Pirate Coat

Every year since 2007, I have been going to the Pirate Festival in Vallejo California on Father's Day weekend.  I bought a leather coat from Ravenswood Leather in 2007 and have worn it there each year since.  This year, I have submitted an order for new coat and pants.  I am going to have a design embroidered on the back of the coat and on the legs of the pants.  It is will be something that works well with my favorite pair of boots.  So far, I have a design that is progressing along nicely for the back of the coat.  A combination of a Christian Cross and a Dragon.  Nothing yet for the pants.

Bubble People

Simple napkin doodle that I did last night... going to end up painting it as bubble people.

Liquitex Spray Paint

I missed the press release, but back in February of this year, Liquitex released water-based spray versions of their acrylic paint.  It is sold through Michaels. I'm going to have to go by there today to get some.  I'm so excited!  I have an airbrush, but I *hate* mixing and cleaning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k28rdeDzwH0

Watch out walls (from overspray)!

Lots of Colors!

Here's the only acrylic painting I did with my airbrush...

Ocean Dry

Sketched this out the other day.

And then painted it today.

I'll probably do a little more touch up on it, but it might be done.

#110 - 2012/04/20 - Ocean Dry

13 More Scans

Got back 13 canvas proofs and scans today.  They look awesome. Some are new paintings, some are from 2010 that I didn't really like enough to scan before.  I've learned from lots of feedback, that just because I don't end up liking one of my paintings, it will still end up touching other people.

I'll be uploading them to my artist page on Fine Art America - David N. Junod where prints can be ordered.

 I dropped off 8 more paintings, mostly new.

I've bought all sorts of stuff, including a nice Nikon camera, lens, lighting, etc.  But I still can't get the same quality of proofs as Mike does at Fine Arts Giclee & Frame in San Jose, CA.

Lake View

Every now and then have to do a somewhat normal landscape.  I've been working on this one off & on for a couple of weeks.  Might be done with it, but already I don't like the way the tree trunks look.  Will have to leave it hanging where I can look at it more as an "observer".

This one is a bit large at 36" high x 24" wide.

#106 2012/04/15 Lake View

Death of a Brush

You found this brush that works really well.

You use it for fine detail. It holds up nicely.  Never lets you down.

Then one day you see a weird flake fall.  You wonder where it came from.  You keep painting.  Another flake falls.  You realize the finish on the handle is flaking off.  Oh well, that doesn't matter.

After a while, there is no more finish on the handle, just bare wood.  You've become used to the rough feel of it, it feels nice, it feels comfortable.

One day, you go to use the brush and things are laying down real nice, except then you notice a strange line that keeps appearing.  You work it in, wondering where it came from.  Soon you notice that there are a few hairs on the brush sticking out at an odd angle.  Ah, that's where that line came from.  No problem, you say as you work a little on the brush trying to get the hairs to all line up.  Nope, they refuse to cooperate, they continue to stick out.

You go ahead and use the brush anyway, trying to keep those wayward hairs away from the canvas. Fortunately, they are all together on one side, so it isn't too hard to do.  Soon they are sticking out further and further. It becomes more of hassle then it's worth.

Yesterday, I bought a new brush that will hopefully take it's place.  Haven't tried it yet, but I'm trying to keep a positive outlook.

Lemon Fresh

Was going to work on an old painting of mine, had placed it on the easel. Was going through my little stack of photos and drawings looking for a photo that I needed for it when I came upon an old napkin drawing I had done of a lemon/orange slice.

Decided to just paint it instead.

Here's what I have so far on it... sort of whimsical...

I'll spend a little more time on it to even some things out and close out the gaps.

*** time passes ***

Well, a little bit of time went by and I painted a little more on it...

I'll take it in with the others to get scanned this week.  See if Mike can capture the colors correctly.

#109 2012-04-15 Lemon Fresh

Sadness [more]

Working more on Sadness... getting pretty close to being done with it.

#108 2012-04-14 Sadness

Sadness

I started painting a picture of Nick, Mollie & Ben but wasn't happy with how it was turning out, so I painted over it.  As I was painting over it I liked the pattern that was emerging, so went with that flow.  It was turning into a brooding stormy sky.  It reminded me of a picture that I had taken of my grandson back in late December right before leaving to go back home. He had such a look of sadness in his face, in his body language.  He was heading off to school, and grandpa was leaving...

Here is an out-of-focus photo of the current work in progress.

Easter

I tried to paint an Easter painting last year.  It ended up being a psycho bunny with peep.  I'll upload it someday.  This year I started out painting another Easter bunny painting, but it went a different direction as I was laying down the paint.  I love where it went.  Here's an out of focus capture of it.

#105 - 2012/04/08 - Easter

Rainbow

What makes a rainbow beautiful? It's all the colors in the rainbow, the almost equal bands of different colors. If all the colors blended together, it wouldn't be pretty. If one color was more dominant, it wouldn't be as pretty either. What if purple was constantly bad mouthing green? What if blue was fighting for a more prominent position. If you don't understand what I'm saying, that's ok, you are still one of those colors, with an equal position.

Lucid Dreams

Every now and then I have a lucid dream.  This morning I had one.

I was driving through a part of Virginia where there are big mountains.  It was an area that was being mined for coal. There were large machines that were just straight cutting vertically down the mountain.  Reclamation areas were being built as apartments that looked liked big city skyscraper Project Housing along the mountain faces that had been stripped of the coal.

As I was being driven, we approached a tunnel.   There was an open stairway going up the side of the Project Housing, with lots of people milling around. On the landings, people were wrestling.

When we came out of the tunnel on the other side, the vehicle was no longer on a road but flying through the air.  The Project Housing was the same on this side, but now we were many thousand feet above the ground below, in fact the ground was just haze far away.  On this side people where wrestling on the landings also, and I saw a man fall over the side, people reached for him and grabbed him, but then they fell as well, so more people grabbed them.

There were many Project Housing buildings.  Along all the landings the same scene.  People wrestling.  People falling, being grabbed, falling, grabbed, people at the bottom of the human chain scrambling back up to the landing.  Some areas where big swarms of this activity happening very quickly.

Only once did I see them not able to successfully grab the leg of a person falling.  He fell, apparently to his death.

I woke up.

The scenes were complicated, but maybe I could, should, paint some of it before it fades away.

Scans

Took in 13 pictures today to get scanned.  A few of them I don't really like but they are what they are.  Supposed to pick them up in two weeks.

Later in the day I noticed that I hadn't brought in Clown, so when I go to pick up the paintings, I guess I'll be dropping off more to be scanned.

I haven't scanned in any of the children template paintings.  Perhaps I'll try doing those myself.  The problem is, I really like having the canvas proofs.  Imagine making a booklet with them at some point.

April Foole

One of the stories about the origin of April Fool's Day has to do with a girl named April Foole.  When Kathy was telling me the story, this is the image that popped into my head (slightly different background, but I now like this background best).