR OWN.  Now we just have to go see the movie in theaters! To go along with the theme,I wanted to share a better version of the final Altered/Re-Directed thrift store piece I did called Ghost Walkin' that I featured back in June . To go along with the theme, I thought I'd share all my Bill Murray Goodness as well. Enjoy the holiday weekend. Ben

Another wonderful altered/Re-Directed thrift store print by me.  I took this innocent picture of a little girl in a snow outfit and made her into Super Mario.  I tried pastels and pencils on this one.  It comes framed in a beautiful pink wooden frame.  Enjoy!

I've been working on this piece for a long time.  After Much Work, we reach the final.    I hope you enjoy, Ben

So the piece titled Ghost Walkin' has been sitting around my house for a long time.  I always knew I wanted to add ghosts to it but the originals looked more like the ghosts in Spirited Away than the sheet ghosts I eventually went with.  My first stab at the project was a failure.  I almost always forget my process and jump into a painting head first then end up messing it up.  So I went straight for acrylics and hated the results.  After expressing my failure to my wife, she suggested that I just start over.  Which I did. I usually do an underpainting in burnt sienna.  Next, I tried to establish the color of the ghosts before I blended it in with the background. As you can see I went with a bluish grey tone.  Stark white would have looked too bright as this piece not only had a more subtle palate but it also had some sun damage.  Once I got a handle on the color of the ghosts, now it was time to blend them into the painting.  This...

This is the final of El Caballo.  hope you enjoy!

So today is Friday and that means meeting notes.  This morning, I was charged with trying to get a web conference going.  In order to test audio, I needed a song or video that was reliable and long.  Very long.  So of course I chose this. 10 hours of Jake singing about making bacon pancakes.  Once it starts it just doesn't stop...being entertaining!  It became a topic of discussion among confused meeting attendees that was just killing me.  So inadvertently, bacon pancakes became the overwhelming influence on today's sketches. First Bacon sketch    S'more Bacon   Cleaned up Bacon   I'm also submitting my work for an art show this weekend.  I'm going to see if they like my stuff, but it was cool to get asked! Wish me luck!

  I started working on this piece this weekend but I've been planning on this one for a while.   knew that I wanted to turn the geese in this image into dinosaurs.  I decided to use guache instead of acrylic since I wanted to have the freedom to work the dinosaurs skin a little bit while still being able to add the detail of the line work.   The piece was a little large for my scanner so I had to stitch four different pieces together to get this up onto the screen.  I hope everyone enjoys!

I know I've shared versions of this before, but I did a scan of the work today so you could see the final product (my cellphone pics didn't do the work justice).  I'm really happy with the way this turned out.  It scares my wife every time she sees it, but even she thinks it looks pretty good.  For this piece, I call RoboCharmer (the original is called Little Charmer), I chose to work with acrylic to start.  I never went to art school so much of my learning came from bits and pieces I've picked up off the internet.  The article that got me started painting was about the process that Mark Teague uses to make his wonderful paintings for his books (if you don't know Teague's work, he is now best known for his illustrations in the How do Dinosaurs... books).  That is where I learned that I needed to start with a toned underpainting which is a process I've used for almost all of my work.  I usually use burnt umber for its warming quality.   S...

This weekend has been so prolific. It feels so good to finish a piece. Thanks for checking out my work. 

This is a piece from sometime last year.  Its another thrift store detournement piece.  When I pulled this off my wall this morning, I totally forgot that I treated it with a layer of modge podge to try and unify my painting with the original.  It kind of worked.  I might try this again on my cobra commander  blue boy painting I finished this summer.  Happy Halloween, everybody!