We are the Champions

my friends.....

 I had to make myself wait until after the Versus show to share the piece on this blog. I started with a little bit a month ago but then stopped just to be fair. Hopefully you got out to the exhibit if you could. There were over 40 artists involved in the project and some amazing collaborations. The Gentlemen Destroyers made some cool walls in the front space to hang all the work and there was a good turn out while I was there.

A quick review. I ended up cutting out two different stencils back in may of the champ Batista, also a means to sign my piece since we share the same last name.

I had drawn out my anatomical heart which eventually became completely covered by my ballistic gel inspired victim figure. I started in pencil and painted in with acrylic on the re-stretched canvas.

Here is an early process shot after Ray got his Rich stencil cut and applied to the surface.

 So jumping ahead, I added the beam out of the characters mouth as an integration challenge to bring the two sides together. I have eyeballs popping out of the skull, they still need irises at this point. The blood is red but still too transparent. I splatter painted in the Batista Stencil and rubbed iridescent silver into the negative space then gave it a light sand.

I allowed a variety of browns to drip down the canvas to create more layers and depth. I cut a second negative stencil of Batista and splatter painted blues over the silver. I applied a thick pink to cover the blood and I was going to stain it red afterward but liked the interplay of pinks and blue so much I left it.  I painted in the irises in the eyes and blocked in the lower jaw.

A little further along and now there is a bit more back and forth between my collaborative partner. He added the laser rays to the piece. I decided to add a background of stars and rework the depth and shading on the skeletal elements. I created some star stencils and some tear drop stencils. I sprayed in some reflective gold spray paint and worked out some finer details.

Here you can get an idea of the detail and layering that went into the piece, this is after it is frames and varnished.

This is an angled shot taken the day Derek picked up the piece to bring to the gallery. You can see the frame job and the interplay of light on the reflective surface. ray stayed up for 2 nights working on a party binge to get the piece together with BONUS framing = sweet surprise to wake up to!

Here is the final piece to be delivered. I hand wrote the pieces title with my favorite gold paint pen. we gave it a healthy coating of outdoor vehicle clear coat. The piece has a nifty little write up explaining our process making it. Hopefully you get a chance to see our handy work in person =;)

In the cut!

Got my biz cards and cut my "Batista" stencil tonight.

Here it is after 3 blades went dull slicing out the thick watercolor rag paper. I think it took about 2.5 hrs. It needs to be tested and possible tweaked after I see how it turns out.

Here are my 18pt. recycled Kraft business cards from Jukeboxprint.com. I am stoked they turned out so good. I cant wait to start handing them out, 495 more to go ;)

On my way back to my truck after picking up my business cards I saw this billboard. At first I was pissed and was promising I would never drink Molson, but then I looked at the cool black and gold label and the squiggly mounted art campaign and felt that the ad was beginning to work, maybe.

One more thing:

 I may have made an expensive mistake. I entered an online art competition to discover a new artist, there was a $50 fee but I got so caught up in the dream that I went thru with it. So now I need to enlist all the help I can get. I have 22 days to get people to do one simple thing, its all online you don't have to go anywhere or do anything or spend money. All you have to do is go to the page (Click on the link here!) and vote for my portfolio by clicking on the right hand button with the star titled "Collect Me". Pass it on, help me out if you can.

Pretty please with sugar on top!

Versus show piece, the process proceeds

Finally after grabbing some supplies, rayzor is ready to get going on his part of the piece.

A stencil of our good friend RicHard. The original photo was from a post card he gave me. It was scanned and I brought it into photoshop, did some adjustments and printed it out on a number of sheets to be a suitable size to create the stencil. Rayzor cut the vellum stencil by hand with a tiny swivel knife.

It looks pretty good. He gets his airbrush out and adheres the stencil to the canvas. Here is it applied to the canvas. There is a lot that can be done creatively with the hair. I suggested he paint dancing flames to make it really dynamic. We lined up the mouth to continue diagonally into what will be the weapon jutting from his cavernous mouth.

I picked up a large piece of watercolor paper to create my stencil. I will be using this stencil for other projects but it may come into play here. It's of the wrestler BATISTA - No relation.  Rayzor's swivel knife and other exacto blade are no good for my needs. I will have to pick up new blades for mine and get working on it tomorrow. This printout was made using the same technique and has been taped down ready to go.

BATISTA = NO RELATION!

Versus show preliminary stages

So here is some of the work I have done on the collaborative piece for the upcoming versus show.

After re surfacing the canvas and applying black gesso ground, I used a graphite pencil to draw in the initial loose plan for the piece. It is based on a ballistic dummy from an episode of World's deadliest Warrior on the moment of impact. To the left, in gold,  is the test swatch for the national stencil I made.

 On top of the line drawing I plotted in the position of the heart with paint on my scraggliest brushes. I am starting from the internal most level of organs and moving outward, at least that is my initial plan. I scraped the paint level away with an old card before it dried.

 I blocked in the skull and lungs and some of the other details before I start blocking in the body masses. I like how it is floating and the lungs are just barely a hint. The majority of the guide drawing is covered now and I am feeling like a bit of Francis Bacon influence is coming over me, I scrape again.

 I carve in the rib cage with a thick and dirty white paint. I allow dark reds to cut the edge then drip down over the body mass. I block in in varied flesh tones the structure of the body to give it some shape. I decided to make some changes and also put in some contrasting stripes to represent the background. I allow the heart to hide in the structure but it is still there.

Some parts seem to have too much ambiguity while others a little too carved out. I intend on putting the jaw back in and splattering some gruesome splatters and bold strokes, but this is just the beginning!

Back in the saddle

What a start to the day. I'm slaving away doing catch up. While I was under my rock things began to pile up. I've got all sorts of exciting new opportunities and developments on the horizon.  Back to the subjects of quality and integrity.... if you are going to do something you might as well do it right and as best as you can the first time.

I am part of a show at the house gallery titled versus. 
here's the rundown: basically 2 artists share a canvas and create two characters in conflict. I've partnered up with Ray Kruger my room mate, making it extremely convenient)

The canvas was dropped off to us. Unfortunately it needed a lot of work to be adequate for us to spend hours painting on. It had a very rough surface, with a few coats of gesso sprayed on it. I could sand it down and apply some more coats to make a better ground on which to paint.

There were some tears in the canvas, it appeared to have been stretched in a rush. Small staples had been used so I began to weight the option of pulling every single one out, repainting the canvas and restricting the canvas over the frame again. but there there was the frame......

Here was the clincher in this adventure for me. The canvas had been stretched over a frame without a beveled edge. This means the canvas was loose and had an edge all the way around in contact with the support material. Basically, it had become glued to the lumber all the way around. This does not fair well for quality or longevity. It need a beveled edge before we can do anything.

I had to painstakingly remove each and every staple to remove the canvas so that I can give the softwood lumber frame to Ray so he can use a router a bevel on it. I do have concerns abut the frame. Softwood is not the most ideal lumber for building stretcher frames, it tends to warp, especially if it is cut from cheap stock like 2x4 or if there are changes in humidity and temperature. what might be good for inexpensive furniture is not for fine art. Plywood laminates are much better choice if cost is an issue. Mainly because of the criss crossing grain pattern offers strength and stability. I got all the staples out and the canvas off the frame so I could take it back home for some woodworking.

Ray-zor cut the bevel and I took the frame back to the studio. I decided to use some of my higher quality heavier stock canvas since we had already gone thru this much work repairing the canvas. The original piece was thin and torn and pilled.

This shot shows the beveled edge some staples that were added to further stabilize the corner seams. I noticed the lumber was quite torqued so with proper stretching my fear was that it might pull the canvas apart under the tension. also some of the corners did not line up.

Here is the backside as I get close to folding the corners. The pieces of lumber didn't quite line up so I added more staples of a thicker gauge to hold it together better.

After some time spent, a labor of love........ I get the canvas stretched over the frame. I hammered in any staples that did not go deep enough into the wood and now it is ready for the next stage= priming.

Alongside some canvases I stretched prior, is the canvas with the first oat of gesso applied. I used what I had left in the bucket a purple tinted one. You will notice that it sits in the rear of the photo flat on the ground, not that flat,  the frame still appears to have torqued wood. After another coat or two of gesso dries, I will re-assess whether or not it has settled, or whether it news repair or replacement. My fingers are crossed, I want to get started painting this guy;)