Wednesday, May 30, 2012

"Big"

In the course of making my rooster series of paintings, and particularly in the case of the 7th Street mural project, I would hear many variations of the same joke about the term "cock" and the size of same. So I decided to make a piece that addressed the subject in an ironic way. Ironic, that is, in the sense of this piece not being "big" at all, at 7 by 5 inches.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Oak Cliff Studio Tour, The Denouement

I know, the title of this post is pretentious. But it was a bit of an ordeal to get ready for the tour last week, since we always over extend ourselves. This year we decided to fix up our practically demolished bathroom (a remodeling effort was begun years ago and has never been completed), since closing it off in the last two years' tours didn't keep anyone from wanting access to it, gross as it was. Of course, if someone asks to use it you can't say "no". Still I felt bad for anyone who had to go in there. But while it still needs to be gutted and redone, it looks a lot better than it did. But that and getting ready for the tour itself was hard work, so after it was over we were exhausted and still are, really, two days later. Still, it's great fun to participate and we had a nice steady flow of visitors. I took down a large painting and replaced with a selection of my various favorite subjects, as seen in the photo below.
Roosters were represented this year by a series of acrylic on wooden bowls. They proved to be pretty popular, as did the greeting cards. The same can't be said about the "South Texas Palms" serigraph with hand spattered acrylic colors. But that often happens with work that's outside of what's expected from me. Still, we have to put out new approaches, whether or they're financially successful. Here's a photo of the "merch table", as my wife Becky calls it, with some visitors looking things over.
Below are more photos of visitors and the layout. This year we decided to show off some of our personal collection, too. It includes other Oak Cliff artists and still others from all over. I called our stop an unofficial "Oak Cliff Museum of Art", but I don't know if I could get much of a consensus on that.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Studio Tour

It's hard to believe it's been a year since the last Visual Speedbump Oak Cliff Artist Studio Tour, but here we are. I've been crazy busy all week preparing for it, including making new "Rooster Bowls", a print series I'll talk more about in another post, and a painting for a show at one of the other stops. The show is titled "Bitchin' Chimera", made up of different artists' interpretation of the Chimera myth. Mine is "Texas Chimera", shown below. The tour is tomorrow, Saturday, and I'll post more pictures as things develop.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

"The Doppler Effect"

"The Doppler Effect", 12 by 24 inches, acrylic on canvas. This is based on the drawings I posted a few weeks ago. I like to sit and watch/listen to hummingbirds, with that amazing buzzing sound that approaches, then recedes like a train as it passes. The hummingbirds are much faster, though.