Green Metalflake and Living in the Future.

Wow, it's been quite a night here. As you may recall from previous installments, I've been planning a series of paintings for a show sometime this year - all simple, iconic white lineart over glossy, deep, metallic surfaces. The title of the series is "Metal Flake", so the common subject is rock 'n' roll.

Since December I've been filling a sketchpad with thumbnails:

And of course, I've also been doing the heavy-lifting portion of the first three paintings:

 

Anyhow, this first one came to a head tonight. I masked off the necessary areas and laid down the white lineart:

And when that was done, I promptly posted this last photo on Twitter, Facebook, etc. etc. The result? Within 17 minutes the painting was sold and financial details were sorted. God, I love the internet.

Three More Days...

... and it'll be 2011. To quote John Lennon, "another year older, and what have you done?"

I'm tempted to just say "I survived", which is no small feat in this economy. My advertising career is bottoming out so bad, it feels like it's almost over. But the art, on the other hand, is thriving like never before. Sales and commissions are way up, and once again it's been a stellar year in terms of artistic growth and education.

Roughly 15 paintings completed, along with 35 illustrations. Many more of each underway. Published a calendar, sold a few books, and several prints (including the biggest sale of my art career to date, which was a nice Christmas present).

I won't go into plans for 2011 yet. That'll be another post. Instead I'll just say this: art is what kept me alive this year. And in closing I leave you with this recent painting:

Nautilus - @Bret Taylor, 2010.