Involved Backgrounds

I working on a series of 12 skeleton paintings, and currently have 6 of the 12 in various stages of background development. When I first started I thought these would have just a dark plain background, but as I looked at them, they seemed to need more elements to make an interesting background.

Several of them will have curtains in the background to provide color and compositional effect. Here is an example. The reds on this one turned out really nice. I've been looking at lots of pictures of theater curtains, and a friend of mine has red velvet curtains. I took some reference photos to get a better understanding of the color, flow of the fabric, and shadows.

I'm going to add elements such as cages, staircase, tiled floor, etc. to make the other paintings work compositionally.

Guns 'N Roses album

Axl Rose had purchased three of my paintings late last year, of which two pieces were to be included in a limited edition album release. To my knowledge, it was never widely released, though I received a copy from the band. I was looking at some stats for my website, and noticed a big spike in views and it appears that there is a big discussion among the GNR fans about the unreleased album, and in particular the images. Here is a link to a blog that discusses it, and they even included my painting "Lizard Part of my Brain."

http://chinese-democracy.blogspot.com/

I finally finished all the final drawings for the skeleton BDSM series and have started transferring these to panel.  

I got frustrated with one of them - I transferred the piece to panel, and realized on looking at it fresh again that the spanking horse was not in correct perspective.  It's probably going to be a struggle from beginning to end to get that one right - I was unable to locate an actual spanking horse at Mr. S so I had to use references on the net.  The horses in the reference photos were not in the exact positioning as the horse in my drawing, so I had to extrapolate.    I should be used to this by now, as I am always making these sorts of adjustments in my work.

Videography for Omnicircus Performance

I had the opportunity to videotape a performance of Omnicircus on Saturday night. Their founder/director is Frank Garvey, a multimedia artist who composes, designs art robots, and other multimedia visual arts (as well as performs electronic and acoustic music). Garvey asked me to video the whole performance. The piece, Thousand Faces Ball, was a macabre apocalyptic performance piece. The performance space itself is wonderful and interesting, with little light machines with brilliant colors, weird metal sculptures, and paintings by Garvey on the walls painted black.

Above are a couple of stills that I extracted from the video. I had a bit of a hard time navigating around with my ankle in a cast/boot, but I was able to get some interesting footage of the performance.

Doggie

Another drawing

Skeleton Dominaitrix

I'm settling into my new digs.  It is so pleasant at my new studio, it makes it easy to work there.  For now, I'm limited to drawing.  I sprained my ankle, so I can't paint (I do alot of pacing around and stand when I paint).  I'm working through all the preparatory drawings of the BDSM skeletons.  

Usable Studio

I sprained my ankle a week ago, just after I got all the boxes and furniture moved into the new studio.  I had slipped and fallen on the last step at our apartment building.  I ended up hobbling around on a swollen left ankle all day, and by the end of Saturday it hurt quite a bit.  It took all week to finish unpacking because I was so slow in getting around.

Finally, the studio is organized and usable.  Late yesterday, I got to sit down and actually do some art.  I worked a bit yesterday, and all day today, on detailed BDSM skeleton preparatory drawings.  

New Studio

On Monday, I received a notice that I had to vacate my studio.  Apparently the new owner changed his mind and wants to use all the space himself rather than lease out afew spaces.  I was told earlier in the year to look for a year long lease, but it never showed up.  I knew I was on borrowed time.  

 

Fortunately, I had been keeping  close tabs on Craigs list over the last 6 months.  Very quickly, I found a beautiful space in SOMA, near the Ballpark and near the waterfront.  It’s a bit smaller, but it has wonderful light, wifi, kitchen.  Plus, I think there will be much greater stability, as the owners do not appear to want to change the usage of the building, and in fact, one of them even exhibits in Open Studios.  This helped tip the decision to take this particular studio. The other option was a bigger studio at 7th and Market.   Not a bad space, but this new one better fits my needs and has wonderful ambiance.

 

As the new  space is a little smaller, so I rented out a small self storage space.  

 

I’m hectically trying to finish the Diomedes painting (final details), and then over the next few days will begin packing and moving.  I hired a moving company to come on Friday to take the big things over.  

 

The sad thing is that Belcher Studios was the last artistic outpost in the Castro.  The neighborhood has lost its last bit of culture, and is now wholly a restaurant and party neighborhood.  As a resident of the neighborhood, I find this very sad indeed.

 

But I’m glad to be moving on to a new adventure.  The new space isn’t quite as convenient (I’ll be taking Muni six days a week now) but I can’t wait to start working there.  

Leather and Latex

With the help and courtesy of Mr. S. Leather, I have been able to set up the skeleton model with actual leather and latex clothing.  This will help greatly when I execute the paintings - the reference photo will allow me to accurately render the leather gear.

For the first round, I borrowed a leather harness, and military cap.  In some poses, it didn’t look quite right on the skeleton, and distracted from the composition.  But in others, the leather works quite nicely with the concept and composition I have in mind.  

Today, I went and borrowed dominaitrix type leather gear.  Linda at Mr. S. was very helpful, and assisted me by suggesting coordinating pieces.  

As usual, dressing up a female BDSM skeleton was way harder than dressing up a male BDSM skeleton.  The latex appears to be way more delicate than leather, so I wrapped the joints on the skeleton to ensure that the screws and other hardware didn’t accidentally snag the latex when I put on the apparel.  

I was up and down on the ladder a zillion times today, and my legs knees and hip are killing me.  Must be my age.

The boots and gloves proved to be too difficult to put on the skeleton - rather than risk damaging the gloves, I’m going to just put them on my own arm and photograph my arm in the position I’ve set up in the study sketch, so that I can capture the folds and lighting.  Same with the boots. 

Over the weekend, I got four of the drawings transferred to panel and did the first underpainting of acrylic.  And on two of the paintings, I got the first oil layer into the background.

More Drawings

The drawings are coming along.  I think I’ll have the first four transferred to panel to begin painting sometime this week.

The Spider is Leaving Us

We were fortunate here in San Francisco to have a Louise Bourgeois spider sculpture installed at the Embarcadero.  i found out last week that it will be removed tomorrow - it will be shipped to a collector in Houston.

I went down to the water late this afternoon and got a good picture of the shadows cast by this amazing sculpture.  

Broken Mac

Don’t ever spill water on a Mac.  In a moment of klutziness, i spilled a couple of tablespoons of water on my keyboard.  This caused several keys to freeze up.  Amazingly, I was still able to use all the graphics programs like Photoshop and Poser with no problem.  But I was unable to write e mail or type anything with the letters “h” “u”  “y” etc.  So I finally got it fixed, and I feel like a renewed person.

The BDSM skeleton project is moving along nicely - I’ve been able to recruit some amazing models.  Kurt, who posed for several of the skeleton BDSM scenes, looked like a perfect handsome demon - so I had him pose as one of Dante’s (Dore’s) minons, leaning on a sword.  

I have two models coming in next week, and will also begin setting up the skeleton to photograph reference photos.   I did a “practice run” to see how difficult it is to dress him up.  Not bad, except that he cannot wear pants and stand up (the rod that keeps him standing upright goes right up his ass, so he will not be able to wear pants and stand up on his stand)

In between all of this, I’ve been working on final details on the Diomedes painting, and have begun studies for a painting of a chimpanzee mob.  I already sculpted two little fierce chimps to use as a reference for perspective, composition and lighting. 

As part of my research, I watched this program called “Escape to Chimp Eden.”  The fighting, mobbing, and bickering in which chimps are constantly engaged is a bit scary, especially when I think about how similar our DNA is.    And in studying their anatomy, they are identical muscle for muscle with us.  The only difference is in the hip, neck and head.  The arm muscles are so similar (just the proportions differ) that I am able to use a human anatomy book to determine position of major muscles in a chimp.  it only convinces me even more that there is a large component of animal in us. 

A Hardworking Guy

Above is the man of our household, Fredrick.  He is a beautiful cast of a male skeleton.  He stays relatively still for poses, and he is featured in a number of my paintings.  Today, he posed for a study of a woman and skeleton embracing.

The entire series of graphite studies are now almost finished, and I'm ready to get photos done of live models.  I’ve been asking all my friends about finding models.  I met one very cool guy who is game to pose, and so i still need to locate maybe one more male model and a female model, all show are willing to be in BDSM scenarios.  I may end up posting to a site called FetLife.  

I also measure Fredrick for his BDSM closting - both male and female dominants.  Next week, we are going to go pick up a full sized ladder so that I can pose Fredrick properly by tieing his limbs to the rafters with fishing line and tacks.

Horse Skull

I purchased a horse skull from a seller on Ebay.  It’s the real thing, not a cast, and it’s quite beautiful.  It will be very helpful reference for painting flayed horses.  Tomorrow I plan to do some studies in pencil.  It’s rather delicate, so rather than positioning the skull into the desired rotation, I’ll have to do pencil sketches with detailed rendering, and position myself rather than the skull to get the right perspective. 

Homo Erectus Skull (model)

I received the half=sized homo erectus skull from Bone Clones - it's absolutely beautiful.  I'm going to use it as a reference for an upcoming painting.

It looks so simian and yet also human.

I finished the preliminary drawing for Diomedes being devoured by his Horses.  The last horse on the right was difficult, and I had to redo it.  The drawing turned out nicely.  I looked at some paintings by George Stubbs to get some ideas for backgrounds.  I decided to use a scene that I photographed in northern Arizona, north of Sedona.

After all the frenzy of getting ready for the show that  is now hanging at Bert Green's, I feel like I'm starting fresh.  I even tidied up the studio.... there were a few dust elephants roaming around.

Here is a link to a review on my exhibit at Bert Green, recently published in LA City Beat:  Barbie and Other Montrosities.

Ron Garmon, the critic, interviewed me on the phone and had me in stitches - what a sense of humor!

Transition

I'm trying out this new blogging site to see how it works out.  In the meantime, I'll keep up the postings on my Mac account too.