Steinway - a Work in Progress.

Hello again, Faithful Readers. Lately I've been getting lots done on the Steinway painting (part of the upcoming Closing Time series, as you undoubtedly already know). Today I worked on putting the lettering on the piano itself. Stencil first:

Time to get my hands dirty:

The artist at work:

And finally, where things stand as of right now:

Some colour left to apply, but this piece will soon be finished for good.

Ready for the Sale.

So I've spent the last couple days getting everything ready for the art sale. I've taken over my buddy John's photography studio and changed it around (more than) a little. Yesterday while we were still setting up I snapped this pic of the Reception area:

Today we went over with a boatload of art. Here's how it looked shortly after we got there:

Finally I had all the paintings up in the Lounge:

Once that was all done it was time to pose for a photo myself:

Weirdest part of all this, of course, is how my livingroom wall looks now:

But fear not - that big wall space will be reserved for the first Closing Time painting.

Big day tomorrow.

Goodbye, 2011. And Hello, 2012.

Probably the final post of the year, so I thought I'd talk a little about 2012. As I've mentioned previously, I've been doing sketches for a show called "Closing Time" - a series of pinup girls against the backdrop of bars and other drinking establishments (two subjects near and dear to my own heart).

Well, just one beautiful pinup girl, to be honest.

Anyhow, I procured a 36x36-inch canvas from the good people at Opus Art Supplies today, brought it home, scratched my chin, and thought about what I could do with such a canvas:

Of course the answer was obvious: I could plunge into the Closing Times series. Now, I've been giving these a lot of thought lately - figuring out how I might render them, whether or not I should incorporate some texture, etc. etc. (I must admit, the subject of these hypothetical paintings has been strolling through my subconscious on a regular basis, too.)

Anyhow, after some deliberation I figured out the approach I want to take with this series, and shockingly, it's a much simpler, more minimalist route than the one I take with the Metalflake paintings.

So, you've seen various iterations of this already, but a number of tweaks have been made to this design since:

(And keep in mind, of course, that this is just a mockup, not the actual painting.)

All that being said, I will be applying the first blue washes to this piece tomorrow, and we'll see where things go from there. And if you want to see where I go with this one, Loyal Reader...

... well, you'll just have to wait and see.